tldr warning -- cliffs at bottom

I had hoped to avoid ever making a post like this, but unfortunately, I feel that I have run out of options and at this point, I believe I need to warn the community about Jeffrey May of Seatac, Washington who played as SilentNut (FTP)/SilentNut2 (Merge/Hero) among other names on Merge skins.

I began staking SilentNut in May 2011 on Hero. Our deal was I would stake him in 44+ FOs and 30+ rebuys and he would play the lower stakes on his own roll.

In August he asked for the first of several loans and promised to repay the loans through profits from his roll or from the stake. I gave him several loans in August and September that in total amounted to around $7,000-$8,000. All of these loans were paid back from his winnings and everything went smoothly.

In September, I provided another loan of $1,500. Since he was in significant makeup, we agreed he would repay that loan through profits on tournaments not included on the stake. In mid-October, he had run out of money to play low stakes tournaments on his own roll, so I agreed to loan him an additional $1,500 with the same conditions.

In late October, he was having a prolonged downswing and needed cash. I agreed to loan him an additional $3,000 at the end of October. Since I began staking him, he had talked about a large inheritance he expected to receive in fall 2011. Between his profits from low stakes tournaments, his past history of repayments, and his expected inheritance I thought it was a reasonably safe loan and trusted him. He agreed to repay that loan with $2,000 interest no later than when his inheritance was received, which was expected in the next 2-4 weeks. None of these loans have been repaid.

It was around this time that significant problems began to develop. He left Hero and moved to the Stride network due to a deal he was offered on Stride. He agreed to buyout his makeup (at 100%) and pay off the loans when he received his inheritance. In the interim, he would pay me by giving me 100% of his profit earned on Stride. When he left Hero, makeup was $19,000 and there was $2,025 of stake funds in his account.

I requested that those funds be returned, but he said due to a misunderstanding between him and the Hero CEO, the money had already been removed. I continually asked for that money from early November through December and he provided a variety of excuses as to why he had not received it. When he finally received the money, he claimed he was broke and unable to send it to me. Instead, he offered to send me the money when his withdrawal from Stride of $2,500 was received. That money was never sent. In my opinion, this is outright theft of $2,025.

His “deal” on Stride didn’t pan out and in December he asked to continue the staking agreement, but I refused to do so until the money withdrawn from the stake was returned. Since he was unable to do so, our deal remained suspended. He played on Hero intermittently in December (about 7-8 days), but did not profit as far as I can tell (based on OPR). In addition, he told me on 1-2 occasions that he was not playing elsewhere. Although I don’t have definitive proof, I highly suspect it was an outright lie. I believe in December or January, he played on RPM. I have heard that he attempted to use a third party to remove money from RPM in January.

He contacted me one week ago and said he “was begging” to continue the stake. I agreed to let him play 60 FOs and below as well 30rs and below. I sent $1,000 on January 26 and he played his first session on January 30. He profited approximately $1,750 and at the end of the session told me via skype he was transferring the $1,750 profit to me. I still have not received that money and believe he may have withdrawn the profit and initial $1,000 I sent.

For the past 4 days, I have requested the profit be transferred. The day after his session, he told me his internet died the night before and he was unable to submit the transfer. The next day he said there was a family emergency and he would send that night. Since then, he has repeatedly mentioned a family emergency and said he was unable to log on and send me the profits. I offered an alternative – which was for him to email the Hero CEO and request the transfer be made. His latest excuse was that he could not figure out how to send an email from his phone and therefore couldn’t email the Hero CEO. After receiving a series of excuses for the past 4 days, my patience has wore out. Based on recent history, I do not believe any of his excuses are true and I now believe he is just attempting to give me the run around.

At this point, he owes me $5,900 from loans (plus $2,000 in interest), has stolen at least $2,025 and up to $5,000 from the stake and has an additional $15,000-$18,000 in makeup (total makeup is $20,000 minus the stolen money).

Cliffs:

• Provided multiple loans to SilentNut of $7-8k in August/September; all were repaid
• Provided 3 loans for $6k total in September/October and have not been repaid
• He removed $2,025 from the stake without authorization in November and has failed to repay
• Restarted the stake 1 week ago and I suspect after the first session removed, without authorization, the $1,000 initial amount and all profits of around $1,750-$1,800.
• Owes me a total of $7,900 from loans and $20,000 in money removed from the stake/makeup

I would warn everyone in the community to be cautious when trading/dealing with SilentNut. I’m hoping this situation gets resolved and he pays up, but at this point, I’ve heard too many excuses and believe he is outright stealing/scamming.

Sorry to hear this, Jeff always seemed like a solid guy.

 

Originally Posted by permatilt420

Damn this shit happens a lot !

Yeah this happens way more now post BF. Back in the good old days horses had multiple chances to clear mu everyday, and now u barely get 1 chance a week at 20k.

I cross posted on 2p2: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/61...-long-1162307/

First post in the thread

 

Originally Posted by suchsickaments

I can confirm this as I am in the same type of situation with Jeff/Silentnut2...He has owed me $5,800 now for two months. I was helping him transfer his roll off Stride and the transfer never hit my account...Have been in contact with him ever since but there are always different excuses. He has been constantly talking about this "inheritance" that is supposed to be coming that he can pay me back with but I have lost faith in the situation and chalked it up to variance.

Hopefully he can get back on his feet at some point and make the repayments...But I am not holding my breath. He seemed like a real genuine person from our conversation on skype and over the phone..and I believe he is just truly in bad place in his life and needs to smarten up and take responsibility for his actions and figure how what he can do to pay us back.

Good luck Tyson. Hope it works out but doesn't look good. Just seems like this has been happening in general much more than it used to and that's extremely disappointing.

Well I certainly wish this was posted earlier. I staked him as bigfinnit on RPM recently. I will make it short and sweet. I started staking him about December 22, 2011. He did okay, then disappeared, he told me his Step Father died in a motorcycle accident and he had to fly back to PA. When he got back he started to grind, but his rails where down 800 whille SS showed him up 800. I decided this was due to rebuy issues. I was smart and asked him to transfer to 2 of my other players to reduce his roll, this worked out fine. Obv believable since RPM's 4 day wait on transfers he understood why this was needed. Then on Sunday Jan 20th, he convinced me to reload him $500, I did have my reservations but did. He said he would grind all day, I checked the next day and he hadn't played at all. When I contacted him on Skype, he said his girl friend was very sick and he had to take care of their kid, but he would grind the rest of the week. A few days later with no action I asked again what was up and he said his sisters 2 year old was in the hospital and he would send back all funds as soon as he was back home. I have seen him playing as silentnut2 the last few days on Merge. I was hoping to avoid starting a thread like this until I was refunded, but I guess the cat is out of the bag.

Below is my Skype conversation with him, I bolded one section where I asked him to send me his transfer history, you can see there was a formatting error when I asked him to send me his transfer issue as if he deleted a transfer but didn't hit the enter key so there was no space. After seeing this I can't believe I was gullible enough to send him another $500. Just glad I kept him on a tight leash.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1.../edit?hl=en_US

Wow pretty sickening story itt... Gl Tyson and others, super surprised as Jeff always seemed like a standup guy....

Hes not enternally downswinging, hes just not good at poker.

wow, obv complete scumbag..somehow i imagine he finds a way to justify all this to himself

so sickening. GL gettin your monies back.

 

Originally Posted by illumirunus

you guys kinda derserve to be out $

u DERserve a dick slappn across ur nose

 

Originally Posted by ManchVegasPwn

Genuinely shocked by this. Silentnut is a midstakes legend and can't fathom how somethin like this could happen. Hopefully this will be resolved. So many big-name reg's names bein tarnished since BF.. it is really scary.

It makes me question if I'm even cut out for this game, when I see players who I consider at my level or above my level scamming/doing shady things to others in the poker community. Used to be proud to tell ppl I was a professional poker player, lately, I'm just downright embarassed. PLEASE COME BAK REAL POKER! and bring some fkn integrity bak to the game

+1

This all sucks so bad! So sorry to hear it. This guy is NOT a nice guy! Nice guys don't do stuff like this. This is a classic scammer at work, it's how they work and what they do. I'd bet you he's been doing this for quite sometime and he's still doing it. Chances are excellent it's how he makes a living. I'd guess everything he told you all about himself is mostly lies.

My Grandfather was con artist and if he taught me anything it's how to spot one and this guy is definitely one. I really hope you all get some money back. Wouldn't surprise me though if that wasn't even his real name.

All these things he said are classic scam lines, inheritance, land to sell, money to move etc. When people start telling you stuff like this it's time to back up and get out while you can as cheaply as you can.

So sad, these people give good honest poker players a bad name.

Good luck to all you he scammed.

Tyson and everyone else that posted, good luck with your situations, but its not looking good. It looks a sociopath and liar like Jeffrey May should be criminally charged by all of you collectively. You would have a good case imo, but not sure it is worth the headache to get it done.

Side note, I have heard people complain when dirty laundry like this gets aired. However, we have heard a few stories in this thread, and if this was told sooner a few of the later ones would have been avoided. Its good its all coming out now which is validating Tyson's story, however, the lesson to be learned is don't be embarassed if you are burned by a scumbag and thief like Jeffrey May. These criminals exist in the poker world and outside the poker world and prey on people's pride so they won't get reported and can repeat the scam. With 4 cases getting reported in the past 24 hours, I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't another 4 or so that still aren't reported. This guy deserves to be in jail with all the money he has stolen, in a preplanned way against so many people. I hope at least Merge locks up all his accounts going forward.

Also - those of you that are aware of all his screennames, please list them in this thread with the word scammer after them so they appear in google searches.

Here is another thread on 2+2 where he was chip dumping. This was before Tyson's stake.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19...gress-1094879/