True, it doesn't matter for as long as those who invested via a PPT get paid. But if a PPT uses Pirate as an excuse to keep funds, then it matters because it basically is a completely seperate scam.
I agree, but it's a scam whose only victim is Pirate.
If all funds were forwarded to Pirate, the PPT is left with nothing; maybe even with a loss in case he paid withdrawal requests from his own stash while waiting for the coins from Pirate. However, if a PPT ran his own investments/ponzi disguised as a "honest" PPT, he can claim that everything was lost thanks to Pirate although there are still coins under his control which could be returned. That would mean that there are two different scammers: Pirate and the PPT operator. One gets all the blame while the other walks away whistling.
Correct. The difference would be that Pirate's scam has innocent victims while the PPT operator's scam has only one victim -- Pirate.
And it doesn't really help that PPT operators stay all quiet and refuse to help.
Say someone specifically decided to run a "synthetic PPT". They said something like "I think Pirate is a scammer. Rather than making him a ton of money, why don't you make me money. Give me your money and I'll pay you exactly what Pirate would have paid you. You make the same amount either way, but instead of enriching Pirate, you enrich me. I'll take the risk Pirate is legitimate and pay you out in either case."
Surely that wouldn't be a "completely separate scam" if people agreed to it? And there's no rational reason a person who invested in a PPT wouldn't be equally happy in a "synthetic PPT". You have to trust the PPT operator to pay you in either case.
So either this is just "I'm pissed I lost money and someone else might not have been as foolish as I was" or "I'm pissed someone ripped off Pirate". There's no legitimate gripe -- just a technical violation of a contract whose only victim is Pirate. And, again, there's no evidence whatsoever that this even happened. So it's an alleged technical violation of a contract based on nothing but a hunch.