Do know if the ETC balances were granted to ETH holders on poloniex, who were lending all of the coins when the "gift" was sent out?
I guess that happened to me.
I've asked the Poloniex support about my ETH placed in lending at the fork time and got the answer:
"When you loan funds, you forfeit possession and control to a borrower in exchange for a debt owed to you. If your funds were on loan when the fork occurred, whoever was in possession of them at that time received the ETC. This may have been the borrower, or it may have been another trader the borrower sold the ETH to. A trader buying from the borrower may even have withdrawn that ETH from Poloniex before the hard fork."
Thank you basyaru! That is a true pitty - that happened to me too.