I'm not sure either, but I'd put it at 90% sure that xtraelv and Lafu have some sort of arrangement for those merits that were exchanged. Either they're friends, they're alts, or there was some goods, services, or money exchanged. I don't know, but the pattern of their merit-giving is suspect and not normal.
Neither Lafu nor myself are "customer support" .We are both UNPAID volunteer moderators on Cryptopia -
So yeah, they are friends, have common interests, do the same things, post in the same threads..
I think you could consider them both members of "team cryptopia" or something like that..
I can see why he thinks that lafu's posts are very worthy of merit from his perspective, and it's very possible that he didn't know this would draw great suspicion upon him..
Lafu helps users with problems on bitcointalk while I generally am involved in busting scams on here. As moderators we have some special priviliges, abilities and contacts to help people that have issues with the exchange. Neither of us have to be on here because generally Cryptopia ignores this "bitcointalk" forum because it is largely unmoderated and often has abusive people on it. So their staff doesn't generally post on here.
I'm pretty sure what happened is cryptopia staff came here not knowing btct very well, and they attempted to promote cryptopia like many other companies do..
They didn't know the etiquette of btct so they unknowingly broke some rules for multiple threads and such..
Common btct noob mistakes but the admins of topia are hotheads with huge egos so instead of learning a battle ensued resulting in topia admins pretty much writing off btct and blocking btct links from their chats and stuff..
Cryptopia has been hammered a lot on btct to the point to where you would almost feel bad for them but they bring it on themselves..
This thread is pretty much a continuation of cryptopia not knowing WTF they are doing and getting themselves into trouble.. Probably..
I mean, Ill give xtraelv the benefiet of the doubt that he didn't know that he would cause trouble for himself with his meriting activity, and I'm sure all of this crap that just got stirred up over his use of merit is a pretty good big warning to him and hopefully he will brush up on btct culture/etiquette and act accordingly..
Cryptopia has really been beaten up a lot here on btct for not knowing what they are doing so I say you don't wreck this guys account yet, make sure he is well aware (I think he is) of the problem, and lets hope he can end the cycle of cryptopia/btct - Hatfield/McCoy rivalry..