That situation looks like negative feedback for the attempted scam, and a newbie warning flag for yhe same reason.
The losses based on the business opportunity don't actually exist because it's a scam attempt, meaning there never was the potential to earn the fee.
That is flawed logic.
If someone makes an agreement and the other party is going to gain from that agreement and then breaks that agreement (without a valid legal reason) and does not compensate for the loss of profit - then there is a loss.
It is irrelevant that the person who made the agreement had no intention of completing it. It is reasonable to assume that the customer will proceed with the contractual terms when a contract is made. The seller had no control over the customers decision to scam.
As I mentioned in the flags topic, there are three very separate scopes for trust which need to be kept separate. For scammer flags, the point is to damage the person's forum existence in order to deter future scamming. This is a very serious action which should have a very high bar. Because it's so serious, I only want actual agreements considered here. In legal systems, there's additionally such a thing as tort law and statutory law, but the forum is very far from having the kind of cohesive legal system which could handle such things in a halfway-reasonable way. The only thing that approaches clear-cut scamming is violation of an agreement. If non-contractual offenses are allowed in the scammer-flag space, then we're going to get factions of forum users constantly fighting each other, which is exactly what I'm trying to stop. I'm sick and tired of big escalations and never-ending feuds over highly-subjective and/or relatively minor things.
For non-agreement issues, use a newbie-warning flag and give them a negative trust rating. These actions are in the different scopes of warning newbies or informing other users of your opinions, which have less severe consequences and therefore lower bars.
I hate having to "defend" BSV and BCH, which were created with deception in mind, are technologically bankrupt, and are run by huge assholes, but you can't say that their supporters broke a contract with you when they didn't. Give them a newbie-warning flag if you want, but not a contract-violation flag unless they actually broke a contract with you. (Note that you might have a case for breach of implied contract if you were actually tricked into buying one of these coins instead of BTC.)
For scammer flags, the point is to damage the person's forum existence in order to deter future scamming. and
I only want actual agreements considered here. and
The only thing that approaches clear-cut scamming is violation of an agreement.I think Theymos reasoning for the criteria is met. In my opinion there is no doubt that the user attempted to defraud the creator of the flag. A type2 warning is justified.
As you and I have been over ad nauseam in the Bob123 fiasco, a contract becomes activated upon the first exchange of consideration. In this case an agreement was made but not activated. The person in question probably is some kind of scammer, and he definitely did waste the other user's time, but this is not grounds for a flag, this is just the standard of suspicion with another step. This shouldn't be a flagging matter.
Leave them a negative rating and call it a day.