Here is the whole private conversation with him, even though he already deleted a lot of his messages:
Yep, just confirms what you said before that he didn't ask for payment before he published the ANN.
Have anyone PMed gondel? I would love to hear him say. It's no way he should do it. gondel seems like helping the project to grow as a volunteer.
I sent him a PM but somehow I doubt that he will come here to share his side of the story as everything is pretty much obvious here.
A quick look at his post history reveals a lot, he is an old time legendary who is not really active on the forum, and all his activity is reduced to trying to make money in one way or another - and every attempt to join the signature campaign fails because of the famous rule "5 merits in 120 days".
He is far from a reputable member and I don't think that any altcoin project would benefit from having him as ANN publisher.
I even received more offers for promotions, which are already way more professional and have stated clearly what they offer and how much they expect to be paid for the service. Most of them come with a package with other deals, so at least something good came out of the situtation.
In case someone offers you thread bumping (bunch of sock puppet accounts having fake conversations), just say no as on top of being totally ineffective and a waste of money, it can also affect your project reputation.