The user contacted us and this is the information given to us:
1. He didn't save the Note Private Key
2. He didn't save the Note Public Address
3. He didn't save the Letter of Guarantee
4. He doesen't remember the exact donation % used
5. He can sign a message from the address used to deposit on Whirlwind
Sorry but I don't believe the story this guy is saying at all.
I can somehow understand that he didn't save note priv key, note public address, and letter of guarantee, but I don't believe he can't remember how much coins he donated.
Maybe I would say something different if I was in his place, but than again I don't think I would do ever do something like this.
You should add clear information/warning on your website that coins can't be returned in any way if those files are not saved (minimum must be stated).
2. Temporarily disable all Notes with similar balances and wait for the other Note holders to contact us to reenable them. If after some time 1 Note remains unchanged and we didn't receive any inquiries about it we would assume it belongs to this users and refund him. We would still risk taking the hit ourselves because the remaining Note holder may just not pay attention to the situation and not inquire about it only until after we've refunded. This is another dangerous precedent which we would like to avoid at all costs.
Nope.
Don't shoot yourself in the foot by disabling all notes with similar balance.
3. Treat Whirlwind as a network and respect the rules, in this case we will not be able to help in any way and the user would lose access to his funds assuming it's true that indeed he lost the private key
That also means that you should accept any loses in case someone finds a flaw and abuses your system, this is a double edged sword.
Making everything more decentralized sooner would eliminate the need to even talk about this issues.