I don’t think so. He threatened anyone who questioned any purchase or asked for money back.
Did he sell his products on an ebay like platform that allows user reviews and threatened to give other people bad reviews if they complained about his bad products?
Or Dox them?
Or otherwise libel them?
Some people have weird ideas. Igor went against conventional wisdom, let’s just say.
Was the trolling purely to get people to buy his stuff?
Was he trying to goad people into doing something, other than buying his stuff?
Did he troll people before they bought from him? After?
To sum up, we know Igor was a real person not named Igor who sold knockoff eyeglasses online. He acted rudely to discourage returns, but also for other reasons. He was feared by people who met him online and offline, sometimes that fear was for the physical safety of themselves or others. He trolled people to increase demand for his eyeglasses as well as some specific unknown reason, scaring them in the process, but they did not know he was associated with the eyeglass company. He ran this scam for a few years, taking people’s money. He was caught and jailed for his crimes.
Is the trolling related to convincing people of something related to eyeglasses specifically? For example, that they have bad eyes when they don’t? Or that something is wrong with their current eyeglasses?
wordcheck
NO to all.
Final hint and I can give the answer later today if we can’t get it:
Why would Igor be rude to the people who are buying his product? That’s the opposite of almost every company’s policy on customer interaction.
Not a question that can be answered, but something to consider: How would his trolling work to get people to buy his product, if he only did it to people who had already bought his product?
SDMB conventional wisdom is that a troll’s motive is to get attention.
Did his victims enjoy being trolled? Was the trolling part of the “experience” of buying his product?
A dunk tank clown, or something similar ?
What a great question. Yep, a darn excellent question.
NO
NO
Did he pretend to want to rob people of their newly-purchased garbage in order to make it seem more valuable?
Was the trolling a type of experiment?
NO
NO
Trying less specific. Was the trolling meant to make the product seem more desirable?
NO, it really wasn’t.
Hint: Think about the fact that this was an online business. Think about the aspects of that type of business and see if it helps nudge you along.
Was the trolling in the reviews or comments section of the site where the product was sold?
Was the trolling in the form of a followup email?