I am seeing 2 reactions to what Delta did.
One reaction is Delta committed the mortal sin of using his MERB membership and ability to write reviews to garner favor and discounts and he should be punished severely for it, and he never can be trusted from this day forward.
The other reaction is he did this, he admitted to it, learned from it, should be suspended, reinstated after serving a long suspension. Life goes on.
My personal opinion is since he wanted to be banned for life, and wants to break from the hobby, the mods should let him have his wishes. I don't have any ill feelings towards Delta123. I wish him luck in stemming his spending on the hobby. I know it can become an addiction, and many people can get swallowed into it.
My other point in this post is how do you personally communicate with agencies?
Do you tell them your MERB handle when you call them hoping that they may give you a discount?
I personally never have. They usually figure out who I am if (and a big IF) I have a problem and write a negative review or comment. If I write a positive review, they still cannot associate my name with the MERB handle. I did not develop this policy on purpose. I just never thought of advertising that I had a handle on MERB. I did not see the purpose of it.
If an agency advertises discounts, I certainly take advantage of it. If they ask me my MERB handle, I always gave it to them to get the discount. John from Eleganza had his own board on his website which gave discounts. I don't know if it is still in operation. I had the same handle on there as here. But I never altered my opinion in a review of an experience because of a discount.
I have always seen the purpose of reviews as a curteousy to other members. If I had a good time, the girl was good looking and friendly, I would post the information. It helps her and fellow members of the board in deciding who to see in their next trip or call. If I had a bad time or something dishonest happened, I would post the information. Sometimes other members have different experiences than I do. There is a YMMV factor. In fact, I have had a not so good experience with a SP that I had a great experience in a previous trip. Talk about YMMV. We are dealing with people, not robots. They haven't begun cloning people yet.
If Delta was using his reviews to get favor and wasn't being honest, he was wrong. I hope this teaches us why we write reviews. It supposed to help the fellow members of the board in their selelction, and not for our ego or to curry favors and discounts.