Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive: a contest, a donor list and a boycott call
On 14 Feb 2017 Duke [4] opened a \"charity\" thread with a contest for the worst Valentine's story. The thread drew over 200 replies, and a payment boycott and scam accusations followed.
Involved: Duke [4] NPC , MarlonBrando [1337797] , Ceb [68232] Committee , Sky [380980] Committee , dunmugmeh [538353] and 6 more
A charity, a contest and a code word
Duke [4] started the thread "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" in General Discussion on 14 Feb 2017. In the opening post, written in Duke's usual loan-shark voice, Duke asked players to send cash with the message DUKESPECIAL17 for a charity called The Duke Special.[1][2]
The same post announced a contest for the most depressing, dumbest or most stupid Valentine's Day story. First prize was $250,000,000, and Duke left the other prizes open.[2]
By the last fetch the thread had 211 replies, 4,770 views and 122 different players posting. Four posts came from staff, officers or moderators.[1]
Stories, threats and a results post
Players answered with Valentine's stories. Mcdooglebrown [1708715] posted one about a long flight to Dallas and a partner who never appeared. Crack-Fox [1885954] posted one about a hotel night and a shower.[3][4]
Others joked or threatened Duke instead. TheHoneyBadger [1510489] wrote that they and their boys in JFA had gifts for Duke's girl and asked for 1b cash. Duke's later donor list shows a payment from TheHoneyBadger with a message about a one-hour deadline. Joke[5][6]
The opening post, as archived, carries an update. It said $1,286,985,672 had been raised, named honourable mentions, and gave the placings: 1st Mcdooglebrown, 2nd Crack-Fox, 3rd Ninivah.[2]
On 15 Feb 2017 Duke posted a thanks and a list of donors, each shown as a payment with the message DUKESPECIAL17. This post gave the total as $1,288,985,672. The list included $100,000,000 from Python and $10,000,000 each from Mix, Titan and Luffy.[6]
Doubts and a boycott call
dunmugmeh [538353] wrote that Duke is a character and not staff. They compared the drive to an earlier spam thread by Duke and warned players to be careful. Community speculation[7]
TrueGeo [2004454] told Duke that 1% of 2 billion is 20 million, not 2 million.[8]
Officers Ceb [68232] and Sky [380980] posted in the thread. Ceb wrote about Valentine's Day being depressing. Sky joked that Duke needed a wifey.[9][10]
On 15 Feb 2017 MarlonBrando [1337797] told all players to stop making loan payments to Duke until the loan upgrades were done. MarlonBrando wrote "this is war!" and signed as Art of War (AOW).[11]
MarlonBrando then opened "[Vote] Put Duke Out of Business", which had 68 replies. The opening post cited the charity thread as showing that Duke does not keep a promise, and asked for loan upgrades of 10M=10B.[12][13]
Later references
On 23 Feb 2017 Arran [2005697] opened a thread titled "Duke". It alleged that Duke had scammed players out of cash the week before, and it quoted a chat in which Duke mentioned sick kids and toys. Allegation[14]
In that thread CatHead [1581564] said the first three pages of the charity thread held thirteen posts calling it a scam or too good to be true. CatHead said this should have been obvious to everyone. Participant claim[15]
Players kept linking the thread. Sharivan [1948134] wrote in Aug 2017 that Duke scammed people, and Hoy [1208641] pointed to it on 01 Apr 2018 in another Duke thread. Hoy said the opening post had been edited and that the original was cached on page 9. Allegation[16][17]
On 01 Apr 2018 Barry_Allen [1979566] posted in the old thread that April Fool's Day had arrived and that they would see.[18]
Timeline
- 14 Feb 2017 Duke [4] opens the charity drive thread and the Valentine's story contest.[2]
- 15 Feb 2017 Duke posts the donor list and a total of $1,288,985,672.[6]
- 15 Feb 2017 MarlonBrando [1337797] tells players to stop paying Duke and opens a vote thread.[11][12]
- 23 Feb 2017 Arran [2005697] opens the thread "Duke", alleging a scam. Allegation[14]
- 1 Apr 2018 Hoy [1208641] links the thread in "Duke's Double Your Money" as a precedent.[17]
Original sources 18
- Thread "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" (General Discussion) ·
- Post by Duke [4] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by Mcdooglebrown [1708715] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by Crack-Fox [1885954] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by TheHoneyBadger [1510489] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by Duke [4] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by dunmugmeh [538353] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by TrueGeo [2004454] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by Ceb [68232] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by Sky [380980] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Post by MarlonBrando [1337797] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
- Thread "[Vote] Put Duke Out of Business" (General Discussion) ·
- Post by MarlonBrando [1337797] in "[Vote] Put Duke Out of Business" ·
- Thread "Duke" (General Discussion) ·
- Post by CatHead [1581564] in "Duke" ·
- Post by Sharivan [1948134] in "out of curiosity" ·
- Post by Hoy [1208641] in "Duke's Double Your Money" ·
- Post by Barry_Allen [1979566] in "Duke's Valentine's Day Charity Drive" ·
Forum sources link to TornLife's archive of the thread, shown as the players wrote it; each archived thread links on to the original on torn.com.
How to read a story
Every statement in a Torn Story is checked against the archived posts it cites. Statements without a label are established: the record shows them directly. Everything else is labelled and says who is speaking.
- Established
- The record shows it directly: a post and its date, staff's own words, a thread's figures or TornLife data.
- Participant claim
- What someone involved said about their own actions or experience. Their account, not verified.
- Allegation
- An accusation a player made, attributed to them. Never TornLife's finding.
- Community speculation
- Guesses, theories and rumours from players.
- Joke
- Banter or trolling, presented as such.
Generated by TornLife from 18 sources · verified · model claude-sonnet-5
Drafted by a language model from the archived posts listed above, then checked three ways before publication: TornLife's validator (every number and citation must match the sources), deterministic statement rules (no unlabelled allegation, no real-world personal details, no claims about why anyone was federally jailed) and a separate critic and fact-checker that read each statement against its sources. It reports what players said; it is not Torn's own statement.