Galfond is 100% right.

As I've said many times before, scammers love secrets.

The natural way to feel when someone owes you money is that you SHOULDN'T out them, because this will cause them to get angry and refuse to pay you out of spite.

It turns out that it's the opposite. If you out a scammer's debt (or even just a longtime unpaid loan) to the public, he will want to take care of it quickly, so as to keep up appearances and end the controversy. Keeping quiet is exactly what he wants you to do. Furthermore, when you keep quiet, you also enable him to scam others.

Reputation is very important to scammers. Once word gets around that they are shady, people won't loan them money.

The squeaky wheel also gets the grease. The more you press, the more likely you get paid.

If someone owes you money -- especially someone known or semi-known -- you should start out aggressively contacting them about it. Like, bug them every day, or at least every 2 days, until they start paying you. Offer to let them make payments in small increments. Even $100/week adds up to over $5k/year. Persistence will often get you paid first. If that doesn't work, gently threaten to take it public with language such as, "I trust that you will make this right. I don't think that bringing this out in public is the way to go, so hopefully we can get this resolved."

And if that fails, go public.

So good for Galfond.