Returning scammed items

I am not here to point fingers or hurl insults or berate the staff. I only have a simple argument to make in regards to the items Franco lost. This is Kimberly's latest post on the subject:

Emphasis mine.

The first and most important thing that stuck out to me is that yes, the staff plainly admit that what happened was a scam. The person who borrowed Franco's gear tried to steal it. This person is a rule breaker and a scammer, who will be punished.

What I do not agree with is why the stolen equipment will not be returned. There are only two correct routes to go here when handling a scam case:

1) The suspect in question was NOT a scammer, or there simply isn't enough proof/reason. So therefore nothing can be done, he gets off scotch free with said items/services.

2) The suspect IS a scammer. They will be punished, and stolen items will be returned if possible. For example, it's hard to "return" a leech or even payment if the player happens to be broke.

However, the staff has acknowledged that what transpired was indeed a scam, yet they refuse to give the items back. The reason, again:

"Eventually we decided on this because in our previous announcement here, we stated that we needed proof of agreement to be able to take action on scammers. We also have rejected past scam reports due to lack of evidence, thus it would be unfair to those players if we accepted this one."

The announcement is deleted and no longer valid. Originally the announcement said that proof would be required. Now, there is a policy amendment incoming that will basically say proof isn't necessarily required, but if this is the case, it will be up to GM discretion to determine if a scam took place.

Here's the thing: you claim it will be "unfair" to players who previously made scam reports but did not have concrete proof. But did you not consider what you are doing now is unfair? Clearly this has been a scam, yet you refuse to return the gear.

Rather than doing the wrong thing in an attempt to be consistent, you should do the right thing and then try to apply that to previous cases. Return the stolen gear to Franco. Then, allow players to re-open those scam cases that didn't have sufficient evidence if they so desire and make a new judgement based on "GM discretion". This way, we have a fair outcome for everyone.