I was just about out of money (see my pulldown thread futher down) and put out what I thought was a feeble attempt to steal a recruit and sure enough got lucky and got him.

The situation was: I'm a division II school with a C+ prestige and I searched out a division I player (#185 PG) who was 10 miles from my school. I thought I had no chance being he hadn't dropped yet. I sent him an eval and got an encouraging message that sounded like I could recruit him. I sent him my last 700 dollars through evals and a home visit. He didn't consider me several cycles later but all of sudden did. One day later he signed.

In short, it seems I recruited a guy that never dropped and I didn't do enough to bring him down. After not considering my effort for a while, it then became enough even though no more effort was given. It all seemed weird to me.

Did the kid call you a backup? Did you ever get a 'Recruit me now' message?

My guess is it is possible to pull someone down even without doing more effort as the considering credit would slowly make your effort worth enough to pull him down, although I doubt it would always happen, this time you got a bit lucky.