5 ms·

> Pretending to be a bigger company than you are is not fraud, it's perception management. That's some pretty fancy doublespeak right there. No. I'm sorry, bu

> Pretending to be a bigger company than you are is not fraud, it's perception management. That's some pretty fancy doublespeak right there. No. I'm sorry, but this is flat out lying. You can rationalize it all you like, but if you are lying and inventing people that don't exist, it's fraud. This isn't even lying by omission, but actively working to deceive. Sure, the customer may be getting full value for their money, but then why is the lying necessary?

blunte 7y ago
Now, wikipedia may not be right, but I imagine there's been plenty of effort by legally knowledgeable people to define "Fraud" well. First statement in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud : "In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right." And later, a clarification: "the requisite elements of fraud as a tort generally are the intentional misrepresentation or concealment of an important fact upon which the victim is meant to rely, and in fact does rely, to the harm of the victim." By your definitions, most businesses would be committing "fraud". Many, many, many companies have multiple emails, multiple phone numbers, even multiple mailing boxes that may all be handled by one person but which serve to filter and separate incoming contacts and certainly also present a level of professionalism that some customers find comforting. And what about companies that have the same service but present it differently (to look niche or specific) to different audiences via different websites? Are they being fraudulent by making their potential customers feel uniquely served? There are so many more examples I could bring up related to marketing, presentation, etc.
bigboris 7y ago
Not really. Many companies do it with AI. Ziprecruiter is one...the emails you get are from "Phil" (phil@ziprecruiter.com) but Phil doesn't exist. Granted, if you reply to Phil you are explicitly told 1) Phil doesn't exist, it is AI, and 2) email replies to Phil are ignored. But making up people as a customer service interface is pretty common.

blunte 7y ago

Now, wikipedia may not be right, but I imagine there's been plenty of effort by legally knowledgeable people to define "Fraud" well. First statement in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud : "In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right." And later, a clarification: "the requisite elements of fraud as a tort generally are the intentional misrepresentation or concealment of an important fact upon which the victim is meant to rely, and in fact does rely, to the harm of the victim." By your definitions, most businesses would be committing "fraud". Many, many, many companies have multiple emails, multiple phone numbers, even multiple mailing boxes that may all be handled by one person but which serve to filter and separate incoming contacts and certainly also present a level of professionalism that some customers find comforting. And what about companies that have the same service but present it differently (to look niche or specific) to different audiences via different websites? Are they being fraudulent by making their potential customers feel uniquely served? There are so many more examples I could bring up related to marketing, presentation, etc.

bigboris 7y ago

Not really. Many companies do it with AI. Ziprecruiter is one...the emails you get are from "Phil" (phil@ziprecruiter.com) but Phil doesn't exist. Granted, if you reply to Phil you are explicitly told 1) Phil doesn't exist, it is AI, and 2) email replies to Phil are ignored. But making up people as a customer service interface is pretty common.