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My comment had nothing to do with whether or not this is morally acceptable. This is just a silly thing to brag about, no meaningful scams were disrupted. Might

My comment had nothing to do with whether or not this is morally acceptable. This is just a silly thing to brag about, no meaningful scams were disrupted. Might as well go fuck with the poor guy trying to buy food by running an equally immoral shell game on the street. However, “scamming” people for codes to activate gmail accounts is certainly _more_ morally acceptable than scamming them for money. There’s no moral equivalence between pretending to be an IRS agent to steal your money and wasting a minute or two of your time to activate a gmail account. What kind of a sick person must ashton314 be to hope that the guy creating gmail accounts for a living gets put in prison for that?

fomine3 5y ago
I don't know which is "acceptable". Possibly (but maybe very rarely) the frauded account assigned with your SMS is used for illegal operation, then you're investigated.
baobabKoodaa 5y ago
Hmmh, I guess I misunderstood the described scam. I thought that the Google account code was for the victim's Google account, but if it was for a brand new Google account then I agree with you it's not _that_ serious. Although, if they register a Google account with my phone number and then use the account for illicit purposes and get the account banned, it's very very likely that Google will also ban my main account. So there is some real damage that is likely to come for people who fall for this scam.
ashton314 5y ago
Ouch. I did get my vaccine a few weeks ago, so hopefully I'm not that sick. ;-P My understanding was that they reset your password then hold your account for ransom or use it to break into your other services. (e.g banking, 401k, credit card, etc. Email access can get you pretty much anywhere.) I have no problem with seeing people who deceive and rob innocent people of their savings sent to jail. If what they're doing with my confirmation code truly is harmless, then yeah, of course I wouldn't want them sent to prison. But I thought this scam was more than that. Maybe you know more about this case than I do? I don't have the resources to completely take down a scam ring; I figure I can help by trying and slow these people down now and again. Maybe the time I made him waste on me prevented him from getting to someone who would have fallen for the scam. Maybe not. In either case, the prank is pretty harmless.

fomine3 5y ago

I don't know which is "acceptable". Possibly (but maybe very rarely) the frauded account assigned with your SMS is used for illegal operation, then you're investigated.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago

Hmmh, I guess I misunderstood the described scam. I thought that the Google account code was for the victim's Google account, but if it was for a brand new Google account then I agree with you it's not _that_ serious. Although, if they register a Google account with my phone number and then use the account for illicit purposes and get the account banned, it's very very likely that Google will also ban my main account. So there is some real damage that is likely to come for people who fall for this scam.

ashton314 5y ago

Ouch. I did get my vaccine a few weeks ago, so hopefully I'm not that sick. ;-P My understanding was that they reset your password then hold your account for ransom or use it to break into your other services. (e.g banking, 401k, credit card, etc. Email access can get you pretty much anywhere.) I have no problem with seeing people who deceive and rob innocent people of their savings sent to jail. If what they're doing with my confirmation code truly is harmless, then yeah, of course I wouldn't want them sent to prison. But I thought this scam was more than that. Maybe you know more about this case than I do? I don't have the resources to completely take down a scam ring; I figure I can help by trying and slow these people down now and again. Maybe the time I made him waste on me prevented him from getting to someone who would have fallen for the scam. Maybe not. In either case, the prank is pretty harmless.