5 ms·
Don't worry, they've mostly moved on to selling crypto and NFTs for the most part... I haven't seen a car parked in my local mall for ages, there's a bitcoin AT
by winternett 4y ago
Don't worry, they've mostly moved on to selling crypto and NFTs for the most part... I haven't seen a car parked in my local mall for ages, there's a bitcoin ATM parked in that space now.
There's a certain breed of huckster that even if they designated a prize winner, it would be one of their family members. The most important part of managing scams is to expose them, and cite the names involved so that they need to pick a different line of work.
- josephg 4y ago> The most important part of managing scams is to expose them, and cite the names involved so that they need to pick a different line of work. Or we make these scams illegal. Sending scammers to jail is much more effective than finger wagging.
- themitigating 4y agoCost of a police investigation, prosecution, and then housing them in jail for what? 2 years ? Public shaming is much cheaper
- xwdv 4y agoIf you could guarantee someone would go to jail, that would be priceless. Unfortunately I don’t think they would.
- lbriner 4y agoYou can never guarantee that! Even if the law was able to be that clear-cut about a particular crime, plenty of people would still believe they will get away with it, otherwise there would be no hard crime in the world right?
- vkou 4y agoThese people have no shame, much like a lion has no shame when he eats an antelope.
- themitigating 4y agoThat's instinctual and not an accurate analogy
- josephg 4y agoStill orders of magnitude cheaper than the amount of money scammers con out of the public every year.
- lbriner 4y agoIn lots of cases, this is demonstrably not true. Sure some scammers might make millions but many make much less. Look at the average cost for prison, the cost of the police and Courts and it can add up to much more. I'm not saying that you should only jail people if it's cheaper but society cannot afford to incarcerate everybody who commits a crime, not only for the money but the effect it has on ex-cons who can't find work and spiral downwards; families growing up with parents in prison; hardening a soft criminal by jailing them with hard criminals. Sadly, it is much more complicated than we want to admit and there aren't many good alternatives that I have seen. Tends to be quite polarised "never jail people" or "always jail people".
- mountainb 4y agoThe government does nothing about the overwhelming majority of small time scammers. It’s left to the civil courts and small claims courts. When the feds do prosecute scams, it’s typically for large dollar value schemes that defraud tens of millions or more. So we already have that soft on crime reality when it comes to scamming and false advertising. The average person believes the government is far, far more active than it really is in this type of issue. Crime pays and most criminals get away with it.
- themitigating 4y agoHence public naming and shaming
- winternett 4y agoAll of the above is fine with me. I don't know why it should just be "either/or".
- lazide 4y agoIn most cases if you dig a little they’re already illegal.
- lbriner 4y agoBut you are assuming what they are doing is illegal. Just because the car isn't winnable might be misleading but that doesn't make it a crime if the defendent claims that they never said that you could win the car, they could also claim that the Ts and Cs describe the real scenario. Even if it is slightly a grey area, you then have a lawyer fight which costs a ton of cash and then even if found guilty, what are you realistically going to do to someone who pretended that you could win a car to market their timeshares? life in prison at $100K/year to the tax payer?
- mjburgess 4y agoThis is why consumer protection institutions exist (SEC, FTC, FDA, etc.) so individuals don't need to sue. These sorts of sales tactics should just be illegal and criminal. If your sales pipeline requires exploiting human cognitive failures (ie., "boiler room sales tactics") then you're scamming people. A business exists to provide a service people want, not to scam people into something they dont. The gov. provides limited liability protections to businesses, not to scams. I think we're far enough into our understanding of human psych now to say "here are the fault lines", if your business principally (, systematically, essentially, ...) uses them to make money, it's illegal.
- amelius 4y ago> life in prison at $100K/year to the tax payer? I think the point was that these scams wouldn't exist if the laws were better.
- vkou 4y ago> The most important part of managing scams is to expose them, Yes, because their targets will be reading Hacker News. The Nigerian Prince scam still works, and every person in the world has heard of it by now. > and cite the names involved so that they need to pick a different line of work. I don't think they value their public image half as much as you seem to think. But you're on to something. What if the alternative line of work they had to pick was cleaning toilets at a federal penitentiary, or stamping license plates, or maybe breaking gravel at a re-socialization camp somewhere in Siberia?