3 ms·

This isn't merely crass and dishonest its a crime. The solution is honestly to start making examples of people. If someone stole all the parts of a thousand do

This isn't merely crass and dishonest its a crime. The solution is honestly to start making examples of people. If someone stole all the parts of a thousand dollar bike start by suing them for the thousand bucks and then add all the employee time burned dealing with the matter. If they don't want to settle burn them for the entire cost of the litigation to recover those funds. If they can't pay then go to court and take absolutely anything that the court will late you take and attach their wages for eternity. Publish their names on a fraud page along with evidence of the crime and how much they paid you this month until its paid off. Threaten absolutely every person who commits an obvious crime against your company and pick 1 a year and ruin their lives. The obvious fact is even a small crime like a $50 fraud is a multi thousand dollar bill if a lawyer ends up being a required step to collect. Change the expectation that you will trivially get away with crime to an expectation that you will likely be hit with bill for your misbehavior.

lmz 4y ago
I'm surprised this comment is still visible, considering what the mainstream American opinion is on making examples out of criminals.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Mainstream America is absolutely vindictive and cruel towards criminals.
  - abalashov 4y ago
    In weirdly asymmetrical, lopsided ways, where both extremes are simultaneously true. In part it depends on what one has in mind when speaking of "mainstream" America; it seems people have very different ideas of this. But I've been here almost 30 years, and seen both for-the-top run-amok police-state law-and-order in the red states, AND a passion for doing anything possible to avoid imprisoning repeat (felony!) offenders in many blue-state urban jurisdictions. The official explanation for the latter relates to penal system overcrowding and lack of capacity, and of course, there's something to that. But somehow this doesn't doesn't hinder the law-and-order "red" jurisdictions from "throwing the book" at some poor fellow who had a few too many ounces of weed on him or whatever. Here in Georgia, that's the difference between, say, Fulton County (which encompasses inner-city Atlanta) and one of the Metro ATL suburban counties, or for that matter, just about any other random county in Georgia. The outcomes vary immensely. You can find both extremes, allowing one to say in the same breath both that the state is cruel and vindictive toward criminals, and has let them run amok. It doesn't quite make my top 5 list of "things most maddening about America", but it's probably in the top 10.
MBCook 4y ago
First for small things the company is going to have to DIY it in small claims court. For larger items even if they win with treble damages will that pay for their lawyer bills? It’s a criminal issue anyway. The state should really be prosecuting these people somehow but I can’t see us ever willing to spend the political and financial capital to actually do that in this country.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Presumably you only actually recover a minority of cases while meeting every single case of fraud with a legitimate theoretically enforceable demand for payment. Joe rando might or might not pay or ultimately be sued but Bob evil committing dozens to hundreds of cases of fraud would be and Joe would be put off just a bit by Bob's ruination.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    Just like $250,000 fines for downloading Metallica killed online piracy.
    - michaelmrose 4y ago
      Good point but I believe the issues are dissimilar. With downloading you are dealing with 100s of millions of people who can trivially foil all efforts to stick them with a bill with a few clicks. Return fraud is orders of magnitudes smaller and as it involves physical goods changing hands spoiling anonymity. A single user committing a single act of fraud might yet retain relatively good odds but a massive portion of fraud as with retail theft is perpetrated by a minority of offenders which could well be correlated by requiring an ID for all returns and dealing with a tiny number of major offenders very harshly. An environment in which you hear news about fraudsters facing prosecution or financial ruin would be perceived as riskier further dissuading offenders.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        It could also be seen as an environment where, as an honest buyer, you're safer purchasing from a B&M store where you can lay eyes on your purchase.
bsder 4y ago
> start by suing Spoken like someone who has never filed a lawsuit in the US. If that fraudster has ANY resources, that case you filed is going to be anywhere from $250K to $500K. Even if you win, you will bleed money. The opposition can hire a shitty lawyer that does the bare minimum and practically ignores everything while you have to file all the proper paperwork in a timely fashion. Because lawyers protect one another, that shitty lawyer won't suffer one iota, either. Yeah, I'm speaking from experience here ... So, referencing the original company, you can spend the revenue of one thousand pumps (in reality, probably more like the profits of ten thousand pumps) in the hope of getting back the value of one pump, or you can suck it up and deal with it as cheaply as you can.

lmz 4y ago

I'm surprised this comment is still visible, considering what the mainstream American opinion is on making examples out of criminals.

michaelmrose 4y ago
Mainstream America is absolutely vindictive and cruel towards criminals.
- abalashov 4y ago
  In weirdly asymmetrical, lopsided ways, where both extremes are simultaneously true. In part it depends on what one has in mind when speaking of "mainstream" America; it seems people have very different ideas of this. But I've been here almost 30 years, and seen both for-the-top run-amok police-state law-and-order in the red states, AND a passion for doing anything possible to avoid imprisoning repeat (felony!) offenders in many blue-state urban jurisdictions. The official explanation for the latter relates to penal system overcrowding and lack of capacity, and of course, there's something to that. But somehow this doesn't doesn't hinder the law-and-order "red" jurisdictions from "throwing the book" at some poor fellow who had a few too many ounces of weed on him or whatever. Here in Georgia, that's the difference between, say, Fulton County (which encompasses inner-city Atlanta) and one of the Metro ATL suburban counties, or for that matter, just about any other random county in Georgia. The outcomes vary immensely. You can find both extremes, allowing one to say in the same breath both that the state is cruel and vindictive toward criminals, and has let them run amok. It doesn't quite make my top 5 list of "things most maddening about America", but it's probably in the top 10.

MBCook 4y ago

First for small things the company is going to have to DIY it in small claims court. For larger items even if they win with treble damages will that pay for their lawyer bills? It’s a criminal issue anyway. The state should really be prosecuting these people somehow but I can’t see us ever willing to spend the political and financial capital to actually do that in this country.

michaelmrose 4y ago
Presumably you only actually recover a minority of cases while meeting every single case of fraud with a legitimate theoretically enforceable demand for payment. Joe rando might or might not pay or ultimately be sued but Bob evil committing dozens to hundreds of cases of fraud would be and Joe would be put off just a bit by Bob's ruination.
- brewdad 4y ago
  Just like $250,000 fines for downloading Metallica killed online piracy.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    Good point but I believe the issues are dissimilar. With downloading you are dealing with 100s of millions of people who can trivially foil all efforts to stick them with a bill with a few clicks. Return fraud is orders of magnitudes smaller and as it involves physical goods changing hands spoiling anonymity. A single user committing a single act of fraud might yet retain relatively good odds but a massive portion of fraud as with retail theft is perpetrated by a minority of offenders which could well be correlated by requiring an ID for all returns and dealing with a tiny number of major offenders very harshly. An environment in which you hear news about fraudsters facing prosecution or financial ruin would be perceived as riskier further dissuading offenders.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      It could also be seen as an environment where, as an honest buyer, you're safer purchasing from a B&M store where you can lay eyes on your purchase.

bsder 4y ago

> start by suing Spoken like someone who has never filed a lawsuit in the US. If that fraudster has ANY resources, that case you filed is going to be anywhere from $250K to $500K. Even if you win, you will bleed money. The opposition can hire a shitty lawyer that does the bare minimum and practically ignores everything while you have to file all the proper paperwork in a timely fashion. Because lawyers protect one another, that shitty lawyer won't suffer one iota, either. Yeah, I'm speaking from experience here ... So, referencing the original company, you can spend the revenue of one thousand pumps (in reality, probably more like the profits of ten thousand pumps) in the hope of getting back the value of one pump, or you can suck it up and deal with it as cheaply as you can.