3 ms·
Artificially inflating sales numbers to get higher on bestseller lists seems like an intentional deception to secure unfair gain. How is that not fraud?
by LudwigNagasena 3y ago
Artificially inflating sales numbers to get higher on bestseller lists seems like an intentional deception to secure unfair gain. How is that not fraud?
- tyingq 3y agoThere's no automatic connection from immoral to illegal. I can think of lots of intentional deception that secures unfair gain that is not illegal.
- LudwigNagasena 3y agoI was under the impression that fraud is fraud regardless of whether it is illegal or simply immoral. (Not a native speaker.) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fraud https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fraud > 1. (law) The crime of stealing or otherwise illegally obtaining money by use of deception tactics. > 2. Any act of deception carried out for the purpose of unfair, undeserved or unlawful gain. > ...
- burnished 3y agoSure, I think the matter of contention here is whether buying your own book is deceptive (as a mandatory element of fraud). So if the body publishing those figures of sales hasn't reached an agreement with you that you'll refrain from that behavior then I don't see a way for it to be deceptive and so not fraudulent.
- sirspacey 3y agoThis definition is broad enough to apply to all of commerce.
- ssl-3 3y agoHe did buy those books, though -- correct? Were those not real sales of real books that were paid for with real money? There's no implication that he crossed out a number on a report before artificially enhancing it by increasing it by 400, is there? I feel that both of these examples are reprehensible in this context, but that only one of them rises to the level of fraud. (I mean: There are companies performing stock buybacks all the time for various reasons, and some of those reasons can include improving the market's perception of that stock's value.)