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It was investigated, the issue is that the fines are smaller than the profit. I would personally want to see things like this considered fraud and that it can r
by jeltz 11mo ago
It was investigated, the issue is that the fines are smaller than the profit. I would personally want to see things like this considered fraud and that it can result in prison sentences for executives and other people invovled in the decision making.
- dawnerd 11mo agoYa the problem needs to be a fine the first time, second time it’s fraud. Allow for honest mistakes. Punish for clearly defrauding customers. We really need jail time for execs making these decisions but that rarely happens.
- teeray 11mo agoCorporate fines should all be percentages of profits.
- estearum 11mo agoPretty trivial to make profits "not exist" though if you planned to engage in fraud and wanted to de-risk it.
- esseph 11mo agoThey're a publicly traded company. If they drop profits substantially, I imagine shareholders etc would leave.
- estearum 11mo agoI'm pretty sure GP was suggesting a general enforcement framework, not talking about any particular company. Anyway no, shareholders care about much more than simple profits.
- esseph 11mo agoExplain, please. I ask because I've never invested in a company that wasn't very profitable. I'm trying to find out besides intense insider information why someone would. (I'm not VC clearly, just a retail investor.)
- estearum 11mo agoExplain how people care about more than just profitability? If they didn't, everyone would be invested in the single most profitable company on the market, which they're not. There are unprofitable companies people are perfectly willing to buy. Growth, absolute revenue, rates of rates of change are all relevant depending on what you care about.
- bruce511 11mo agoAll the above. Plus it is absurdly simple to manipulate profit up or down. For example, as an owner, I can be paid a bonus, or not. Crumbs, I can be paid a salary or not. If I want profits high, I simply take a low salary and no bonus. Or vice versa if I want profits low. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Buying an asset this year, depreciated over the next 5, means higher profit this year, and 4 years of lower profit. Marketing expenses this year, benefits next year, and so on. Drop the head count to juice profits for a couple years, raise head count to drop it, and do on. Profits are the easiest thing to manipulate and hence the worst metric for fines. Which is why you see Europe use Revenue (not profit) as the measure for some fines.
- estearum 11mo agoYep, not to mention what you can do with complex conglomerates. For example, one should take a look at the intra-company eliminations that the giant pay-viders do (e.g. UnitedHealthGroup, owner of insurer/payer UnitedHealth and healthcare provider Optum) Insurers are margin-capped, but wouldn't you know it once you own a PBM and the providers, you can make revenue, holdings, pricing power, and market share rise arbitrarily while never producing a profit beyond the cap.
- rsynnott 11mo agoThis is why GDPR fines, say, are a percentage of _revenue_. Harder to mess with without getting into outright fraud.
- estearum 11mo agoYeah agreed this seems more directionally correct.
- jeltz 11mo agoPercentage of global tärevwbue works. We know that from GDPR. But I would personally prefer prison sentences for the execs.
- StanislavPetrov 11mo agoRevenue, not profit.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ant6n 11mo agoOr revenue?
- koolba 11mo agoIf movie contracts are any lesson, you always want to be on the gross. Too many ways to game the system otherwise.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo agoAnd that only works because the theatres aren’t controlled by the producers. Revenue recognition is its own field of ripe fuckery.
- drekipus 11mo agoGod yes
- rtp4me 11mo agoYou want prison sentences for execs if you were charged $1.50 for a can of corn instead of $1.45? Surely you can't be serious.
- hedora 11mo agoIf there’s a paper trail showing they authorized it, and the total amount of fraud is enough for felony charges (a few thousand bucks, I think), then yeah, throw their asses in prison, and make them refund the money they had the business steal out of their personal funds. I’m all for limited liability corporations, but if there is a smoking gun that shows you intentionally engaged in criminal activity, that should pierce the liability shield.
- rtp4me 11mo agoDo you honestly believe a senior exec at a company specifically said to charge the customer more than what the price on the shelf says? Chances are, in the world of computers and automation, mis-pricing just happens. Its a chance we all take as consumers. You just have to be mindful when shopping.
- fzeroracer 11mo agoI don't know about you, but shopping at major grocery stores I have rarely been mischarged and I check my receipts/final price pretty religiously. If Dollar Tree consistently overcharges people then there should be an investigation, discovery and jail time if they willingly enable fraud. And given that this entire thread is about how they frequently overcharge people I think it matters.
- Tadpole9181 11mo agoWhy, yes, I actually do. Just like BMW execs specifically instructed engineers to cheat at emissions testing. And last time I checked, you don't get to just say "oopsie woopsies, I only accidentally committed fraud of a mass scale exclusively in a way that benefits me for a prolonged period of time that would obviously show up on books and intentionally hid it until caught" and get out of punishment. If I break the law, I get arrested. Or am I allowed to "accidentally" try to carry out a new PC from Best Buy several times in a row?