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590k buyers paid $59M for Trump's gold phone, but not one has shipped
- msie 6mo agoIt's amazing what Trump can continue to get away with and still have many followers.
- jmclnx 6mo agoYes, IIRC this is not the first time this happened. I think it happened with his watch too. Remember the saying: "Fool me once shame ..."
- TheOtherHobbes 6mo agoIt's normal for grifters to preselect their demographic. At this point the "faithful" have fully signed up for the cult. While rest of world looks on in horror, the scamming and extraction will only intensify.
- nubg 6mo agoWhy is this getting downvoted?
- cwillu 6mo agoThe many followers.
- lovich 6mo agoOr bots, but yea the many followers is also likely. If you check news.ycombinator.com/active regularly instead of the main feed you’ll see that anything critical of the king or Musk is regularly flagged to oblivion quite quickly. It’s one of the failure modes of how self moderation works in this site.
- amelius 6mo agoI mean, Elon Musk can get away with selling FSD capability and not delivering it.
- rootusrootus 6mo agoWhile I agree in principle, at least Tesla has delivered something pretty impressive. FSD is not really something I am personally interested in, but I cannot deny that it has gotten quite good. Better than any other system being offered, certainly. Waymo is better, but you cannot buy your own Waymo.
- rootusrootus 6mo agoYet another phenomenon that scholars will be studying years from now. For better or worse, it will be interesting to see to what extent his faithful are willing to transfer their loyalty to whoever comes next. I am not seeing any signs of that happening yet. I mostly expect that Trump will maintain an iron grip on loyalty up until the day he drops dead, and then there will be a free-for-all fight for his followers. I do not think Trump can [or will] bless a successor and transfer the reigns.
- zimpenfish 6mo agoTrue but when you see what megachurches have been getting away with for years, it's less surprising.
- JeremyNT 6mo agoIf you ever talk to them, they rationalize all the scams and self dealing by claiming that "both sides are corrupt," and they like the guy because he's just better at the grift.
- paulpauper 6mo agoThis is always common. Do a huge preorder and then delay. Given how high interest rates are, this is profitable.
- checker659 6mo agoCommon where?
- MYEUHD 6mo agoTesla roadster 2, since 2017
- gonesilent 6mo agoFSD,2019 still waiting with HW3.
- BowBun 6mo agoBroadband/fiber internet accessible to all residents of the USA, anyone? Always love reading about how the telcos took that tax money, hemmed and hawed, and ended up never fully delivering what they agreed to.
- Scoundreller 6mo agoWhenever countries raise the age for social security eligibility, they usually impact those that have already been paying into it, up to a point.
- toasty228 6mo agoNot so common, any other president pulling that shit pretty much anywhere in the world would instantly lose all credibility and most likely would have to resign. But then again this dude shits himself on live TV and shilled cans of beans from the oval office
- iamkrazy 6mo ago
- sameers 6mo agoIt feels analogous to giving alms to a religious institution at the end of a prayer service - you don't get anything material for it in return, but maybe for the faithful, that's not the point?
- catigula 6mo agoTithing often involves the implicit or explicit promise of rewards from God, both spiritual and material.
- thinkingtoilet 6mo agoThat's how this is framed as well.
- StilesCrisis 6mo agoCertainly that does happen, and you'd be right to say it's fraud. At the vast majority of churches, it's well understood that the church staff need to eat and pay for the mortgage and upkeep on the facility. Trying to frame tithes as "often grift" is extremely cynical.
- epistasis 6mo agoThis is exactly it, I see it in my family members. They are willing to sacrifice so much money and, well, everything to the "cause." It's a cult, and it's deranged. These sorts of scams go on continually in email lists, and vulnerable people just hand over their hard-earned money fist over fist. Pointing out what's going on makes the family member hate whoever points out the con, rather than the con man. If anything, it strengthens the love of the conman and accelerates the grift.
- nine_zeros 6mo ago[dead]
- AmVess 6mo ago[flagged]
- Cheyana 6mo ago“ The device would work with Trump Mobile's service plan. For $47.45 per month, Trump Mobile's "47 Plan" (2), which operates on the T-Mobile network, claims to be "better than the rest," offering 100% U.S.-based support; extensive 5G coverage; unlimited talk, text and data; telehealth services; roadside assistance, and international calling to over 230 countries and territories.” If you fell for that you deserve to lose your money.
- AntiUSAbah 6mo agoOnly in a libertarian society. Education wasn't enforced to a big part of our society and it shows.
- CamperBob2 6mo agoThere's nothing libertarian about MAGA. It's all about using the immense power of government to hurt the right people, and seizing every opportunity to grow and expand that power with that same goal in mind.
- AntiUSAbah 6mo agoThats not what i meant. Only in a society who no one cares about the others and thinks its always the fault of their own, this is normal. Otherwise we would have guard rails to protect us.
- AnimalMuppet 6mo agoThere's also nothing particularly libertarian about the failures of American education. Like, what, government isn't involved?
- rootusrootus 6mo ago> There's nothing libertarian about MAGA Nor conservative, for that matter, aside from some nostalgic dream of social conservatism, I suppose. My MAGA family members love to talk about conservatism as some noble thing, often describing it in neat, simple, pragmatic terms, and then are dumbfounded when confronted with the notion that they don't act according to those principles at all. They still see themselves as conservative, oddly enough.
- micromacrofoot 6mo agowhat are they going to do, sue him?
- SimianSci 6mo agoIt used to be that the thought process of receiving a portion of sale money before delivering any product allowed the company to pay suppliers and keep afloat as they drove towards the finish line of delivery. Now it seems the grifting-meta is to make promises around a product with no plans on delivering it, take in pre-order money, and then just park it in an investment account to grow during a bull market. By the time the grift comes due, your "investment" will have grown to a magnitude where even if you are forced to pay it back, you will have made a tidy profit.
- thaumasiotes 6mo ago> Now it seems the grifting-meta is to make promises around a product with no plans on delivering it, take in pre-order money, and then just park it in an investment account to grow during a bull market. By the time the grift comes due, your "investment" will have grown to a magnitude where even if you are forced to pay it back, you will have made a tidy profit. There's never been a time where that would work. A damages theory can't make you cough up your stock market gains, but unjust enrichment will do it. Put into an example, it's always been black-letter law that if I misappropriate $1,000 from you, put it on red 27, and turn it into $36,000, I owe you all $36,000. If I'm less lucky than that and turn it into $50, I owe you all $1,000.
- GolfPopper 6mo agoIn practice how often does that actually happen to well-heeled, well-connected fraudsters?
- irishcoffee 6mo ago> Put into an example, it's always been black-letter law that if I misappropriate $1,000 from you, put it on red 27, and turn it into $36,000, I owe you all $36,000. If I'm less lucky than that and turn it into $50, I owe you all $1,000. Instead of ending this sentence in a period, I would have ended it: , if I get caught.
- gruez 6mo ago> it's always been black-letter law that if I misappropriate $1,000 from you, put it on red 27, and turn it into $36,000, I owe you all $36,000. Only if you "stole", and only if you get caught. If you asked $1,000 for an "investment" with the intention of putting it on red 27, then win, you can repay your investors and they'd be none the wiser.
- verytrivial 6mo agoGood.
- ortusdux 6mo agoWas it crowdsourced? WA state has a crowdfunding law on the books, and the state AG has gone after people that are very late to deliver.
- jazzyjackson 6mo agoDoes that require the corporation doing the crowdfunding to be based in Washington, or no? Anyway it was never framed as raising money a la crowd sourcing, no more than the Tesla Roadster has been, you are promised nothing for your money besides a reservation to buy the product when it eventually exists.
- xnx 6mo agoRecent and related comment: "I can’t prove it, but it feels like the world recently decided that spamming/scamming is acceptable..." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48094961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48094961
- rootusrootus 6mo ago100% a demonstration that who we elect as a leader absolutely does set the tone for the rest of the country. I have lived through two elections of Donald Trump and both times the shift in what kinds of behavior were socially acceptable was palpable within hours. Like a lot of people suddenly decided they could come out and be their true self, it just turned out that it was gleefully ugly and hateful.
- bdangubic 6mo agoThis is better though, no (as ugly as it is)? At least we now know what this Country actually is and who are its citizens… vs. leaving in some “we are better than this…” fantasy
- wicharek 6mo agoDisagree. If one behaves in a decent way, does it matter what this person “really is” and why they behave like that? Is it societal norms? Is it a fear of punishment? Is it because Jesus tells them to? Or are they genuinely a good person? Who can tell and why does that matter. The net outcome - they behave in a decent way.
- TheAlchemist 6mo agoIt seems to me that it feels that the world, or at least the US, decided that far far worse things are acceptable too. Not easy to be a parent and explain to kids that no, this is not how the world should be run. How do we expect them to have any confidence in the institutions and the rule of law ?
- atmavatar 6mo ago
- yapyap 6mo agogrifter presidents grifts fans out of money
- actionfromafar 6mo agoWow. That's a lot buyers. You likely know some of them.
- lovich 6mo agoIt’s a little over 0.2% of the current US adult population. That’s not a lot of people in general. It is a lot of people for the king to have scammed.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- dudus 6mo agoI don't know any. Maybe I just have a better social circle than most. Or maybe this is a fake number. There are not as many people preordering this clearly fake device, instead this is just another way to launder money.
- alt227 6mo ago> I just have a better social circle This is very subjective. You can have your own opinions, but its really important to remember everybody has a right to their own too.
- lovich 6mo agoI didn’t see anything in his post saying people shouldn’t have the right to associate with trash. We also all have the right to judge people for their associations. You’re right to an action or belief doesn’t make it inherently good, or even equal to other actions and beliefs.
- alt227 6mo ago> You’re right to an action or belief doesn’t make it inherently good The fact you are randomly calling people trash supports your theory!
- 6mo ago
- ck2 6mo agoMore concerned about the BILLION dollars he stole from nuclear missile maintenance for QatarForceOne, which he fully intends to keep And the $10 BILLION he is stealing from the IRS by ordering DOJ to settle his lawsuit Oh and a million dollars PER DAY he steals for each golf weekend However with his dramatic health decline he is golfing less and less now, so savings? https://DidTrumpGolfToday.com https://DidTrumpGolfToday.com
- shagie 6mo agoThe terms of what that $100 went to were updated last month... https://smartphones.gadgethacks.com/news/trump-mobile-t1-smartphone-delay-explained-deposits-terms-and-no-ship-date/ https://smartphones.gadgethacks.com/news/trump-mobile-t1-sma... The terms, updated April 6, state that the deposit is not a binding sales contract. It provides only a "conditional opportunity" to purchase the phone if Trump Mobile eventually chooses to sell it, with all discretion resting with the company. The company "does not guarantee that a Device will be produced or made available for purchase," The Verge and IBTimes UK reported. The IBTimes UK article is https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/trump-mobile-preorder-terms-1795469 https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/trump-mobile-preorder-terms-179546... So yea... a $100 voucher for a conditional opportunity to purchase one if Trump Mobile ever decides to sell one.
- dolmen 6mo agoSo just a scam.
- ecliptik 6mo agoThe Verge has an on-going series Where's the Trump Phone? [1] with updates every week. They even managed to get an interview with one of the execs a few months back. 1. https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/843498/trump-phone https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/843498/trump-phone
- sanid 6mo agoAssuming this was not a scam from the beginning. I just think they got more orders than they expected. This seems to be a reskinned HTC U24 Pro (I think earlier Images and specs were advertising another phone). Also seems to have changed from "produced in the USA" to "Designed with American values in mind" & "With American teams helping guide design and quality" according to their website. At best this is bait and switch (assuming they deliver anything) but I can understand people calling this a scam.
- hughw 6mo agoBait and switch is a scam.
- sanid 6mo agoI don't disagree. As far I understand this is 100 dollar deposit up until now. So the customer would have to actually go through the order process where they would see the updated website with new specs etc. so it's not fully a switch yet. I am from the EU and no a lawyer so I would not know the legality of it all.
- lovich 6mo agoYou recognize it’s a bait and switch scam but don’t want to call it a scam, and then you hedge with claiming you don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you say you’re opinion directly instead of trying to put it out there and having a fallback to defend yourself when you are properly called out.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- rationalist 6mo ago> Don Hendrickson and Eric Thomas — two of the three executives that run Trump Mobile Does anyone know who the third person is? Surely it's not Trump himself? I'm guessing Trump just sold the ability to use his likeness and name?
- snypher 6mo agoEric Trump I believe. Edit: still technically a Trump phone?
- bathtub365 6mo agoAccording to the terms it looks like you can cancel your deposit and get a full refund anytime, even after you’re offered to buy the phone.
- Havoc 6mo agoChief shyster strikes again
- pacomerh 6mo agoMaster scammer, yet his people still trust him...maybe they aspire to be scammers as well.
- strathmeyer 6mo ago[dead]
- insane_dreamer 6mo agoThe fact that this is hardly news shows you the degree to which corruption is rampant in this administration. Too many examples to keep up with.