6 ms·

coughs I'm not sure what time zone you're in, but my folks have been scammed like this since tulips were a thing.

by peri 12y ago

jsprogrammer 12y ago
Right, people have been scamming each other face-to-face since history has been recorded (uh, slavery?). The claim that email makes scamming, on the level we've historically seen, easier is laughable. It's text on an LCD screen. Most spam doesn't even get to my eyes and on the rare occasion that it does, it goes straight to the trash bin.
- pyre 12y ago
  > The claim that email makes scamming, on the level we've historically seen, easier is laughable. Right or wrong, the assertion seems to be not that email makes the scam itself easier, but that it lessens the social impact on the scammer (making it easier to decide to be a scammer, and ignore the impact you are having on the other person).
  - jsprogrammer 12y ago
    Sure, but if the scammer doesn't have an environment within which s/he can exist, s/he won't be around for long.
    - peri 12y ago
      I am cool with the content of your messages in this thread, but you should be aware that many of us come from linguistic backgrounds with more complicated nomnitive reference sets than (he || she).
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  You have me really curious. What's the connection between scamming and slavery?
  - jsprogrammer 12y ago
    Getting someone to work for you for their entire life for essentially no pay but subsistence?
    - kd0amg 12y ago
      I was under the impression that it was usually done by duress, not deception.
      - peri 12y ago
        Press gangs and indentured servitude were things, too.
  - innguest 12y ago
    > What's the connection between scamming and slavery? ...asked the taxpayer. Slaves didn't get paid. I'll rephrase that. They were taxed 100%. How much percent are you taxed? Does that make you a slave? You probably think it doesn't. But if someone that is taxed 100% is a slave, then if we tax people 99% can we say they're not slaves any longer? What about 98%? What about 39.1%? What's the cutoff? Indeed it gets to a point where we can't say with a straight face that people are "slaves" because they're getting most of their money back. The difference between scam and slavery is a matter of degree. If you dial this scam up to 100% it becomes slavery. If you dial it down enough that people believe you're stealing their money for their own good, that's when it's a scam. Food for thought.
    - mturmon 12y ago
      "taxed 100%" This is just not the case. Slavery is much worse, because it extends beyond money. For instance, as a slave, your children can be sold away from you. There is a big difference between high tax rates and being outright owned.
      - innguest 12y ago
        You mean how the government can take your children away from you through Child Protection Services? But that's a detail. Governments do sell our children away quite literally, which is why young people entering the market now pay for health benefits for the elderly - because the State is too incompetent to properly manage the money those elders put in themselves when they were working. Try another argument. Good one though.
- kjs3 12y ago
  Scamming face to face is a slow, risky process. Email allows me to try to scam millions or even billions in a moment. For essentially no incremental cost. So even if I get a hundredth of a percent conversion on the scam, I win. It also allows me to scam for vastly lower stakes. I'm not going to risk a face to face scam for a penny, or even a dollar. But via email, there's no real floor on how high the stakes are before it becomes unattractive. Said another way, if I send 100 million scam emails, and I convert 1/10th of 1% for a dime, that's $10,000 for little effort, investment or risk (because, really, who's going to hunt you down over a dime).
keithpeter 12y ago
Lute Strings. Earlier than tulips. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Will_Pronounce#The_convertibility_of_lute_strings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Will_Pronounce#The_convert... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUlsI_Ze5Z0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUlsI_Ze5Z0 My first job was as a messenger in Liverpool's shipping and forwarding business. Bills of Lading, Letters of Credit, quotes on seafreight and bulking up the sailor's wage run (five large chaps in a Jaguar delivering £50k in cash, half Sterling, half DMs, to the ship's bursar to pay the crew of the charter cargo ship). I used to walk past the Liverpool Echo building with printing works in the basement (you could blag an early edition if you asked nicely at the back entrance, and the ink would still be drying). All gone. Shame as those jobs gave entry to the world of business with little in the way of credentialism. Sea-freight charges are a time sensitive market. There was a geezer with a tiny office high in a big old seafront office building who had 5 phones on his desk and who would buy empty space on ships then sell it on. No intellectual, tonnes of knowledge of the ships, routes and the people who needed to shift stuff.

coughs I'm not sure what time zone you're in, but my folks have been scammed like this since tulips were a thing.

by peri 12y ago

coughs I'm not sure what time zone you're in, but my folks have been scammed like this since tulips were a thing.

Right, people have been scamming each other face-to-face since history has been recorded (uh, slavery?). The claim that email makes scamming, on the level we've historically seen, easier is laughable. It's text on an LCD screen. Most spam doesn't even get to my eyes and on the rare occasion that it does, it goes straight to the trash bin.

pyre 12y ago
> The claim that email makes scamming, on the level we've historically seen, easier is laughable. Right or wrong, the assertion seems to be not that email makes the scam itself easier, but that it lessens the social impact on the scammer (making it easier to decide to be a scammer, and ignore the impact you are having on the other person).
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  Sure, but if the scammer doesn't have an environment within which s/he can exist, s/he won't be around for long.
  - peri 12y ago
    I am cool with the content of your messages in this thread, but you should be aware that many of us come from linguistic backgrounds with more complicated nomnitive reference sets than (he || she).
Dylan16807 12y ago
You have me really curious. What's the connection between scamming and slavery?
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  Getting someone to work for you for their entire life for essentially no pay but subsistence?
  - kd0amg 12y ago
    I was under the impression that it was usually done by duress, not deception.
    - peri 12y ago
      Press gangs and indentured servitude were things, too.
- innguest 12y ago
  > What's the connection between scamming and slavery? ...asked the taxpayer. Slaves didn't get paid. I'll rephrase that. They were taxed 100%. How much percent are you taxed? Does that make you a slave? You probably think it doesn't. But if someone that is taxed 100% is a slave, then if we tax people 99% can we say they're not slaves any longer? What about 98%? What about 39.1%? What's the cutoff? Indeed it gets to a point where we can't say with a straight face that people are "slaves" because they're getting most of their money back. The difference between scam and slavery is a matter of degree. If you dial this scam up to 100% it becomes slavery. If you dial it down enough that people believe you're stealing their money for their own good, that's when it's a scam. Food for thought.
  - mturmon 12y ago
    "taxed 100%" This is just not the case. Slavery is much worse, because it extends beyond money. For instance, as a slave, your children can be sold away from you. There is a big difference between high tax rates and being outright owned.
    - innguest 12y ago
      You mean how the government can take your children away from you through Child Protection Services? But that's a detail. Governments do sell our children away quite literally, which is why young people entering the market now pay for health benefits for the elderly - because the State is too incompetent to properly manage the money those elders put in themselves when they were working. Try another argument. Good one though.
kjs3 12y ago
Scamming face to face is a slow, risky process. Email allows me to try to scam millions or even billions in a moment. For essentially no incremental cost. So even if I get a hundredth of a percent conversion on the scam, I win. It also allows me to scam for vastly lower stakes. I'm not going to risk a face to face scam for a penny, or even a dollar. But via email, there's no real floor on how high the stakes are before it becomes unattractive. Said another way, if I send 100 million scam emails, and I convert 1/10th of 1% for a dime, that's $10,000 for little effort, investment or risk (because, really, who's going to hunt you down over a dime).

keithpeter 12y ago

Lute Strings. Earlier than tulips. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Will_Pronounce#The_convertibility_of_lute_strings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Will_Pronounce#The_convert... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUlsI_Ze5Z0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUlsI_Ze5Z0 My first job was as a messenger in Liverpool's shipping and forwarding business. Bills of Lading, Letters of Credit, quotes on seafreight and bulking up the sailor's wage run (five large chaps in a Jaguar delivering £50k in cash, half Sterling, half DMs, to the ship's bursar to pay the crew of the charter cargo ship). I used to walk past the Liverpool Echo building with printing works in the basement (you could blag an early edition if you asked nicely at the back entrance, and the ink would still be drying). All gone. Shame as those jobs gave entry to the world of business with little in the way of credentialism. Sea-freight charges are a time sensitive market. There was a geezer with a tiny office high in a big old seafront office building who had 5 phones on his desk and who would buy empty space on ships then sell it on. No intellectual, tonnes of knowledge of the ships, routes and the people who needed to shift stuff.