General > General Technical Chat
Glitterbomb vs scammers
thm_w:
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on March 22, 2021, 10:00:06 pm ---So what are you going to do... just let them run loose to sell drugs to your kids? I can see legalising some drugs is a partial solution (with its own set of problems), but how do you legalise scamming?
--- End quote ---
I wouldn't legalize scamming, no. I don't have a simple solution for you, other than whats been mentioned: reduce calls coming in via technological means.
You could require banks to ask anyone withdrawing more than $10k cash what its for, lecture them about scams. But then "ma freedoms". Not to mention, Walmart/etc store employees are already heavily warning anyone who tries to buy large amounts of iTunes cards, and it rarely has an impact. Although they keep trying: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2020/12/new-toolkit-retailers-help-stop-gift-card-scams
daqq:
--- Quote ---Putting someone in federal prison for 10yrs over making $100 is wild. IF they were the ones orchestrating the entire scam, and kept the full $10k+, sure, but they are not. You'll find an endless stream of mules willing to do this kind of work, nothing will happen targeting those kind of people.
--- End quote ---
The alternative to legally persecuting scammers is legally not persecuting scammers. Which is unacceptable as far as I'm concerned. You may as well feed your grandpa to the wolves.
edit: As to nothing happening, well, I disagree. Sure, some people will continue, but many won't.
--- Quote ---I struggle to see how its not exactly the same as targeting low level drug users or dealers.
--- End quote ---
What's wrong with persecuting drug dealers? They are the scum of the Earth, knowingly causing wholesale misery by means of distributing awful illegal shit.
--- Quote ---I don't have a simple solution for you, other than whats been mentioned: reduce calls coming in via technological means.
--- End quote ---
Reduction of calls is all well and good, but there are other non-call methods available and commonly done, ranging from simple cons to fairly complex gray areas, where elderly people are not herded, but rather invited to an event and they are not forced to buy the awesome and obscenely expensive set of pots, but surely they only want only what's best for their grandchildren, right? With a paper invite bulk delivered to an old folks house mail box.
I know I may have a simplistic view of the world, but I simply find a vision of the world where my grandma, who's never in her life done anything but be nice to people, will find herself scammed out of her life savings or even her flat due to some dick randomly picking her phone number appalling. I have no sympathy for that sort of scum.
SilverSolder:
I don't think that suspending the rule of law for anything less than grievous bodily harm is a great idea. For some people, that just gives them a green light. Surely we have all met that type at some point?
ve7xen:
--- Quote from: daqq on March 22, 2021, 10:53:27 pm ---The alternative to legally persecuting scammers is legally not persecuting scammers. Which is unacceptable as far as I'm concerned. You may as well feed your grandpa to the wolves.
edit: As to nothing happening, well, I disagree. Sure, some people will continue, but many won't.
--- End quote ---
I think the question is really whether to arrest them immediately and throw them in jail, which will just have the scammer move on to the next desperate mule but the return of a couple victims' money, or allow the crime to occur in the hopes of catching someone higher up and having a much greater positive impact on victims overall. The former will have little impact on the scammers as a whole, but put a bunch of low-level employees who know nothing into probation on petty sentences. The latter requires hard police work and the acceptance that you'll need to let some crime slide in the hopes of catching the bigger fish, which might ultimately fail.
See HBOs The Wire.
--- Quote ---What's wrong with persecuting drug dealers? They are the scum of the Earth, knowingly causing wholesale misery by means of distributing awful illegal shit.
--- End quote ---
The problem is targeting low level drug dealers, who have virtually no connection to the organization and are more or less disposable. You inflate the prison population while having effectively zero effect on the availability of drugs or the profit of drug dealers. Similar situation here. The mules are disposable and don't know enough about the organization to be a problem for them. Arresting them will have very little impact.
With these scammers, the cross-jurisdictional nature doesn't help, nor does the anonymity on the Internet that the scammers themselves enjoy. It's a pretty intractable problem, IMO, but arresting the mules isn't going to be an effective counter.
Scams have been around since the dawn of commerce, and naive old folks have been taken advantage of for approximately as long. There's not much point in wasting resources on counter strategies that are unlikely to be effective, IMO.
SilverSolder:
--- Quote from: ve7xen on March 23, 2021, 01:14:11 am ---
--- Quote from: daqq on March 22, 2021, 10:53:27 pm ---The alternative to legally persecuting scammers is legally not persecuting scammers. Which is unacceptable as far as I'm concerned. You may as well feed your grandpa to the wolves.
edit: As to nothing happening, well, I disagree. Sure, some people will continue, but many won't.
--- End quote ---
I think the question is really whether to arrest them immediately and throw them in jail, which will just have the scammer move on to the next desperate mule but the return of a couple victims' money, or allow the crime to occur in the hopes of catching someone higher up and having a much greater positive impact on victims overall. The former will have little impact on the scammers as a whole, but put a bunch of low-level employees who know nothing into probation on petty sentences. The latter requires hard police work and the acceptance that you'll need to let some crime slide in the hopes of catching the bigger fish, which might ultimately fail.
See HBOs The Wire.
--- Quote ---What's wrong with persecuting drug dealers? They are the scum of the Earth, knowingly causing wholesale misery by means of distributing awful illegal shit.
--- End quote ---
The problem is targeting low level drug dealers, who have virtually no connection to the organization and are more or less disposable. You inflate the prison population while having effectively zero effect on the availability of drugs or the profit of drug dealers. Similar situation here. The mules are disposable and don't know enough about the organization to be a problem for them. Arresting them will have very little impact.
With these scammers, the cross-jurisdictional nature doesn't help, nor does the anonymity on the Internet that the scammers themselves enjoy. It's a pretty intractable problem, IMO, but arresting the mules isn't going to be an effective counter.
Scams have been around since the dawn of commerce, and naive old folks have been taken advantage of for approximately as long. There's not much point in wasting resources on counter strategies that are unlikely to be effective, IMO.
--- End quote ---
Are you saying "natural justice" is the way to go? That's the kind of thing that leads people to take the law into their own hands... I know of instances where miscreants were given rough justice because the "victim" didn't think it worth wasting time making police complaints, and preferred dealing with the problem in a more, ahem, direct fashion... - you get enough people thinking like that, and pretty soon you'll have your country ruled by the Mafia, who will take care of injustices in their own inimitable way....
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