lol, that was well worth the read.
A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
101–110 of 177 posts
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#102That was well worth the read
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#103So he had no money, but he had an apple card for $477 and your $250 card with the balance? Sounds like evidence that he's scammed other people with this scam. Sounds like there are already other victims out there, sans justice.
The author has 2 x $250, so $500 total.
The scammer had spent $23.
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> After all, essentially what happened is that he was late on a $500 debt payment. That is far too nice way to describe the issue and I would assume that even in US these are two separate issues (being late from mutually agreed payment and trying to scam someone)
The problem is that legally, unless and until the kid is found guilty of fraud or theft (or he pleads guilty to such a crime), the money owed is nothing more than a debt that this guy attempted to collect in illegal ways.
This is like trying to collect a debt and the other person wilfully denying there was ever a transaction. I doubt this is legally the same as being late on a debt. IANAL
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#105Tell his parents is precisely what you should do. That's what would lead to possible behavior change. Letting him get away with it validates the behavior and teaches that it's OK and he will be able to talk his way out of such things again. It does everyone a disservice to not tell his parents. The author got manipulated twice. First convinced to hand over his money and then convinced not to tell the parents. The sca…
Downvoted you. It's a big jump from "somebody, 22 yo, scammed somebody else online at least once" to "psychopath". To be frank, I think I wish the word "psychopath" was deleted from the dictionary altogether. It's just a handy label to apply to all sorts of baddies, effectively dehumanizing them (he's a psychopath- he would do anything to you, so you're justified in doing anything to him).
Although calling someone a psychopath without access to their medical history is not literally correct, I don't agree with the spirit of your comment.
After being caught, this scammer was actively trying to be seen as a human being. That is exactly the tactics he chose and this is exactly the tactics that helped him escape any punishment so far. I would advise against humanizing scammers too much.
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Downvoted you. It's a big jump from "somebody, 22 yo, scammed somebody else online at least once" to "psychopath". To be frank, I think I wish the word "psychopath" was deleted from the dictionary altogether. It's just a handy label to apply to all sorts of baddies, effectively dehumanizing them (he's a psychopath- he would do anything to you, so you're justified in doing anything to him).
Although calling someone a psychopath without access to their medical history is not literally correct, I don't agree with the spirit of your comment. After being caught, this scammer was actively trying to be seen as a human being. That is exactly the tactics he chose and this is exactly the tactics that helped him escape any punishment so far. I would advise against humanizing scammers too much.
So you're saying that after being caught, he should have sent to the victim of his scam a picture of himself putting live cats in a blender? Just to avoid being seen like somebody that tries to look human, you know.
In other words, in your view, if he doesn't look human then he's a psychopath; if he does, this proves again that he's a psychopath. Confirmation bias?
Ah, by the way and just FYI, psychopaths and scammers are human beings.
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#107What the scammer did is wrong, and the plight of the victim is easy to relate to here. It's easy to have a sense of personal outrage after reading this story. But let's keep a sense of proportion in mind: it is $500 worth of gift cards that the victim couldn't use and had been trying to get rid of for 4 years. I suspect that anyone trying to get free gift cards off of Reddit is pretty small-time.
I think telling the parents and leaving it at that is probably the right thing to do. We should reserve our energy, outrage, and enforcement for the scammers who do the greatest damage. Scammers that have made millions, hired armies of lawyers, even made friends in power who have rewritten the law to favor them. The petty criminal deserves a petty punishment.
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Although calling someone a psychopath without access to their medical history is not literally correct, I don't agree with the spirit of your comment. After being caught, this scammer was actively trying to be seen as a human being. That is exactly the tactics he chose and this is exactly the tactics that helped him escape any punishment so far. I would advise against humanizing scammers too much.
So you're saying that after being caught, he should have sent to the victim of his scam a picture of himself putting live cats in a blender? Just to avoid being seen like somebody that tries to look human, you know. In other words, in your view, if he doesn't look human then he's a psychopath; if he does, this proves again that he's a psychopath. Confirmation bias? Ah, by the way and just FYI, psychopaths and scammer…
Yes, it's entirely possible to be both human and a piece of shit at the same time. It's the scammer's job to convince everyone that he is more human than a piece of shit, and it's our job not to fall for that. The factual validity of whatever bad names we might call him is irrelevant.
(No, I don't think that calling scammers bad names is a viable anti-scammer strategy. I just don't agree with the opposing effort, which should only be expected from the scammer.)
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#109Tell his parents is precisely what you should do. That's what would lead to possible behavior change. Letting him get away with it validates the behavior and teaches that it's OK and he will be able to talk his way out of such things again. It does everyone a disservice to not tell his parents. The author got manipulated twice. First convinced to hand over his money and then convinced not to tell the parents. The sca…
Downvoted you. It's a big jump from "somebody, 22 yo, scammed somebody else online at least once" to "psychopath". To be frank, I think I wish the word "psychopath" was deleted from the dictionary altogether. It's just a handy label to apply to all sorts of baddies, effectively dehumanizing them (he's a psychopath- he would do anything to you, so you're justified in doing anything to him).
I disagree. It would never have entered my mind to do such a thing at age 22.
These people rarely change; if you don't punish them severely, you're giving them an unfair advantage over honest people. We don't want to live in a society dominated by crooks.
Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you buy and get scammed, ebay will eat the cost of it, much like credit card companies do in cases of fraud. This is not true unless things have changed in the last few years. eBay will try to get the money back by flagging the fraudster's account. But if that account has been emptied there's nothing they can do and eBay does not refund your money from their pocket. For the credit card comment. I don't think thi…
The eBay workflow in a fraud case is this: 1) if the money can be regained from the seller in any way (e.g. charging the card they use for the seller account or pulling back the Paypal proceeds from account balance or bank account(s)), they will do so and refund the buyer. 2) if not, they will throw up every possible barrier to the buyer, including (I have experienced) giving you phony tracking data to "prove" you go…
My anecdotal experience: as much as I despise eBay and Paypal (various reasons going back to 2001) I have had only positive experiences with refunds from eBay.
Recently I had a $20 IP camera(that price was too cheap but I was not doing my research) not arrive from China from a seemingly reputable seller with 500+ selling feedback over 2 years.
I filed a complaint with eBay and seller claimed a fake tracking number.
More interestingly, the seller had gone rogue, turning feedback private and acquiring about 100 negatives in a month.
So either the seller was hacked or had just pulled a long con.
My payment had come from Paypal balance and I got a very quick refund once I informed eBay that I wanted a refund.