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Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

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Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#201

Post by dx034 »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #175
dzdt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Matt Levine's take on this is right on: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-09/wells-far... . Senior management wanted employees to do REAL cross-selling to make money, but the metrics were set so high that employees turned to fake accounts to meet the standard. The fake accounts did not benefit the bank in any substantial way: So that's about 2.1 million fake deposit and credit-card accounts, of…

It doesn't seem possible that 5000(!) employees did this and the CEO had not a clue.

Of course it is. In a company that size where employees work all across the country it's actually very hard for the CEO to find out about sth like this.

He can only create structures (e.g. internal audit team) that are powerful enough to detect it and report it to him.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#202

Post by dx034 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #162
rayiner wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senator Warren is really good at generating sound bites for people who have no idea about how companies work but are abstractly mad at them. The idea that WF would engage in systematic fraud to goose revenue by about $2.4 million is absurd (or add a bunch of accounts generating only that much in revenue--as if Wall Street analysts won't compute revenue per account).

Revenue growth isn't the only important metric here. They created two million new accounts, letting them go to the market and tout demand for their banking services.

Having more accounts isn't automatically a good sign for the stock market. It's too easy for a bank to get accounts, you just offer people a sign-up bonus. The number of clients alone will usually not inflate the stock price.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#203

Post by conductr »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #189
jontas wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you own stock in the company and this causes the stock to go up (even if the rise is artificially inflated) you can still make plenty of money.

Yeah but what about fake accounts would make the stock go up? Wouldn't it actually make the revenue per account go down which would seem to me to be negative indicator. But again, I don't know the banking industry.

Growth metrics

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#204

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #189
jontas wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you own stock in the company and this causes the stock to go up (even if the rise is artificially inflated) you can still make plenty of money.

Yeah but what about fake accounts would make the stock go up? Wouldn't it actually make the revenue per account go down which would seem to me to be negative indicator. But again, I don't know the banking industry.

[deleted]

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#205

Post by acveilleux »

djsumdog wrote: post #101
1024core wrote: post #21

Why is it that in such cases, the government reaches for the CEO right away; but when Wells Fargo employees open millions of fraudulent accounts, it's not the CEO's fault? If I were to commit identity theft (which is basically what the WF employees did), then I would be facing jail time; why hasn't anyone in WF been charged with criminal fraud yet? Why not the CEO?

Kim dot com is facing extradition to a country he has never set foot in, for crimes far less than what Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz have done. Justice is a sort of illusion.

Factually incorrect... Before Mega when has was a Ponzi scheme operator and self-professed super-hacker he posted pictures all the time of his trips around the world in super-yacht, private jets and expensive cars. Including the US.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#206

Post by acveilleux »

cft wrote: post #46

This was no more a prostitution website than Craigslist, before Craigslist struck a deal with attorney generals of several states to shut down its Adult Classifieds section [1]. In fact, given Craigslist scale it had many more prostitution (and probably child prostitution) ads. The question is: why Craig and this CEO were given such disparate treatment? Because the times have changed, or because Craigslist was much b…

Backpages, unlike Craigslist, doesn't really have any other business then adulkt ads.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#207

Post by empthought »

croon wrote: post #197
empthought wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the purchase of a television is less immoral, shameful, and pathetic than the purchase of sex. It is qualitatively different. There is nothing inherent in my possession of a television that demeans or degrades another human being; it's simple circumstance that makes working conditions more or less morally acceptable. The purchase of sex inherently demeans and degrades another human being because it places one's o…

> The purchase of sex inherently demeans and degrades another human being because it places one's own sexual gratification over another person's bodily autonomy. I'm a contractor, and I get to choose my clients. If I don't want to work with someone, I don't. Why would it be "inherently" demeaning in sex work, if they got to choose their clients and there were better protection and regulation? Why is it an implementat…

HN comments really don't do justice to the answer to this question, please consider http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0009/000913/091355mb.pdf

TL;DR no prostitute can "choose" a john that isn't going to sexually exploit her (and thus violate her human rights) because that's the nature of purchasing sex.

A direct quote TL;DR

Does the 'right to prostitute' exist?' Clearly prostitution cannot exist as a right because it usurps and negates already established human rights of the prostitute woman to human dignity, bodily integrity, physical and mental well-being...Human rights are universal and inalienable. They cannot be reduced to the instrumentality of individual choice alone because individual choice can and does include the right to harm or propagate harm on others or inflict harm on oneself.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#208

Post by Anderkent »

niftich wrote: post #31
SwellJoe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most sex workers agree that their safety is improved dramatically by having the business side of it out in the open. And, there have been studies on sex worker safety that indicate strongly that legal prostitution is safer for everyone; it also reduces coercion when it is not underground (women don't need a pimp, if law enforcement is on their side). Since I started paying attention a few years ago, I've noticed that…

There's idealism on both sides of the argument. On one hand, there are those who believe that conducting these arrangements in the open is safer for all involved parties. On the other hand, there are those who believe that sex work can never truly be consensual, because even if consent is given, a sex worker may have felt pressured to seek this life because all other choices available to them to make a living and att…

> On the other hand, there are those who believe that sex work can never truly be consensual, because even if consent is given, a sex worker may have felt pressured to seek this life because all other choices available to them to make a living and attain food and shelter were sub-par or nonexistent. This argument supposes that given a different, idealized circumstances free of such pressures, few people would choose sex work.

Oh no, those poor people, the best option they have is sex work!

I know, let's make their best option illegal! That will certainly improve their lives!

/s

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#209

Post by empthought »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #183
empthought wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Implementing the Nordic model would in some cases undo some recent advances in identifying and blocking these ugly clients and result in some workers being violently abused or even possibly killed. Sorry to break the news to you: all clients are ugly clients, since they're all just fine with the idea that people's bodies are something to be bought and sold.

I meant ugly as in abusive, violent or psychopathic.

Purchasing sex is inherently abusive.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#210

Post by tylersmith »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #189
jontas wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you own stock in the company and this causes the stock to go up (even if the rise is artificially inflated) you can still make plenty of money.

Yeah but what about fake accounts would make the stock go up? Wouldn't it actually make the revenue per account go down which would seem to me to be negative indicator. But again, I don't know the banking industry.

Their stock price was heavily based on their high cross-selling metrics.
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