scams

On The Duty To Snuff Out Web Hoaxes

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

nigerian prince“Today’s” web page has a well-considered feature dealing with the common situation of a friend on Facebook or e-mail who is spreading a web hoax, false rumor or bad information. It’s threshold query: do you have an obligation to correct it? The short answer is yes, but with caveats. You can’t spend all your time knocking down web nonsense, and there are some hoaxes that aren’t important enough to devote much time to killing.

A few years ago, a smart and canny lawyer friend circulated an e-mail advising people who were in the throes of a heart attack to intentionally cough, citing a source that had given this as a helpful survival tip. One of those on her distribution list immediately e-mailed her and everyone else alerting them that the advice was completely wrong, and potentially deadly. That timely correction may have saved a life.

It is also prudent and kind to be especially protective of seniors and others you know who may be new to the internet. That damned Nigerian prince and your friend who is stranded in a foreign country and needs money to get home still fool nice, gullible people after all the warnings and articles. It’s a jungle out there, and we all have a duty to warn each other when we see predators lurking.

The Today article, “Friends Spreading Internet Hoaxes?…” is here.

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Pointer: Fark

Source: Today (NBC)

A New Low, Until The Next One

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments
The horrible mother with her son, who does not have cancer. There does seem to be something amiss with his face, though...

The evil  mother with her son, who does not have cancer. There does seem to be something amiss with his face, though…

I thought the woman who tricked her lesbian crush into marrying her by faking an illness and pretending to be her own doctor in e-mails to her romantic target was about as low as a human being could stoop. Before that, it was the various compassion thieves whose scams have been discussed here. In the category of despicable mothers, I thought ground zero was reached by Torry Hanson, who decided that her adopted Russian son was just too much trouble, so she bought him a one way plane ticket to Russia and shipped him back all by himself, with a note renouncing her parenthood. But then I learned about Wanetta Gibson, and I think I have abandoned the quest for the absolute worst ethical behavior, useful as it would be for establishing a scale for ethical misconduct. Human ingenuity regarding the despicable is just too vast.

Nevertheless, Susan Stillwaggon allegedly pulled a scam that could only be devised by someone whose ethics alarms are not only inoperable, but work in reverse, warning her to stop and change course when she is about to do something good.

In order to pull off a fake illness scam, the New Jersey mother told her family, friends and community that her elementary school age son had cancer. And just so he wouldn’t blow a sweet deal—you know how kids are— she told him he had cancer too.

I’m sure I will eventually hear about something more unethical and heartless than this. I’m not looking forward to it.

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Facts: CBS (Philly)

Graphic: The Coming Crisis

Our Sports Superstars and Their Non-Profit Scams

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments
Hey, don't be cynical! Yes, this is the A-Rod family, and that's the Font of Human Kindness behind them!

Hey, don’t be cynical! Yes, this is the A-Rod family, and that’s the Font of Human Kindness behind them!

Pro athletes who receive insanely high salaries for their unique talents and awe-inspiring achievements often deflect the public jealousy, envy, resentment and criticism their riches inspire by launching charitable foundations aimed at providing assistance and comfort to poor children, disaster victims, orphans, kids with dread diseases, puppies, and anything else that will produce a collective, “Awww! He’s really a good guy!” Some of these athletes really are good guys, like former tennis star Andre Agassi, a true philanthropist, whose Foundation raised and handed out millions while he was playing and continues to do so. Agassi also frequently led all pro athletes in money donated to charity, and he had no scandals that he was trying to make people forget. He’s third on the list now. The first two: Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong.

Other stars, however, are a different story. Continue reading →

Bizarro World Ethics in North Carolina

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments
bizarro_world

Also known as “North Carolina”…

The Bizarro planet, occasionally mentioned on “Seinfeld,” was a humorous feature in Superman comics, a cube-shaped planet populated by flawed clones of Superman and Lois Lane. Nothing made sense on the Bizaaro world, since its denizens were sub-cretinous, their traditions absurd, and their logic inverted. They threw away food and ate the plates—that sort of thing, hilarious if you’re a nine-year old boy in 1962.

I sometimes refer to “Bizarro World ethics,” which invokes the principle that it is difficult, if not impossible, to be ethical in a culture where a lack of ethics is the norm, just as behaving normally with Bizarro Supie and Bizarro Lois would be rude and confusing to them. This is the dilemma facing North Carolina, which is apparently trying to devise an ethical way to run a state lottery. That is a hopeless goal. It is like insisting on clean mud-wrestling, non-violent Jason Statham films, or healthy junk food. State-run lotteries are by definition unethical. The states that run them, and almost all do, have traded principle for encouraging and endorsing activities they once declared harmful and criminal, as a cowardly way to acquire revenue without paying the political price of raising taxes.

By doing this, they… Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: Potential Prostitutes

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
Directions: Read, vomit, then shower thoroughly, twice.

Directions: Read, vomit, then shower thoroughly, twice.

I used to “honor” an unethical website every month. As I no longer go looking for them, such websites are less frequently featured here; on the other hand, those that are seem more disgusting than ever.

After all, what can you say about a site that…

1. …solicits anonymously-sent photographs that purport to be those of  “potential online prostitutes” as a public service…

2. ….posts the photographs, labeling the women as prostitutes, with no fact-checking or investigation whatsoever…

3. ….and accompanies each posting with a button marked “DELETE THIS PROFILE NOW,” which, once clicked on, brings the visitor who has been so defamed to a page where she can pay $99.95 via credit card to have her name, address and photograph removed? Continue reading →

The Golden Rule Sets Off An Ethics Alarm At Popehat

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I posted earlier here about the efforts by lawyers (and bloggers) Marc Randazza and Ken at Popehat to foil the despicable operators of “IsAnybodyDown?” That vile website solicits and uses nude photos of women who have not given permission for them to be posted. It often posts contact information for the women as well, and, as a final touch, promotes an alleged legal service that guarantees that it will get the photos taken down. This is a good bet, since the legal service is operated by the same two men who run the site, though it is very unlikely that the “lawyer” really exists. After Marc and Ken challenged the site, its purveyors launched another one accusing them of secretly working for pornography interests and being funded by the Mob.

These are not, in other words, nice people.

In his most recent post about their ongoing battle, Ken recounted an e-mail exchange with Chance Trahan, who founded and operates  “IsAnybodyDown?”with Craig Brittain. It is an exchange that confirms what one would assume about someone who engages in a business like his. A typical tweet from Chance to Craig reads in part, “You aren’t shit to the world you immoral fuck.” Yet Ken was moved to reflect upon even this individual’s humanity, applying the Golden Rule to and musing about how even the likes of Trahan and Brittain can have redeeming qualities. In doing so he provided as profound and lovely reflection on the ethical process of reciprocity, as well as kindness, fairness, forgiveness and empathy. With Ken’s permission, I present it here. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero Vs. Unethical Website and Scammer: Marc Randazza Takes Aim At The Contemptible “Is Anybody Down” and “The Takedown Lawyer”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Go get em, Marc!

First Amendment lawyer Marc Randazza is a genuine Ethics Hero. I speak from personal experience: when a cyber-bully was trying to use a threatened libel lawsuit to force me to remove a posted opinion he didn’t like, Marc (thoughtfully referred by Ken at Popehat), generously offered his time and advice…and Marc does this all the time. Right now he has a different mission: exposing a revolting cyberscam and hounding the perpetrators into retreat. His target is the website “Is Anybody Down,” and a more disgusting web enterprise would be hard to imagine, and its parasitic creation, the “Takedown Lawyer.”

I’ll let Marc explain why he has “Is Anybody Down” on his hit list:

“Here’s their business plan:

  • Step one: Register the domain name “isanybodydown.com”
  • Step two: Get ahold of nude photos of people who never consented to having their photos published.
  • Step three:Publish them, along with their names, home towns, and links to their facebook profiles.

So now how do you “profit?” Well, openly saying “I’ll take down the photo for $250,” would probably create some legal issues for you. So, instead, you create a fake lawyer persona and say “I am an internet lawyer, named David Blade, III, and I’ll get your pics down for $250.” Continue reading →

Ethics Oxymoron: The Psychic Friends Network’s Honest Scam

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

You don’t see this every day: an inherently dishonest business based on exploiting  consumer gullibility and ignorance making its deception clear in publicly released materials.

The Psychic Friends Network, which is allowed to advertise its fake psychic and fortune-telling services by appending a small sentence declaring that it is “for entertainment only,” has been to bankruptcy and back since those halcyon days when it was being pitched on TV by pop star Dionne Warwick. Now it is looking for investors, and  forecasting $64 million of net income for fiscal 2015. Hey–a forecast from a self-acclaimed network of psychics is money in the bank, right?

Uh, no. Says the PFN, being careful, candid, and admitting their business is 100% hooey:

Let’s get this straight: The Psychic Friends Network, which induces consumers to pay its “network” employees to tell them what is going to happen in the future, states in its public materials that it has no way of telling what is going to happen in the future. Does this make it an honest scam? Can there be such a thing as an honest scam? Is it ethical to invest in an enterprise that openly admits that its premise is a lie? I don’t think so. Will many people invest in such a business?

I don’t know.

The funny thing is, neither does the Psychic Friends Network.

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Sources: Bloomberg

 

Lori Stilley And The Deception That Makes Society Cruel

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Lookin’ pretty healthy there, Lori!

If you want to identify the opposite of an ethical human being, you need look no farther than New Jersey resident Lori E. Stilley.

Stilley, who is 40, told her family and friends in February of 2011 that she had been diagnosed with Stage III bladder cancer, and that things were looking grim. She had  undergone radiation and chemotherapy treatment, she said, and posted about her dire condition on Facebook and a personal website. Later, she said the cancer had progressed to Stage IV. Alas, she lacked health insurance health insurance, too. So her concerned friends and relatives raised money for Stilley, including a T-shirt sale, a fundraising banquet, a third fundraising event and a raffle. There was a meal calendar organized, so friends could bring the probably mortally ill woman food every day. Continue reading →

Irresponsible TLC, Promoting Ignorance and Fraud

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

She’s funny, she’s wacky, she’s setting stupid people up to be scammed.

Public ignorance and stupidity costs the nation billions of dollars, kills untold people in the hundreds of thousands, vastly increases crime and unemployment, and generally makes life far less productive, safe and enjoyable for the minority that are not ignorant and stupid, as well as for those who are. Among the most unethical and despicable among us are those who profit from the ignorance of others, and who either plot to keep them that way, or who exploit their dimness for profit. These deplorable exploiters include politicians, advertisers and merchandisers, religious groups and cults, as well as single-issue advocates on a wide range of issues. There should be an especially unpleasant corner in Hell, however, for an organization that does this under the guise of “The Learning Channel.”

The Learning Channel has already established its fondness for either making “entertainment” out of child abuse, as in its execrable reality shows, “Toddlers & Tiaras” and “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” or exploiting child labor, as with the “Jon & Kate plus Eight” franchise. But its “Long Island Medium” show is especially vile, as it prepares gullible fools for manipulation and fleecing by charlatans who claim to be able to contact the dead, read minds, or foresee the future. “Theresa is a typical Long Island mom who has a very special gift. She talks to the dead.,” TLC tells us on its website. Elsewhere, it describes Theresa Caputo as a “real psychic.” These are lies. Continue reading →