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I'm not a big fan of bloggy-things, but eh. Maybe I'll find something to write about that won't bore the living bejeezus out of the average Gaian… (I think I've managed to fail spectacularly on this goal. Any ideas on a better description? :lol:)

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Scammers suck. I am pretty sure that I have few to no subscribers to my Journal. But, I will update it anyhow! lol I've been hanging out in the Exchange for the past day or so straight. And, it seems that there is a pervasive scam. One that people actually FALL for! crying They claim that they're giving away items for whatever reason, then ask people to click a link. The link leads to a fake Gaia login page. What amazes me is that people actually will enter their information onto it! A part of me says they are getting what they deserve. But a part of me also says that the scammers are amongst the lower life forms on Gaia. Guess which side wins that argument? (Hint: Re-read the entry title!) wink What really sucks is that the Exchanges mods aren't active when this stuff is going on. And, reporting via the normal mechanism can take hours, at least. In the mean time, people keep bumping the thread… Is Vigilante Justice called for here? Do we need to get together and contact people at their ISPs? And, if that doesn't work, use "sneaky tactics" to bring their home-based sites down? I mean, does the end justify the means? In some respects, it may be more worthwhile, as I suspect Gaia simply closes the thread and bans the account (which was probably obtained from the LAST round of posting!). With Vigilante Justice, they'll have to hop between ISPs until they're stuck on dial-up with some company who just doesn't give a rat's a what they do. And, in that case, knocking them offline is extremely easy! twisted BUT, really. Such retaliation is against ToS for many ISPs (I'm not sure if contacting people who can "do things" within the ISPs is a problem, though! wink** ). But, the Gaia ToS seems to indicate that we can't take matters into our own hands at all. I wonder who would be the appropriate person to ask regarding this subject… Having a band of Vigilantes, cleaning up Gaia one scammer at a time (rather than one avi at a time!) would really help the quality of "life" around here! 3nodding Thoughts, flames, questions? biggrin

Posted by: MattLewellyn Sat Dec 15, 2007 @ 11:13pm

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kool ken
Community Member

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Sun Dec 16, 2007 @ 08:17am

Scammers suck. Totally.
But is it worth your time to go after them?

Quote:

A part of me says they are getting what they deserve.

I can't agree with that idea, but perhaps the victims will learn a valuable lesson that will be of use to them in real life.

MattLewellyn
Community Member

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Sun Dec 16, 2007 @ 08:49am

Eh, the most annoying one has been reported to their ISP. (They were stupid about how they went about it, so it was extremely easy for me to catch the pattern.) Considering how many people they snared (they could have been more intelligent with regards to not tipping off their targets once they had their passwords, too...), I figured that a couple of reports at about 2 minutes per report was worth it.

And, keep in mind that these people either A) have to click through a big red warning banner telling them to not enter their user information on the destination page; or, B) have to disable the big red warning page, acknowledging that they understand why it's there and that it's their own fault for falling for things like that. If someone really ignores a BIG RED PAGE telling them "Hey! There's a chance you're about to get scammed!", then ya, a part of me says "Yup, they got what was coming to them for ignoring every warning thrown at them!"

The irony, of course, is that most of these people seem to get scammed fairly often. A couple times a day, when looking through the different forum topics, I come across someone who has managed to be scammed, the same way, 3 or 4 times. Then, they say something like: "I hope it doesn't happen again!"... Really, those sort almost do get what they deserve. I mean, that's practically in the realm of insanity. sad

Anyhow, enough ranting. It's practically 1am. And I need to reboot out of Vista before sleeping.

User Comments: [2]

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