So apparently people believe when you lie to them if you sound convincing. Frankly I feel I should be disgusted by this kind of behavior, but I am just numb. That numbness makes me sad, where did my innocence go?
Cultural programming has de-attuned you to this fact because we make laws and social custom that mostly keep these things in check (well, except for those 1% folk).
I'm not surprised, I'm glad I live in a society where it's so uncommon to be scammed that it disgusts you so.
I was waiting for a slightly more meaningful enlightening or moral awakening at the end of this article, maybe some kind of realization that the world isn't full of "good people" and "bad people" but that everyone is capable of basic crimes against one another like stealing stuff.
Yeah, get it! Shoplifting is also worthy challenge, though, that I feel the author underrates. Scams and shoplifting are two ways toward the same goal: exiting the store with goods without paying for them or getting caught. Sticking stuff in your pants or purse is a pretty simple move, sure, but it has its subtleties. And plus there's a bunch of complexities to worry about like security tags, snitching customers, loyal employees, security guards, loss prevention officers, and cameras.
I'd made a faraday cage with tin foil in my backpack to thwart the tag alarm system, and tested it out on a large retail electronics store. So yeah, maybe it doesn't require the social skills needed for the author's cons, but it did require technical skills.
That said, that was a long time ago when I was a troubled kid. Now I'm a voluntaryist, and I see that stealing doesn't fit with my set of values. Perhaps I picked up some valuable lessons while experimenting with anti-values.
As for the author, it seems that he never really grew out of it. It's clear that he derives pleasure from cleverly conning people. It's a shame, because that mental energy could be used for good instead of what amounts to scummy behavior.
There is so much more pie to be had when you can bake it yourself, rather than having to con it from others.
Trust is hugely important in society. If you have to stop and verify every single thing, it's hugely expensive, which tends to make everyone worse off.
Yup. Our choices have consequences, and he put a lot of effort into making the world a crappier place so he could have a bit more stuff, most of which he probably did not actually need.
But the author did even realize half of it. A cashier demoted here or docked pay there is only the tip of the iceberg. The bigger cost is how every manager of every corporate store he scammed was put under pressure to look at all employees as insects, for fear that a few bad apples were running a side business doing favors for friends.
This is a bad way to look at it, because you're saying, inmplicitly, either sacrifice for the "common good" and be good, or help yourself and be evil.
The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest.
So there is an argument to be made for behaving honestly that relies on self-interest instead of calling for self-sacrifice. That is a much more appealing argument, and one I can actually buy into.
"The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest."
Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.
Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?
I think that what is in a person's self-interest is to find a sustainable, enjoyable way to live that will last a lifetime. There is a lot more that could be said about that, but it's a high-level summary.
The proof of that is looking at man's nature and what life is. So all I can do is point in the right direction. To write it all down in a comment would be impossible, plus pointless, because it doesn't prove anything to you until you see it yourself, firsthand, by looking at reality.
> I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.
I am certain that that's not right. Lying, cheating and manipulating will never be a sustainable mode of living. It keeps you dependent on luck and the whims of others, and eventually you will get caught. It's much better to pick any one of 10,000 honest professions and actually live by your own work. It's better to trade with "all of humanity" and live in harmony with others, than to constantly be at war with others.
> Sociopaths for example.
Being a sociopath would be horrible. (They may not realize that themselves--because they don't know any different and/or would rather not face the facts.) Why? Because you'd have to completely give up on all the values you get from enjoying other people---friendships, cooperation, and all forms of romantic love. (Sociopaths may outwardly seem like they have some of these, but in reality, everyone is not only their victim, but also a potential threat when the victim catches on to the game.) Plus the more general issues I mentioned above.
> Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?
I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.
In general I agree with your argument, I just think there are a small percentage of actual sociopaths in the world (I've met one).
> I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.
Sorry for not being clear here. I meant the premise is "Trust is a common good" and the conclusion is "sacrifice for the 'common good' and be good, or help yourself and be evil"
To answer your question about rejecting the premise because I don't like the conclusion...
I actually agree with the statement "trust is a common good." The problem is, people often assume that esablishing a "common good" is something that requires self-sacrifice from individual people. That's not true in general, and certainly not true in this specific case. Why? Trust is _also_ an individual, personal good. Lying, cheating, and manipultaing people is not a viable way to live a sustainable, happy life.
So, if it's going to be said that "Trust is a common good," I just wanted to add, "... and also a personal good." That's why I said the person's point was a "bad way to look at it." Really, it's just an incomplete way to look at it and possibly misleading, given people's typical assumptions.
Anyway, thanks for the chat and it's nice to know that we have some common ground here.
>"I'd go as far as to say that the first world's biggest asset is the collective trust it has accrued over the centuries."
Interesting, This is a trait that I often find myself admiring about the societies in the west (ie) the Trust that the System has in its people that they wouldn't cheat or exploit. I sometimes thought the System didn't 'go after' the people who exploit it, since it simply wasn't worth the Return on Investments to put checks in place to catch them. I recently traveled to Los Angeles and took the LAX Fly Away (a paid shuttle service) to get to union station. Passengers paid for the ticket at the destination in booth located ~100 meters away & and claimed the baggage using the receipt. But if you did not have any luggage or had only a backpack -- you could simply walk away without paying nothing. There are multiple exits at the food court in my workplace,and you could simply walk away without paying at the counter. Systems like these shocked me initially , it seemed like a glaring loophole but I quickly understood the priciple behind it - "the collective trust the society has accrued over the centuries."
The more I saw these, the principle grew on me. I became less skeptical about the intentions of people and automatically started giving "goodness" points ..even to random people. Prior to seeing this system , I would generally employ far more scrutiny about people and assume they had evil
intentions by default ( this is sometimes subjective).
But I did find myself on the receiving end once: I was trying to buy tickets for a Bon Jovi concert a few months ago that was supposed to be held at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Since the show was sold out, I was looking for deals on CraigsList.I m not a die-hard fan of Bon Jovi and wasn't desperate for the tickets. I called a few people , a lot of them were selling tickets at the face value - I kept eliminating sellers since they were far , or didn't have the number of tickets I wanted or .. were selling 'crappy seats -20$ tickets'. I finally ran into a Lady who was selling four tickets & quoted 240$ for all of them. I asked for the seat number and I couldn't make much from the seating chart. I thought it might be a overhanging balcony or something. I blindly requested if she could drop the prices, and she offered those tickets for 200$ after quickly consulting with her husband. She kept telling thats what they paid , had receipts.. etc.,etc.,
Since these were hard tickets I had to meet them in person to collect the tickets. I said I lived in Palo Alto and.. after a quick consultation with her husband again, she mentioned I could meet her husband at Starbucks in Palo Alto the next morning. Turns out he works for facebook and it wasn't a detour for him. She handed over the phone to him , we exchanged numbers and he asked about where I worked in Palo Alto. I mention the name of my company .. a virtualization giant with 10K+ employees HQed in Palo Alto. He throws a a few names, and ..bang ..starts mentioning the name of my Manager, My director and others . He said he worked with them a few years ago , and I was convinced I was dealing with someone nice. I quickly obliged to the timing he mentioned and closed the deal.I was trying to be nice & asked if I needed to transfer money over paypal. He said it was alright. I ran into my boss after this conversation , mentioned this dude's name and he immediately recognized him. My boss has a very_common_first_name@gmail.com , and I always wonder how he got that account . Years ago , My boss had received a beta invite to create a google account from this dude who worked for Google as well. He spoke of him as a smart person , I came back to my desk and googled for him. There were videos of him explaining how "Release Management" worked in "Facebook".. and how he approves/rejects check-ins, looking at the comment traffic on the review request etc., This person was totally legi...
You know anyone could shoot a man in Reno just to watch them die but it takes a real super genius like me to talk at them until they just commit suicide.
I've done this several times while being completely honest about what I'm doing... returning gifts without a gift receipt probably from a different store.
Step 1) Find two employees who are polar personalities.
Step 2) Attempt to return the item while being completely honest about what you're doing. (books/software/clothes/whatever)
Step 3) Get denied.
Step 4) Try again with the second employee and mention how the first employee didn't let you.
I had a really hard time reading this, mostly because it's difficult for me to separate out in my mind when arbitrage becomes theft.
For example, in my teens I found a hack in the eBay search algorithm. The algorithm was very simple; it simply scanned the titles. So if I input '32GB Apple iPod Black' it would return everything with those keywords. If, however, I typed in 'iPod' it would return millions of results and be unusable. Not everybody realized this, however, so there were plenty of items just titled "iPod."
I ended up generating a 2-page long search that stared with iPod and negated all non-relevant terms (i.e. 'ipod -headphones -case -protector -battery' etc.). After entering in that term I would be given a page of everything only titled 'iPod,' and could pick them up for $50-100 and flip them the next day for $250-300. That was a good living for a 15-year-old kid.
When my mom began to probe after seeing iPods arriving at the house day after day, she started to question me, and we had a long philosophical discussion about whether or not what I was doing was "right." It was legal, of course, but was it right? - this was the much more important question in the eyes of my mom. She felt it was unethical and not providing value - I disagreed, and she allowed me to continue and not go against my conscience.
After a few interesting twists and turns the eBay hack turned into a multi-million dollar, off-eBay Broadway ticket brokerage firm. (We scalped broadway tickets at scale.) I provided no real value other than buying tickets at face value a long time in advance, and marking the prices up 3-4x last minute. I justified it by saying wall-street traders don't provide much value either. I let people wait to buy tickets, and let Capitalism decide who would get the tickets instead of who got word of the shows first or who cared the most. I appeased my conscience by convincing myself that I took the risk away from the venues, who could have waited and charged more, and profited thereby, but either didn't know it or were bound into agreements with artists/shows/etc. I still don't know how truthful that was, but eventually I left to try and start something that will actually benefit people, not just redistribute things and make money.
I wonder now if I was on a slippery slope and got off at just the right moment. I've seen a lot of my ticket broker/scalper friends end up trying to swindle casinos, get caught up in credit card fraud, etc; it becomes easy to feel smarter-than-thou when you're making bunches of money off of others' perceived negligence.
But at the same time I'm not the kind of successful where I can look back and say, "I was dumb and broke the rules and made some mistakes, but look, I made it now!" It's tempting to slip back into a world where you're not benefiting anybody and profiting thereby. So in that sense it's hard to separate my motives then from that of the author. Making money while helping people is really, really, really hard.
The moral of the story: It's difficult for me, at times, to discern when a "cool hack" becomes "criminal theft."
My thought on ticket scalpers: They are, funny enough, actually providing a service for one group of people (those who are short on time and have plenty of money) while hurting people who have plenty of time and less money. Without scalpers/brokers, getting a ticket turns into a game of who is willing to stand in line the longest.
I let people wait to buy tickets, and let Capitalism decide who would get the tickets instead of who got word of the shows first or who cared the most.
That's also the reason why they are so hurtful: People with little time and plenty of money are not usually great fans. People who gets an early word of shows, or cares the most are almost by definition great fans. So scalpers buy cheap tickets so that fewer fans can go, and sell them so more suits can go.
Assuming that scalping is legal, and doesn't break some contractual agreement with the ticket seller, it is not "hurtful".
What is best for society is not to give things to those who want/need them most, but to people who are willing to pay the most for them.
This is the first welfare theorem. The "suits" earned their money, and what is the point of earning money if you can only use it to buy things other people don't want? If you want to do redistribution, then it should be done fairly, through taxation, but after the redistribtution is done, there is no better way to distribute resources than on a willingness-to-pay basis
That's why we redistribute money. It's not the worldview that is awful, it's the fact the people prefer to spend money on themselves, than on other people.
Once you're done with redistribution, then the time for complaining that I can afford X while the starving artist who really appreciates it can't, is over.
EDIT: But to clarify, yes, if a person is willing to pay more for something, they should receive it. If you oppose this, then what you really oppose is that one person is richer than another. Hence the discussion on redistribution.
No, you can figure out when the tickets go on sale to the event that you just can't miss and you can get them early just like the scalpers do, if you actually are such a big fan...
In the case of your ebay story, had you not done the arbitrage, wouldn't the owner of the iPod being unable to sell his stuff, hence worse off (the buy would still be buying the iPod at the same price you sell them - if they could have bought it cheaper, they wouldn't have bought it from you).
Additionally, your effort wasn't just buying and reselling the iPod, you have to compile the 2-page long search term, and then the knowledge of actually knowing how to do search properly with operators also took time to learn. Both the buyers and sellers could have got a better deal - had they spent more time. But they didn't, and you took the time to do those things for them. Isn't that a classic case of giving up a premium to save time?
I guess the ethical thing would be to inform all people selling iPods the wrong way that their methods are flawed. The second best thing would probably be to give those tips for money.
It would be the good thing to do to inform the seller of their wrong methods, however the lack of doing so isn't unethical: you can't stop people from making bad financial decision in life (it might actually be condescending to make the assumption that they don't know what they are doing). And if you didn't buy the iPod yourself, their bad listing might not even be selling for them.
>i don't follow your leap from the first part of that statement to the last.
To address this one specifically, on average, in the long run, if the sellers' listings could have been found/ bought, then the opportunity to do the arbitrage wouldn't have been there in the first place. To put it another way: the assumption would be that he could do the arbitrage because the deal otherwise would be very hard to find.
>instead he was rewarded for exploiting an asymmetry of knowledge.
We are always rewarded for asymmetry of knowledge - it's called comparative advantage in econ, I think. Everyone of us here has a job because there are not enough people to do whatever we're doing (grossly generalized, but I'm just trying to make a point). If we have 6 billions Donald Knuth alive on earth, I'd say a lot of us would be in trouble from a career prospective.
And I don't think it's a "winner take all" situation, more of a "we care about different stuffs in life" one. Financial decisions, despite its importance, isn't something that most people would strive to the perfect at. We don't always optimize for each and every single financial decisions (or any type of decision) in life.
And as for the part where he could have help the sellers or the buyers. Well, for once, if he didn't care about the profit, he might not have acquired the knowledge. Additionally, the question wasn't whether he could disseminate the knowledge, but whether he ought to do so. Let's say if the first time he saw it, he contact and let the seller know, and then that's about it. Why would he have any incentive (or obligation) to search for the other seller and let them know?
On a side note, there is the famous essay by Singer - "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" which argues that it's immoral if you're not spending every single effort you can to help the less fortunate (paraphrase by me). I certainly deeply admire anyone who strive to do so, but I can't really say I could do so.
A seller on an open market quotes the price they want to sell for. They would rather have that much money, than the item they are selling. So it's not victimizing them to make the trade.
But it would be victimizing yourself to not make the trade, and instead tell the other person your inside knowledge.
And it's not dishonest, because in a market, there is no implicit assumption that the buyer doesn't know something the seller knows, on the part of either one.
This is especially obvious in the stock market. If I think a stock is a sell at $X and you think it's a buy, we trade, but clearly one person knows (or thinks they know) something that the other doesn't.
Regarding ticket scalping: People selling tickets know that that's going on. If they don't want it, they will forbid you from doing it, and if you do it, it's breach of contract and subject to legal penalties. If not, go for it. There is no reason to sacrifice your own interests so that people who didn't get in on the sale earier and can't afford scalped prices can have their interests satisfied instead. In other words, don't victimize yourself.
Regarding HFT: If you are market-making, you buy at the best price (giving someone a good deal) and sell at the lowest price (giving someone a good deal). Yes, these people could have matched against each other if they wanted to play the game of predicting which way the market is moving and waiting a few microseconds, but you can also lose at that game, so institutional investors don't want to play it. There are no victims here. I assume this kind of thing generalizes to other forms of HFT, except when people/exchanges actually do cheat (exchanges: people don't let people cheat, that is basically your sole purpose for existing).
> The moral of the story: It's difficult for me, at times, to discern when a "cool hack" becomes "criminal theft."
You only victimize someone (other than yourself) if you commit breach of contract (implicit or explicit; fraud is a form of breach of contract) or actually use physical force. Otherwise, you aren't.
tl;dr moral of the story: don't victimize anyone (yourself, or others)
> This is especially obvious in the stock market. If I think a stock is a sell at $X and you think it's a buy, we trade, but clearly one person knows (or thinks they know) something that the other doesn't
Or maybe they just need the liquidity for some purchase they need to make?
That just means they have knowledge you don't have about an even better investment.
Or, they actually need to spend the money (e.g. buy groceries) and they still want to do the trade and appreciate the liquidity, no matter what knowledge you have.
"If I think a stock is a sell at $X and you think it's a buy, we trade, but clearly one person knows (or thinks they know) something that the other doesn't"
Theoretically, everyone who ever buys or sells could make money. They just have to be trading on different time-frames, different entry/exit strategies, and/or have different risk tolerance.
There are some places lately with online ticket sales - I'm thinking particularly of http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2013/04/26.html - who have begun to demand not ID, but the credit card with which the ticket was purchased. It's an interesting anti-scalping measure.
In the late '90s I'd do a much smaller scale eBay gambit. Buy Plam Pilots or Palm Pliots (eBay used to not suggest corrected spellings) cheap and flip them for more money as Palm Pilots. Looking back, it was probably a waste of time. I think I only did this about 10 times. It was easy to justify since there was usually another bid on the item, but not 10 people bidding like when the product was spelled correctly. Also, I figured if I could buy an item for $X, the person was fine with selling it for $X (otherwise they should have put a reserve on the item).
As recently as last year there were still niches where spelling errors led to arbitrage opportunities: I knew someone who was into CCGs (e.g. Pokémon, Magic: the Gathering) and would search for variations on card names, score cards cheaply, and keep them around to trade at full value later. Same rationale (which I agree with!): eBay gives you a way to say "I will not accept a price less than $N" and a way to say "I will accept the highest bid regardless of magnitude." Trying to second-guess a seller's choice between those is just totally not viable.
It is quite puzzling about how you are equating buying & selling on e-bay without ANY misrepresentation (Product is as described & Payment is legimatelty delivered) to a Confidence scam where the author very clearly cheated the stores by misrepresentation/lying.
Similarly why is ticket buying and selling a Con? Long-hold Time frames and upfront-risk are a very legitimate way to add value.
Is it possible that there is some cultural/educational/somethingelse deep-seated mooring that does not see this as "hard-work" and instead as profiteering?
> It is quite puzzling about how you are equating buying & selling on e-bay without ANY misrepresentation (Product is as described & Payment is legimatelty delivered) to a Confidence scam where the author very clearly cheated the stores by misrepresentation/lying.
I read the parent as being pretty aware that those are distinct activities and that a confidence scam is solidly across an ethical dividing line most people would agree on -- but also aware that ethics can be seen on a continuum and that there are other dimensions to it beyond whether or not deception is involved.
And that taking advantage of ignorance/misunderstanding has something in common with cultivating it.
> Is it possible that there is some cultural/educational/somethingelse deep-seated mooring that does not see this as "hard-work" and instead as profiteering?
Is it more or less likely that the parent is in such a grip, or that more of us are in the grip of a market-oriented mythos where all profit received is simply profit due from hard work?
Which belief is more convenient, and more likely to be compromised by an opportunity to benefit from it?
Ticket scalping is pretty unpopular with both the people who put on productions and the people who buy tickets. In my opinion it is pretty scummy.
The original ticket offices could put up their prices to the point where touting wasn't viable, but this would put people off their productions and also make them less accessible to poorer people.
Dude. You know I love you right? Like... this to me is the epitome of the startup culture issues I think we face in Utah.
MLMs add little value most of the time. I feel like they're more con than anything.
I'm glad you're questioning the natural arbitrage opportunity. It's something I hadn't been able to put into words, but I think you've done a good job articulating it.
"Are you creating more value than you capture?" That's the real question, right?
I find the fact that the mother who owned the thrift store would just hand donations that were "designer" to her kid immoral enough.
When I donate to a thrift shop, I'm doing so knowing that I'll help people be employed there, and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price.
People who do this stuff always try to rationalize it, but at the end of the day they are stealing from all of us by passing the costs of their behavior onto us through higher prices.
Someone who is truly self-interested will strive to live in harmony with reality and with other people, instead of trying to constantly deceive and manipulate.
They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others.
In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't.
Religion and altruism teach that your self-interest (at least in this world) is in opposition to morality. You can either help yourself, OR be good, but not both. The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both.
"Someone who is truly self-interested will strive to live in harmony with reality and with other people, instead of trying to constantly deceive and manipulate."
why?
"They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others."
less efficient in what way?
"In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't."
i do. well, actually i really don't know, but nothing in the text really made me think he wasn't.
"The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both."
i'll be sure to keep that in mind. it sounds so convenient.
It's funny, but this (seemingly blind) trust is why I like shopping in the Western world. As someone who never abuses it, it makes my life a lot easier.
By contrast, in India everyone's tried every variant of this scam. The net result? Shopkeepers don't accept returns and buying things is a combative experience.
I guess what I'm trying to say is "This is why we can't have nice things".
So true. Not even western world, the US. In my travels I have never found a place that is as open and easy to return stuff as America. Even the same company has different return policies depending on the country. H&M has 30 day return for cash with tag & receipt. H&M Brussels will not give your money back, only credit. It might even be only 14 days their I forget.
We pay less of a risk premium in the US. Some of these scams will drive that up.
Except that REI isn't going from a normal return policy to a draconian return policy. It's going from the most unbelievably lenient and forgiving policy to something that's still far more lenient and forgiving than anyone else offers. I don't think it's quite a fair comparison.
The justification people have for their actions is interesting. The mother thought she was "outfoxing" the rich, the writer gave himself rules to follow. I can feel a little empathy for being vulnerable to tricking yourself like this.
There seems to be a suspiciously large dose of "How smart I was to exploit the trusting nature of people" even if he makes it clear that what he was doing was illegal.
If I had to guess, the moral compass is not truly reset - I see a future ether as a CEO or a Wall Street Hedge fund trader for this person.
I once switched my laptop hard drive with a portable one bought at the store, by removing the portable's case and swapping that drive with my laptop's. I then had the new 500gb one in my laptop and an old 120gb in a new portable housing case. I joked to my friend who was with me that I could just return the now 120gb drive back to the store no questions asked. He told me I was an idiot if I didn't; he didn't think of it as stealing as I did. Unfortunately I don't think that mindset is uncommon with our society. What's worse is being moral can be seen as weak and stupid by those who don't see the long term benefits of having a moral population. (Probably aided by the con man often glorified as extremely clever and smart in media, when often he's just taking advantage of people's good will e.g. Catch Me If You Can, Matchstick Men, maybe 21 and Oceans 11. But people love someone smarter than everyone else so they want to emulate that) On the bright side most of the brighter people I know have good ethics.
While it's easy to get shocked at some of the author's behavior, I personally don't think it's out of the ordinary. People lie to save money or avoid blame. Examples:
- I have a friend who works at an LA Wal-Mart doing returns. You'd be blown away at the things people will bring back. My favorite is a raw turkey post-Christmas that someone didn't cook all the way.
- People lie to tech support all the time. "Oh I don't know what happened. I never logged in yesterday!" ... actually, the log file says you did.
- My sister-in-law works at a bank. The stories people will tell to fight overdraft fees are hilarious.
Pulling a con is very similar to being a hacker (the good or bad kind, your choice). You find weaknesses in a system and exploit them. Finding and exploiting them becomes a rush and pulling the con off can be just as rewarding as the financial gains (or more so). Creating a persona and successfully acting it out becomes almost an addiction.
Back when I was into fraud I was always looking for loopholes and weaknesses. Most of them I didn't exploit because the risk / reward ratio wasn't good enough. But there were still plenty of "good" ones. Store doesn't check serial numbers on returns? Buy a new item and return a broken one in its place. Store lets you do self-checkout on high ticket items? Use stolen credit cards cloned onto gift cards. Mail drop photocopies your ID? Make a fake ID with matching foreground and background contrast so the B&W copy looks black. Get online access to someone's bank or credit card with no additional info? Change the mailing address and request a new card (and PIN).
The perverse ethics of the author were apparent from the start "[I operated in a time] before you had to show ID, sign a slip of paper and answer a battery of questions from the always skeptical supervisor." The offended tone of the author is hardly appropriate given that this batter of questions was designed precisely to prevent scammers like the author, and indeed made necessary by people like him.
Anyway, theft is theft whether it's against a large corporation or an individual.
I can understand that people don't feel sympathetic towards large corporations since they never seem to be criminally liable when they break the law. However the answer is surely to enforce the law equally no matter who the criminal or victim is?
The entire tone of the article is rather off-putting. Through portions of the article there tended to be this sense of having pulled one over on corporate America, when that is hardly reality.
One data point: Nordstroms. They will take everything in returns. For them, customer lifetime value add of a hassle free customer experience outweighs edge cases like the author who take advantage of the system.
I'm sure there were many instances of the author taking advantage of the bureaucracy of large corporations, but that's no particular feat of genius- that's a byproduct of bureaucratic systems.
A writer whose name currently escapes me said something to the effect of, "Love your stories, but never believe them".
I noticed a few years ago how much information, and questions companies wanted for returns. Well--now I
only buy exactly what I need. It's just not worth the
agrivation. In all honestly, I don't like shopping anymore.
I'm tired of being photographed when I walk in a store.
I'm tired of receipts that disappear if you put them
in your pocket.(thermal paper--and yes, I think they know
the receipts will disappear, and the customer will forget
all their transactions are on a database). I'm tired of
lifetime guarantees, but are up to the discretion of the
disgruntled Store Manager--Costco--a grey market watch.
The most dishonest(stealing the most, internal theft) is
usually the Manager; followed by employees. It's a little
know secret in Retail Security. The question is why
are their employees, and customers stealing so much?
65 comments
[ 9.7 ms ] story [ 235 ms ] threadCultural programming has de-attuned you to this fact because we make laws and social custom that mostly keep these things in check (well, except for those 1% folk).
I'm not surprised, I'm glad I live in a society where it's so uncommon to be scammed that it disgusts you so.
That said, that was a long time ago when I was a troubled kid. Now I'm a voluntaryist, and I see that stealing doesn't fit with my set of values. Perhaps I picked up some valuable lessons while experimenting with anti-values.
As for the author, it seems that he never really grew out of it. It's clear that he derives pleasure from cleverly conning people. It's a shame, because that mental energy could be used for good instead of what amounts to scummy behavior.
There is so much more pie to be had when you can bake it yourself, rather than having to con it from others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_(social_sciences)#Economi...
But the author did even realize half of it. A cashier demoted here or docked pay there is only the tip of the iceberg. The bigger cost is how every manager of every corporate store he scammed was put under pressure to look at all employees as insects, for fear that a few bad apples were running a side business doing favors for friends.
I'd go as far as to say that the first world's biggest asset is the collective trust it has accrued over the centuries.
The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest.
So there is an argument to be made for behaving honestly that relies on self-interest instead of calling for self-sacrifice. That is a much more appealing argument, and one I can actually buy into.
Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.
Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?
The proof of that is looking at man's nature and what life is. So all I can do is point in the right direction. To write it all down in a comment would be impossible, plus pointless, because it doesn't prove anything to you until you see it yourself, firsthand, by looking at reality.
> I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.
I am certain that that's not right. Lying, cheating and manipulating will never be a sustainable mode of living. It keeps you dependent on luck and the whims of others, and eventually you will get caught. It's much better to pick any one of 10,000 honest professions and actually live by your own work. It's better to trade with "all of humanity" and live in harmony with others, than to constantly be at war with others.
> Sociopaths for example.
Being a sociopath would be horrible. (They may not realize that themselves--because they don't know any different and/or would rather not face the facts.) Why? Because you'd have to completely give up on all the values you get from enjoying other people---friendships, cooperation, and all forms of romantic love. (Sociopaths may outwardly seem like they have some of these, but in reality, everyone is not only their victim, but also a potential threat when the victim catches on to the game.) Plus the more general issues I mentioned above.
> Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?
I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.
> I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.
Sorry for not being clear here. I meant the premise is "Trust is a common good" and the conclusion is "sacrifice for the 'common good' and be good, or help yourself and be evil"
I actually agree with the statement "trust is a common good." The problem is, people often assume that esablishing a "common good" is something that requires self-sacrifice from individual people. That's not true in general, and certainly not true in this specific case. Why? Trust is _also_ an individual, personal good. Lying, cheating, and manipultaing people is not a viable way to live a sustainable, happy life.
So, if it's going to be said that "Trust is a common good," I just wanted to add, "... and also a personal good." That's why I said the person's point was a "bad way to look at it." Really, it's just an incomplete way to look at it and possibly misleading, given people's typical assumptions.
Anyway, thanks for the chat and it's nice to know that we have some common ground here.
Interesting, This is a trait that I often find myself admiring about the societies in the west (ie) the Trust that the System has in its people that they wouldn't cheat or exploit. I sometimes thought the System didn't 'go after' the people who exploit it, since it simply wasn't worth the Return on Investments to put checks in place to catch them. I recently traveled to Los Angeles and took the LAX Fly Away (a paid shuttle service) to get to union station. Passengers paid for the ticket at the destination in booth located ~100 meters away & and claimed the baggage using the receipt. But if you did not have any luggage or had only a backpack -- you could simply walk away without paying nothing. There are multiple exits at the food court in my workplace,and you could simply walk away without paying at the counter. Systems like these shocked me initially , it seemed like a glaring loophole but I quickly understood the priciple behind it - "the collective trust the society has accrued over the centuries."
The more I saw these, the principle grew on me. I became less skeptical about the intentions of people and automatically started giving "goodness" points ..even to random people. Prior to seeing this system , I would generally employ far more scrutiny about people and assume they had evil intentions by default ( this is sometimes subjective).
But I did find myself on the receiving end once: I was trying to buy tickets for a Bon Jovi concert a few months ago that was supposed to be held at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Since the show was sold out, I was looking for deals on CraigsList.I m not a die-hard fan of Bon Jovi and wasn't desperate for the tickets. I called a few people , a lot of them were selling tickets at the face value - I kept eliminating sellers since they were far , or didn't have the number of tickets I wanted or .. were selling 'crappy seats -20$ tickets'. I finally ran into a Lady who was selling four tickets & quoted 240$ for all of them. I asked for the seat number and I couldn't make much from the seating chart. I thought it might be a overhanging balcony or something. I blindly requested if she could drop the prices, and she offered those tickets for 200$ after quickly consulting with her husband. She kept telling thats what they paid , had receipts.. etc.,etc.,
Since these were hard tickets I had to meet them in person to collect the tickets. I said I lived in Palo Alto and.. after a quick consultation with her husband again, she mentioned I could meet her husband at Starbucks in Palo Alto the next morning. Turns out he works for facebook and it wasn't a detour for him. She handed over the phone to him , we exchanged numbers and he asked about where I worked in Palo Alto. I mention the name of my company .. a virtualization giant with 10K+ employees HQed in Palo Alto. He throws a a few names, and ..bang ..starts mentioning the name of my Manager, My director and others . He said he worked with them a few years ago , and I was convinced I was dealing with someone nice. I quickly obliged to the timing he mentioned and closed the deal.I was trying to be nice & asked if I needed to transfer money over paypal. He said it was alright. I ran into my boss after this conversation , mentioned this dude's name and he immediately recognized him. My boss has a very_common_first_name@gmail.com , and I always wonder how he got that account . Years ago , My boss had received a beta invite to create a google account from this dude who worked for Google as well. He spoke of him as a smart person , I came back to my desk and googled for him. There were videos of him explaining how "Release Management" worked in "Facebook".. and how he approves/rejects check-ins, looking at the comment traffic on the review request etc., This person was totally legi...
Step 1) Find two employees who are polar personalities. Step 2) Attempt to return the item while being completely honest about what you're doing. (books/software/clothes/whatever) Step 3) Get denied. Step 4) Try again with the second employee and mention how the first employee didn't let you.
For example, in my teens I found a hack in the eBay search algorithm. The algorithm was very simple; it simply scanned the titles. So if I input '32GB Apple iPod Black' it would return everything with those keywords. If, however, I typed in 'iPod' it would return millions of results and be unusable. Not everybody realized this, however, so there were plenty of items just titled "iPod."
I ended up generating a 2-page long search that stared with iPod and negated all non-relevant terms (i.e. 'ipod -headphones -case -protector -battery' etc.). After entering in that term I would be given a page of everything only titled 'iPod,' and could pick them up for $50-100 and flip them the next day for $250-300. That was a good living for a 15-year-old kid.
When my mom began to probe after seeing iPods arriving at the house day after day, she started to question me, and we had a long philosophical discussion about whether or not what I was doing was "right." It was legal, of course, but was it right? - this was the much more important question in the eyes of my mom. She felt it was unethical and not providing value - I disagreed, and she allowed me to continue and not go against my conscience.
After a few interesting twists and turns the eBay hack turned into a multi-million dollar, off-eBay Broadway ticket brokerage firm. (We scalped broadway tickets at scale.) I provided no real value other than buying tickets at face value a long time in advance, and marking the prices up 3-4x last minute. I justified it by saying wall-street traders don't provide much value either. I let people wait to buy tickets, and let Capitalism decide who would get the tickets instead of who got word of the shows first or who cared the most. I appeased my conscience by convincing myself that I took the risk away from the venues, who could have waited and charged more, and profited thereby, but either didn't know it or were bound into agreements with artists/shows/etc. I still don't know how truthful that was, but eventually I left to try and start something that will actually benefit people, not just redistribute things and make money.
I wonder now if I was on a slippery slope and got off at just the right moment. I've seen a lot of my ticket broker/scalper friends end up trying to swindle casinos, get caught up in credit card fraud, etc; it becomes easy to feel smarter-than-thou when you're making bunches of money off of others' perceived negligence.
But at the same time I'm not the kind of successful where I can look back and say, "I was dumb and broke the rules and made some mistakes, but look, I made it now!" It's tempting to slip back into a world where you're not benefiting anybody and profiting thereby. So in that sense it's hard to separate my motives then from that of the author. Making money while helping people is really, really, really hard.
The moral of the story: It's difficult for me, at times, to discern when a "cool hack" becomes "criminal theft."
I let people wait to buy tickets, and let Capitalism decide who would get the tickets instead of who got word of the shows first or who cared the most.
That's also the reason why they are so hurtful: People with little time and plenty of money are not usually great fans. People who gets an early word of shows, or cares the most are almost by definition great fans. So scalpers buy cheap tickets so that fewer fans can go, and sell them so more suits can go.
What is best for society is not to give things to those who want/need them most, but to people who are willing to pay the most for them.
This is the first welfare theorem. The "suits" earned their money, and what is the point of earning money if you can only use it to buy things other people don't want? If you want to do redistribution, then it should be done fairly, through taxation, but after the redistribtution is done, there is no better way to distribute resources than on a willingness-to-pay basis
Once you're done with redistribution, then the time for complaining that I can afford X while the starving artist who really appreciates it can't, is over.
EDIT: But to clarify, yes, if a person is willing to pay more for something, they should receive it. If you oppose this, then what you really oppose is that one person is richer than another. Hence the discussion on redistribution.
Additionally, your effort wasn't just buying and reselling the iPod, you have to compile the 2-page long search term, and then the knowledge of actually knowing how to do search properly with operators also took time to learn. Both the buyers and sellers could have got a better deal - had they spent more time. But they didn't, and you took the time to do those things for them. Isn't that a classic case of giving up a premium to save time?
Unless my ethical compass is way off ...
i don't follow your leap from the first part of that statement to the last.
it's completely at odds with admitting that austenallred could have disseminated what they discovered and improved some peoples financial decisions.
instead he was rewarded for exploiting an asymmetry of knowledge.
i think the root of this is that some people deeply want life to be a winner take all game.
To address this one specifically, on average, in the long run, if the sellers' listings could have been found/ bought, then the opportunity to do the arbitrage wouldn't have been there in the first place. To put it another way: the assumption would be that he could do the arbitrage because the deal otherwise would be very hard to find.
>instead he was rewarded for exploiting an asymmetry of knowledge.
We are always rewarded for asymmetry of knowledge - it's called comparative advantage in econ, I think. Everyone of us here has a job because there are not enough people to do whatever we're doing (grossly generalized, but I'm just trying to make a point). If we have 6 billions Donald Knuth alive on earth, I'd say a lot of us would be in trouble from a career prospective.
And I don't think it's a "winner take all" situation, more of a "we care about different stuffs in life" one. Financial decisions, despite its importance, isn't something that most people would strive to the perfect at. We don't always optimize for each and every single financial decisions (or any type of decision) in life.
And as for the part where he could have help the sellers or the buyers. Well, for once, if he didn't care about the profit, he might not have acquired the knowledge. Additionally, the question wasn't whether he could disseminate the knowledge, but whether he ought to do so. Let's say if the first time he saw it, he contact and let the seller know, and then that's about it. Why would he have any incentive (or obligation) to search for the other seller and let them know?
On a side note, there is the famous essay by Singer - "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" which argues that it's immoral if you're not spending every single effort you can to help the less fortunate (paraphrase by me). I certainly deeply admire anyone who strive to do so, but I can't really say I could do so.
But it would be victimizing yourself to not make the trade, and instead tell the other person your inside knowledge.
And it's not dishonest, because in a market, there is no implicit assumption that the buyer doesn't know something the seller knows, on the part of either one.
This is especially obvious in the stock market. If I think a stock is a sell at $X and you think it's a buy, we trade, but clearly one person knows (or thinks they know) something that the other doesn't.
Regarding ticket scalping: People selling tickets know that that's going on. If they don't want it, they will forbid you from doing it, and if you do it, it's breach of contract and subject to legal penalties. If not, go for it. There is no reason to sacrifice your own interests so that people who didn't get in on the sale earier and can't afford scalped prices can have their interests satisfied instead. In other words, don't victimize yourself.
Regarding HFT: If you are market-making, you buy at the best price (giving someone a good deal) and sell at the lowest price (giving someone a good deal). Yes, these people could have matched against each other if they wanted to play the game of predicting which way the market is moving and waiting a few microseconds, but you can also lose at that game, so institutional investors don't want to play it. There are no victims here. I assume this kind of thing generalizes to other forms of HFT, except when people/exchanges actually do cheat (exchanges: people don't let people cheat, that is basically your sole purpose for existing).
> The moral of the story: It's difficult for me, at times, to discern when a "cool hack" becomes "criminal theft."
You only victimize someone (other than yourself) if you commit breach of contract (implicit or explicit; fraud is a form of breach of contract) or actually use physical force. Otherwise, you aren't.
tl;dr moral of the story: don't victimize anyone (yourself, or others)
Or maybe they just need the liquidity for some purchase they need to make?
That just means they have knowledge you don't have about an even better investment.
Or, they actually need to spend the money (e.g. buy groceries) and they still want to do the trade and appreciate the liquidity, no matter what knowledge you have.
Theoretically, everyone who ever buys or sells could make money. They just have to be trading on different time-frames, different entry/exit strategies, and/or have different risk tolerance.
I do agree with your overall point.
Similarly why is ticket buying and selling a Con? Long-hold Time frames and upfront-risk are a very legitimate way to add value.
Is it possible that there is some cultural/educational/somethingelse deep-seated mooring that does not see this as "hard-work" and instead as profiteering?
I read the parent as being pretty aware that those are distinct activities and that a confidence scam is solidly across an ethical dividing line most people would agree on -- but also aware that ethics can be seen on a continuum and that there are other dimensions to it beyond whether or not deception is involved.
And that taking advantage of ignorance/misunderstanding has something in common with cultivating it.
> Is it possible that there is some cultural/educational/somethingelse deep-seated mooring that does not see this as "hard-work" and instead as profiteering?
Is it more or less likely that the parent is in such a grip, or that more of us are in the grip of a market-oriented mythos where all profit received is simply profit due from hard work?
Which belief is more convenient, and more likely to be compromised by an opportunity to benefit from it?
The original ticket offices could put up their prices to the point where touting wasn't viable, but this would put people off their productions and also make them less accessible to poorer people.
MLMs add little value most of the time. I feel like they're more con than anything.
I'm glad you're questioning the natural arbitrage opportunity. It's something I hadn't been able to put into words, but I think you've done a good job articulating it.
"Are you creating more value than you capture?" That's the real question, right?
When I donate to a thrift shop, I'm doing so knowing that I'll help people be employed there, and also help out folks who need clothes for a decent price.
People who do this stuff always try to rationalize it, but at the end of the day they are stealing from all of us by passing the costs of their behavior onto us through higher prices.
In your mind, does that mean it's immoral for someone well off to shop at a thrift store?
They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others.
In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't.
Religion and altruism teach that your self-interest (at least in this world) is in opposition to morality. You can either help yourself, OR be good, but not both. The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both.
why?
"They will focus on producing real value they can trade, instead of the less efficient strategy of stealing from others."
less efficient in what way?
"In other words, do you think the author was happy? I don't."
i do. well, actually i really don't know, but nothing in the text really made me think he wasn't.
"The truth is that they are the same thing and you can do both."
i'll be sure to keep that in mind. it sounds so convenient.
By contrast, in India everyone's tried every variant of this scam. The net result? Shopkeepers don't accept returns and buying things is a combative experience.
I guess what I'm trying to say is "This is why we can't have nice things".
We pay less of a risk premium in the US. Some of these scams will drive that up.
Yup. Thanks to the scammers, even REI has limited their return policy: http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021116265_r...
If I had to guess, the moral compass is not truly reset - I see a future ether as a CEO or a Wall Street Hedge fund trader for this person.
- I have a friend who works at an LA Wal-Mart doing returns. You'd be blown away at the things people will bring back. My favorite is a raw turkey post-Christmas that someone didn't cook all the way.
- People lie to tech support all the time. "Oh I don't know what happened. I never logged in yesterday!" ... actually, the log file says you did.
- My sister-in-law works at a bank. The stories people will tell to fight overdraft fees are hilarious.
Back when I was into fraud I was always looking for loopholes and weaknesses. Most of them I didn't exploit because the risk / reward ratio wasn't good enough. But there were still plenty of "good" ones. Store doesn't check serial numbers on returns? Buy a new item and return a broken one in its place. Store lets you do self-checkout on high ticket items? Use stolen credit cards cloned onto gift cards. Mail drop photocopies your ID? Make a fake ID with matching foreground and background contrast so the B&W copy looks black. Get online access to someone's bank or credit card with no additional info? Change the mailing address and request a new card (and PIN).
Anyway, theft is theft whether it's against a large corporation or an individual.
I can understand that people don't feel sympathetic towards large corporations since they never seem to be criminally liable when they break the law. However the answer is surely to enforce the law equally no matter who the criminal or victim is?
One data point: Nordstroms. They will take everything in returns. For them, customer lifetime value add of a hassle free customer experience outweighs edge cases like the author who take advantage of the system.
I'm sure there were many instances of the author taking advantage of the bureaucracy of large corporations, but that's no particular feat of genius- that's a byproduct of bureaucratic systems.
A writer whose name currently escapes me said something to the effect of, "Love your stories, but never believe them".