The Internet is Serious Business

Sherardp

You can almost bet your life the Army recruiter showed up. Thats some scary stuff, and all over a pair of shoes correct.

treitz3

Yes Sir.

mrbigbluelight

Demiurge wrote: »

It is funny, but it's also sad how stupid all the people are that did all of that stuff to him. They're **** over others to 'get' some punk kid. Wasting the Army's time. Wasting Pizza Hut's money. Being stupid enough to forge FBI Most Wanted posters.....and on and on...

I don't know. At least it sounds like their Judicial System works.

Demiurge

mrbigbluelight wrote: »

I don't know. At least it sounds like their Judicial System works.

Yes, the punishment for ripping off a pair of shoes = possibly having your life ruined. :rolleyes: I'm hardly soft on crime, so lets just not even go there.

The idea is not to act like the criminal to get back at the criminal. The person who got ripped off was the only one entitled to compensation. I get humiliating him was all in good order. Spending someone elses time and money to get back at him was when they crossed the line and proved they're as dumb as the little e-criminal.

strider

Those guys on Pirate made that kid wish he was never born. I remember their site crashing for hours at a time from the shear volume of people watching Wenzel get his **** handed to him.

mrbigbluelight

Demiurge wrote: »

Yes, the punishment for ripping off a pair of shoes = possibly having your life ruined. :rolleyes: I'm hardly soft on crime, so lets just not even go there.

The idea is not to act like the criminal to get back at the criminal. The person who got ripped off was the only one entitled to compensation. I get humiliating him was all in good order. Spending someone elses time and money to get back at him was when they crossed the line and proved they're as dumb as the little e-criminal.

I don't know.
I think a lot of folks were pretty kind and generous with their time just to help educate this young gentlemen in the facts of life.
At least it helped him get off of square one: "It's your fault for trying to sell me sneakers on Ebay, and there's nothing you can do about it, tough luck".

Well .... now he knows.
Free tuition for that course, too ! :rolleyes:


Here in the Midwest, our community had an unfortunate incident with a young lady named Megan Meier.
13 years old, Megan got mixed up with a "guy" named "Josh" on "Myspace". He built her up, than trashed her. Big time.
Megan, who had a known history of depression, went over the edge. She committed suicide.
"Josh" was actually a neighbor woman, Lori Drew, mother of Megan's ex-friend.

That info didn't slip out until 6 months after Megan was buried.
The Meiers got rightfully pissed off, and dumped a foosball table they had been storing for the Drews (in their garage) in the Drews' driveway, and smashed it with a sledgehammer.

Curt and Lori Drew filed a lawsuit against the Meiers for the foosball table.

:mad:

The local gendarmes ? "Well, there's nothing we can do about Megan, Curt and Lori Drew didn't violate any laws, ...." yada yada yada.
Translation: they have too much local political pull, and got any trouble squashed.

Here's the blurb from the Post-Dispatch:

http://www.zimbio.com/pilot?ZURL=%2FMegan%2BMeier%2Farticles%2F2%2FThe%2Bfull%2BMegan%2BMeier%2Bstory&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stltoday.com%2Fstltoday%2Fnews%2Fstories.nsf%2Fstcharles%2Fstory%2F77D27634D36233968625739800167159%3FOpenDocument

A lot of local folks didn't much care for what was (or wasn't) going down with the Drews.

So: long story short: At this point in time, Lori Drew's successful business has shut down. Curt Drew not only lost his successful real estate job but subsequent jobs, too. Plus lots of other nice little things.

All courtesy of: Craigslist.
Internet vigilante justice at its finest.

A firestorm on the local Craigslist; if Lori or Curt Drew burped, people knew about it.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/11/megan-meier-sui.html

All in all, nice work.

:cool:

shack

All this over a pair of shoes? Some people have way to much time on their hands. They really need to get a life.

Demiurge

It's not about sympathy for a criminal, it's about the punishment fitting the crime. You wouldn't execute a man for stealing a bottle of Coke from a store. Just as you wouldn't merely levy a $500 fine on a murderer and call it adequate punishment.

It's petty theft, which certainly needs to be dealt with seriously (legally -- and if the justice system sucks energy would be better spent fixing that) so that it doesn't turn into worse crimes down the road. However, citizens wasting the time and money of others was no way to levy the punishment against this kid.

I will say it must be nice if a pair of shoes that never belonged those people was the biggest problem in their lives.

I'm just glad this kind crap doesn't happen around here. People merely get run off the forum and the victims usually end up cutting their losses. If you believe people get what's coming to them in the end all the better.

shack

Demiurge wrote:

I will say it must be nice if a pair of shoes that never belonged those people was the biggest problem in their lives.

I'm just glad this kind crap doesn't happen around here. People merely get run off the forum and the victims usually end up cutting their losses. If you believe people get what's coming to them in the end all the better.

I agree. Report it to the police and go on and do something better. It seems like what the "vigilantes" are doing is a very important activity for them...and that in and of itself is pathetic.

jdhdiggs

Remember, we are a republic which means we follow the rule of law as opposed to a democracy were it is mob rule. These people would do well to learn that and let the law settle things.

treitz3

jdhdiggs wrote: »

These people would do well to learn that and let the law settle things.

Agreed, but in my experience and following other people's experience with Flea-Bay, they somehow have [between We-Pay and PP] unwritten internal rules that seem to fly above the law rendering the criminal a free pass to sell.....unless you pay with a CC that offers buyer protection. They seem to have more weight than the law in setting things straight and doing the right thing. I have yet to have the law follow thru with items that I have had issues with and some others that I have followed.

Yes, the punishment does NOT fit the crime in this case. You have to admit though, that the kid was a deserving candidate for getting owned. The statement "It's your fault for trying to sell me sneakers on Ebay, and there's nothing you can do about it, tough luck" proves it. I fired an employee last year after I found out he was selling $1,100.00 amplifiers on E-Pray that he never owned. He never got into trouble with the law even after I notified the buyer who got ripped off , the police, FBI and the CC company of his address, telephone # along with other pertinent information they could use for prosecution.

Had it not been for the buyer that got jacked paying with his CC, he would have been out $1,100.00. PP never assisted him, just gave him the blanket response..."we are investigating....". Last I heard he [ex-employee] was still up to the same thing, using a different user ID. SOMETIMES, not all the time but sometimes vigilante justice can teach a criminal what NOT to do. This case was a little drastic, but I don't foresee this twerp doing the same thing.

If the law won't or can't do anything about it, who will?

That's still no excuse for others to break the law themselves, wasting tax $$$ and $$$ from pizza companies and whatnot, but I still see humor in it all. This might also have an effect on some internet criminals who think they can get away with illegal activities over the web. Will it? Who knows, but I can guarantee that at the very least, this kid won't pull the same stunt. That is, unless he really is stupid.

BaggedLancer

Arguing whether it was right or wrong is a moot point now....it's already been done.

Why can't we all just sit back and laugh about it?

shack

BaggedLancer wrote:

Why can't we all just sit back and laugh about it?

Because it's not that funny.