Twenty of so years ago I paid, in today's dollars, about $150 for 20 sheets of green bar computer paper. The product had been advertised as a grants for which I could apply to fund graduate school, and I suppose in a sense it was not fraud, but the really the value was just dots on paper. A lesson learned by a young person that there is really no protection for consumers when it comes to business people who don't know wrong from right.
Later I was encouraged to sign up for 'unemployment insurance' on my credit card. The product was advertised by the bank, and the literature prominently displayed the banks logo, with no other indication that the product was offered by a third party. It happened that I was employed for a while, and tried to use the service. I was denied. When I tried to cancel, I was told to go to third party, and was given the run around. The bank, who let their brand be used, was not held responsible.
More recently, I was taken by one of those services that makes you believe you are signing up for one product, then secretly enrolls you in another more expensive product with recurring charges. Such cons hope that you will not notice the $15 charge on your credit card. These cons also depend on the limited ability US government to prosecute such frauds, and those in the general population who won't admit that fraud is harmful when they are receiving benefit from the fraud.
In today's Washington post there is a story of such a fraud, a case where one man preyed upon the needy to enrich himself. Because he did a little good with a little of the money, some defend him as a good person who is being persecuted by an out of control federal government. But if the government is not there to at lest provide a basic level of protection us from con artists, at least letting such morally ambiguous people that such behavior is unacceptable if not actually helping the victims, then what is the government there for?
Jeremy Johnson is a man who set up a network of companies with the effective purpose of defrauding charging customers credit cards. As mentioned, this is nothing new. The Internet makes such businesses potentially more lucrative, in that acquiring customers is less costly, but the lack of morality is age old.
The front company, I Works, apparently sold information on receiving government grants for personal projects in exchange for a nominal fee. In reality it was a extravagant network of firms that would charge hundreds of dollars to customer credit cards. Those who were able received charge backs. Those who weren't, and remember these were often people of limited means who were looking for ways to make their lives better, had their bank accounts drained and sometimes incurred large bank fees. In the process Johnson and his fellow fraudsters received hundreds of millions of dollars.
This would be of little interest except that so many people are not able to see that defrauding people is wrong. I understand that from one point of view if one falls to a con artist it is because of greed on both sides of the arrangement, but this is not only about a con man, it is about fraud. Yet Johnson is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and one person is quoted as saying Johnson is “one of the most Christ-like people I have ever come to know.' Johnson himself thinks he is being persecuted, and believes he has done nothing wrong. Apparently many of his cohort agree with him.
Why, in the age of wiretaps, are we still stricken with the scourge of con men? I think there are many reasons. One is that some people tend to strictly separate the world into good and evil. Johnson is a Christian, Johnson used some of his funds to help others, Johnson did not actually go to someones house and hold them up at gunpoint, so how can Johnson be evil. Well, he isn't. He just has an insufficient moral compass. It is this lack of sophistication that causes so many of our problems. Johnson is probably going to be convicted of fraud, and is probably responsible for a huge amount of suffering, but none of this actually requires evil intent. All that is required is greed.
Second is the amoral nature of the corporation and the complicity of the overtly moral people who hide behind them. Greedy men like Johnson can only succeed in an environment in which credit cards companies profit off fraud. Sure companies will allow charge backs, and mediate, and if they a firm is no longer profitable the credit card company will cut them off, bus basically such companies profit from consumers not being too careful about their spending. A recurring charge, independent of it legitimacy, is the ultimate driver of profit.
Third is the greed of the sycophants. Johnson spread his wealth among his community. Those who received the token payments from the misbegotten funds are clearly not going to rise up and say their benefactor is a con artist. On the other hand, we can't just blame those who directly benefit. I think too many of us, be us religious, spiritual, or secular, believe that a person who has the audacity to go out a make money using any means possible deserves our respect, forgiveness, and, yes, even a wide berth in terms of legal interpretation. We see this in that person who holds up liquor store for $20 is put in jail for years on end, which a person who forces thousands of families out their home through criminal paperwork is hailed as a hero.
What really saddens me it that there are good institutions that exist to help us understand right from wrong. Institutions that do, at times, so much good. Institutions that have funding and freedom to make the world a better place. Institutions that, at the end of day, make no effort to promote meaningful relationships between ourselves and the almighty over greed.