Greenzap opened for business last week, with every intent of taking on PayPal for the title of online payment portal du jour. But even before the service officially launched, there was already a growing number of people hotly debating the validity of the enterprise. Will this be the next big thing, or just another lollipop party waiting for the suckers to show up?
posted by deusdiabolus on Jun 6, 2005 - 16 comments

Scamming in the MMORPG Eve Online
posted by Orange Goblin on Aug 14, 2004 - 18 comments

"Women Empowering Women". This pyramid scheme is spreading like wildfire in the UK, with huge amounts of money involved. Basically you get a lot of people to put up say £100. The more people you attract to add money to the pyramid, the better chance you have of moving up and becoming entitled to many times your initial outlay. However, no investment occurs; this is simple cashflow juggling. Someone I work with gained £12000 on it in under a month - now everyone wants in the act. But (and I've pleaded with these people) the participants don't seem to appreciate the sheer idiocy of such schemes. Their attitude is "my husband goes to the betting shop, it's just my bit of fun". In the end, if you gain money, you're taking it directly from another participant. This is exploitation of people (normally hard-up, heavily mortgaged parents, it seems), is morally wrong and should be illegal - but it isn't in the UK. Here's a link to a BBC feature on pyramid schemes (aka trading schemes). This really boils my piss, but it carries on because individual participants can benefit from the fraud themselves. I understand women are targeted in this case as men are more likely to get in fights when they realise they've lost large amounts of cash.
posted by boneybaloney on May 3, 2002 - 18 comments

Did you know about the "African-American Slavery Reparations" tax credit? (Neither did I.)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 24, 2002 - 37 comments

Scientologists accused of misrepresenting themselves during the terror attack crisis This cult filled with terrible people (at the top) and saps below. Note the service they claim to provide during the crisis. The problem is that in America (unlike German, say) any one claiming to be religious gets away with whatever madness or evil they want.
posted by Postroad on Sep 18, 2001 - 25 comments

Who do you root for when everyone's a villain? It turns out that everyone involved in the "Internet Twins" fiasco is scum. Sure as hell the biological mother is (she gave the babies up twice and now wants them back; I wouldn't trust her to care for my cat); the woman from the UK is, and now the man in the US is. A plague on all their houses.

Now the biological father, Aaron Wecker, has begun proceedings to gain custody of the babies. I hope he isn't as despicable as everyone else involved. Let's hope this circus doesn't follow the girls around for the rest of their lives. If there's any sort of lesson in this, I wish someone would tell me what it is.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Mar 2, 2001 - 4 comments