op/ed: on scammers
by Alphaville Herald on 18/05/04 at 10:33 am
by humdog
i think there are a few things that are interesting about scammers, and i don’t see anybody mentioning them, so i will.
scammers are interesting to me because they are somehow able to cleanly divide the values they hold “in game” from the values they hold “out of game” or as the rest of us say, “in real life”. scammers seem to think that there is a difference between “vr” and “rl”, like there was an actual physical and psychological barrier between the two states of being (for want of a better word.
just about every scammer i have spoken with has said something to the effect of “yeah i am a real shithead here, but in my real life, i am a nice person.” when scammers say this to me, i don’t believe them. i also think that on some level, they don’t believe it either, or they would not need to come up with the interesting defenses they have for their behavior: “i am an instrument of God” and “i am here to teach people not to be stupid” etc. the “instrument of God” or “God is on our side” defense is historically the last refuge of monsters: see, for example, the defenses and justifications used by belligerent nations in war.
scammers are manipulators. they work the rules and the system, and they rely on other people’s assumptions of good faith. i have heard scammers defended as brilliant, thinking, adventurous and disaffected people who are exploring the game. i think part of this is true. i think that game designers expect people to play against the rules, to some extent. but i also think that this brilliant and rebellious adventurousness does not absolve scammers of responsibility for hurting real people.
but i also think that scammers are hugely clueless in this one area, and that is that they seem willfully naive relative to the human cost of their manipulative behavior, or, when they are not being willfully ignorant of the cost, they are kind of gleeful about it. so they go out into the game-world, they fuck with people, and then they talk about how nice they are in rl.
about 10-12 years ago, when many people were new to the idea of talking with people over the internet, a place where 90% of the non-verbal clues you need to have in order to interpret a conversation are missing, people did similar things. 10-12 years ago, people used to meet each other online, write words (and words are mostly empty of any meanings except the meanings that we assign and the meanings that other people inject them with)and “fall in love”. people would get very intimate. they’d tell the invisible friend on the other side of the screen things, that in some cases, they would not tell spouses etc. in some cases, relationships in real life were ruined over this. the ruins came as surprises to some people who felt that “in chat” was different than “out of chat”. in the cases of those ruined relationships, they learned that “in game” and “out of game” were taking place in the same “rl”.
scammers are manipulators. they open their mouths and words come out. the words don’t mean anything because a self-identified scammer is a person who is telling you that they will say whatever conveniently leads to the accomplishment of their present goal. i say present goal because the goal may change, in a whimsical way.
someone in my house has invited a so-called reformed scammer in as a roomie. i don’t think reformed scammers exist. i think scammers say whatever they need to say to get whatever it is they want from whoever it is they are scamming.
TBT
May 18th, 2004
(just about every scammer i have spoken with has said something to the effect of “yeah i am a real shithead here, but in my real life, i am a nice person.” when scammers say this to me, i don’t believe Them.)
Glad you said that(YOU DONT BELEIVE THEM) because these people are scum, they are theives, lowlives and crooks, criminals no matter how you word it and their virtual life isn’t any different in real life. Remember its a REAL person controlling the virtual one who is doing the scamming and harm to the players and w/o that real person the virtual one would be harmless. A virtual avatar doesn’t know how to be an asshole and scam people to harm, it takes a real person to control and manipulate that avatar into doing those things..
Ok Coco come tell me how i’m if a seller or a bot user and i am the same as them? LOL
Cocoanut
May 18th, 2004
Ha ha, TBT. No, I’m not going to say you are the same as they are. You have made it clear that while you see nothing wrong with botting and selling the proceeds, you dislike the scammers doing people out of their money and items (and, I might add, often adding insult to injury while doing so).
I don’t equate the two any more than you do.
I agree with your assessment of scammers, and I have a similar low opinion of griefers. I think you are wrong to let yourself off the hook regarding the rules of the game, as I’ve said before. But I would agree with you that scammers are worse. Scamming indicates a personality disorder, imho.
It’s an interesting distinction you bring up here. We have three categories:
1. Scammers without exception exist to cause others grief, and to cheat individuals out of thingsfor their own fun and/or profit.
2. Griefers often (but with exceptions) exist to cause others grief, but unless they are scammers also, don’t actually steal from other individuals.
3. Bot users and makers don’t intend to cause grief to or to cheat to any individual player.
As I see it, that puts the bot users and makers on a far higher plane than the scammers. But they are more dangerous than the griefers (who can be kicked and banned), in that they affect the balance of the game on whole.
Many of the bot users and makers also suffer from a sort of strange morality that presumes that all games really have no rules. Or they may decide that the some of the rules, as determined by the game maker, aren’t good rules. (Selective rule ignoring/civil disobedience.) Or they may think they are doing individual players a service, and perhaps they also believe they are doing the game itself a service.
In any case, bot users and makers are more like rogue businessmen, while scammers are crappy people, and you just explained why scammers are crappy people better than I could. Needless to say, I’m against the rogue businessmen as well, both in game and irl.
coco
humdog
May 18th, 2004
i put bots in a different category entirely. i don’t see bots as scams. more later.
TBT
May 18th, 2004
Okay and i agree with some of what you say..
“As I see it, that puts the bot users and makers on a far higher plane than the scammers. But they are more dangerous than the griefers (who can be kicked and banned), in that they affect the balance of the game on whole.”
This is far wrong.. You would rather have griefers who run around causing havoc and fights in houses etc or rather have people have their hard earned game money stolen from them as opposed to someone using a bot to create game money because it put the game economy off balance? That’s rather silly..
Seriously whats the difference if i spent the 10 hours earning the money bot or not, it was me a person and i was watching it run, i mean i did it and earned the cash, sold it to john doe sim and he is happy with his new couple hundred k to play with.. What unbalance is that or danger to the economy is that?
Theres a reason why the others get banned and not the bot users and that is a simply because even the game creators see the others as more of a danger, nuisance or in-game problem to other players and cause disruption in the game.. The bot users are hidden don’t bother with players and don’t go about causing troubles for players..
Cocoanut
May 18th, 2004
“You would rather have griefers who run around causing havoc and fights in houses etc or rather have people have their hard earned game money stolen from them as opposed to someone using a bot to create game money because it put the game economy off balance?”
No. I said the bot users were on a higher plane than the scammers.
coco
Mimi E
May 18th, 2004
Hey now..I’m not living at your house to scam anyone. I’m actually really nice to all the visitors that come by..you can ask anyone that’s come since I was made a roomie. I helped a newbie who didn’t know how to go to different houses, and I warned her not to go to any houses that say “FREE MONEY” on them. Please get to know me before you talk shit. Everything isn’t always as it seems.
TBT
May 18th, 2004
mimi what are you talking abnout and who is it directed at? lol
Mimi E
May 18th, 2004
lol, nvm it’s no biggie. Forget I even posted anything
I can understand why Humdog isn’t happy about me living at her house. Maybe we can talk? Just not by posting here lol.
RB
May 18th, 2004
I think mimi has the wrong thread maybe TBT.
And agreed about your comments on scammers in your post way up top.
Scammers and griefers are trash. They provide no useful service or function and must be gotten rid of. They have mental issues in RL and are never nice people.
- RB
Urizenus
May 18th, 2004
silly Mimi was actually referring to the *article* — how retro.
this line, I think, and I wonder who “someone” is: “someone in my house has invited a so-called reformed scammer in as a roomie.”
Mimi E
May 18th, 2004
Lol, yes. Silly me!
humdog
May 19th, 2004
“Hey now..I’m not living at your house to scam anyone. I’m actually really nice to all the visitors that come by..”
–mimi
believe this has been addressed.
New Scammer In AV
May 19th, 2004
*Takes notes on what Humdog says to become a better scam artist* Thank you very much.
Funky
May 19th, 2004
I already mentioned once that scammers cannot be nice persons in RL, because nice persons in RL are not able to consciously scam people online. Sure, scammers may be nice in RL, but only because had they shown their true self (being mean and rude to others and stealing their wallet) it would have real repercussions. And they’re to sissy to take that risk. That’s why they use an online game with no repercussions while at the same time still being able to hurt people by stealing their hard earned money.
Nick
May 25th, 2004
First of all, TBT, words hurt. Wow..I *was* a scammer, but as you said, there’s real people behind the screens. Now you’re calling us “scum” because of what we do in game? Pffsht.
Jason
Dec 11th, 2007
I believe that people scam other for different reasons. Some do it for greed for money, others do it simply for the thrill. And some do it for revenge.I have a reformed scammer on my friend list on an online game I play and she’s apologized on world chat for all the scamming she’s done and she’s offered to help get everything back that she’s ever scammed. She started scamming because she got hacked and lost absolutely everything, she said she did it for revenge for getting hacked. But I told her she wasn’t hurting the hacker, only getting others to hate her. Now she’s trying her best to make amends:)
Binders Off
Dec 11th, 2007
I think this article is about as dead-on as anything I’ve ever read on this zine.
Scammers (griefers, thieves, call ‘em what you will) always find a way to rationalize and justify their actions. “In RL I’m a really nice guy”. No, if you were a really nice guy in RL, you wouldn’t be ripping people off on SL.
Some claim to be attacking LL. What these people seem to not realize (or ignore) is that every attack they make hurts REAL PEOPLE who are not Linden Lab. There are people who make their living here. There are people who are disabled and can’t get out of their home, and SL is their only social activity. There are people who can’t speak or hear, but find SL to be an open area of communication (at least, until the flippin’ voice thing came in and isolated them even further). To many people, SL is their RL… and as sad as that may be, it’s reality.
When scammers scam, they’re not hurting Linden Lab. Linden Lab still continues to rake in sim fees. They still continue to exist. Scammers hurt people who are just as subjugated to LL knee-jerk laws as the scammers are. So bottom line, scammers are immature, emotionally-disabled scum who have no ethics, no morality, no decency. No two ways about it. Their attempts to rationalize their crimes is just another manifestation of the criminal mind… the same rationalizations used by every RL criminal, the KKK, religious fanatics and to site a cliche’ major fanatic-rationalizer– Hitler. He wasn’t killing Jews. He was protecting the world. Yeah, right.
I have pulled no punches in my posts against Linden Lab “management”. Their shakey platform and outrageous prices is inexcusable. But I’m fair. When they do something good, I let them know. When they do something stupid, I let them know. Scammers are like an old bludnerbuss… it shoots a general direction, and who knows who the pellets hit. Usually, they’re just shooting for the fun of shooting and who they harm doesn’t even come into considration.
If one is angry with Linden Lab, there are much more effective ways to show such than scamming. For those scammers who scam just to prove how “intelligent” and “skilled” and “gifted” they are… I don’t think someone who has to resort to criminal activities to prove their “skill” is all that gifted. You want to prove to me how intelligent you are… show me how you can call Linden Lab on the carpet without breaking the law or hurting other people in the process.
Scammers = scummers.