Fraud, Actions and Consequences: Exploring New Millennium "Values"

The other day, Mrs. Denmarkguy learned that her PayPal account had been compromised... most likely as a result of dubious security protocols on some third party web site where she'd purchased something.

As a result, some $1200 in fraudulent charges were put on her account, before things could be frozen.

Stupid Crooks!

I suppose it says something about crooks these days that almost half that amount was charged at WalMart.com. WAL-MART??? Why aren't you out there buying gold and silver or something else with intrinsic value... if I were a crook, I would....

Oh, wait.

I forgot... crooks are STUPID, and that's why crooks are crooks and I am not a crook.

But that's not my point here.

Meanwhile, at the Fraud Department

Mrs. Denmarkguy was subsequently on the phone with PayPal for a couple of hours, and as part of talking to a very polite and responsive CSR in their fraud department, they eventually reached the part of the conversation in which Mrs. Denmarkguy asks "So you're going to file fraud charges, then?":

"No ma'am."

Wait.. what?

"You're NOT going to file fraud charges?"

"No, it'll just get written off. But YOU are welcome to file fraud charges with your local police department."

I won't go into the remainder of the discussion that followed; I'm just interested in the greater societal implications. 

Ultimately, the "injured party" is PayPal, because their anti-fraud policy covers this sort of thing-- the fraudulent charges were credited back to my wife's account. So now we have a situation where the non-injured party can file charges, but the actual loser chooses not to.

Let's examine that, for a moment.

THEIR Actions, Someone ELSE's Consequences?

I was raised with the fundamental life value that "Choices have consequences."

I also had a lot of freedom to do whatever I wanted... but if you piss on an electric fence, you don't get to whine about the unpleasant consequences. You took the action, you bear the consequence.

Now we have this giant company that faces fraud to the tune of $1200 and they will not even attempt to pursue the matter.

Now the flip answer is "well, they can afford it!" but for those of us who live in the real world, we're perfectly aware that "written off" is not actually a loss to the company, but a loss to the end consumer. 

How so?

That $1200... and a bunch of other fraud loss charges LIKE that will be apportioned out to customers with a nice letter that reads something like "Effective March 1st, your monthly maintenance fees will increase from $7 to $9, have a nice day-- your business is valuable to us!"

The cost of the fraud is indirectly borne by the consumer, while the company continues to make $0.69 cents per share in profits, next quarter.

Whereas I find that pretty disgusting-- and we all have good reasons to be outraged-- I still haven't gotten entirely to the core point:

By applying this metric, we are building and reinforcing a society in which FRAUD HAS NO CONSEQUENCES. At least not "petty" fraud.

Little Individuals vs. Large Corporations

There's also an inherent hypocrisy-- or paradox-- inherent in this situation in the sense that someone can defraud a credit card company to the tune of $1200 without great risk of consequences, but a legitimate customer who falls on hard times and skips out on the last $200 of their $5000 consumer debt will be pursued relentlessly by collection agencies for the next 48 months.

Maybe I am old fashioned and missing out on an essential part of understanding this new "Common Core Math" but I can't get this to add up.

Although it's outside the scope of this article, similar things happen with taxes here in the US: The IRS will pursue someone who struggles to pay $800 in back taxes to the ends of the earth, but if you owe $100,000 and "rattle an attorney" at the revenue agents, they'll be quick to "settle" with you at 1/3 of the original debt.

Now, I'm not some "hairy liberal" who believes poor people deserve a handout... I'm a "hairy liberal" who believes everyone should be subject to the same laws and due process. 

And that-- of course-- is where I feel hopelessly out of step with reality.

How about YOU? Have you ever had one of your credit cards or bank accounts compromised by fraud? What was the end result? Was anyone "held responsible?" Did the credit card company (or bank) credit back the fraudulent charges? Does it seem to you that a lot of "petty criminality" doesn't have any negative consequences for the perpetrators? Leave a comment-- share your experiences and feedback-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Published 20171005 14:49 PDT