Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!telecom-request From: kddlab!lkbreth.foretune.co.jp!trebor@uunet.uu.net (Robert J Woodhead) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 50k Counts of Wire Fraud Message-ID: Date: 13 May 91 01:44:47 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: Foretune Co., Ltd. Tokyo Japan Lines: 30 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 354, Message 1 of 7 ch@dce.ie (Charles Bryant) writes: > In article I (RJW) wrote. >> This swine was using the telephone to blatantly defraud people in a >> callous and totally inexcusable way, and I hope he gets a day in jail >> on each of the 50,000 counts, served CONSECUTIVELY. I'll admit, he >> was an ingenious swine, but that's beside the point. > Perhaps we need a sense of proportion. That's 136 years. It's nice to see the world is still full of straight men. I was merely expressing my moral outrage with some hyperbole. Actually, a fair penalty would be to pay back each defrauded person double the amount stolen, plus a jail term equal to the number of minutes of their time he wasted. Let's assume one minute per call, that would be 50,000 minutes or a little less that 35 days. Also, I noted Pat's attempt to analogise this with 900 number ads; I think that he is wrong and there is a clear difference. First of all, in 900 ads they tell you WHAT they are selling and how much it will cost (even if it's "twodollarsforthefirstminuteonedollareach additionalminute"). Aforementioned swine didn't do that, and that's probably the law he ran afoul of. Second, there is the issue of "fraudulent inducement," of which he is clearly guilty. The same would be true of the "Kiddies, hold the telephone up to the TV" scam. Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs. trebor@foretune.co.jp