Originally posted by Overlag
that is it 
and anyway, if anyone is stupid enough to send money, over the internet to someone they dont know, they DESERVE TO GET RIPPED OFF OK? 
hey guys, im starting a new game, please all send me $100 so i can start developing it for you 
First off Voss was not a person who just came into the community and 2 days later started asking for money. He spent considerable time participating in the flight sim community and building up relationships in it and credibility. He then went on to create false credentials (F16 pilot, ownership of P51, etc.) of his capability and experience to further bolster credibility in the eyes that he had interacted with online. Then over an extended period of time to continue to foster the illusion of work being done by putting out screen shots of a project that he was supposedly having programmed when no such programming being done.
The fault of the people here is that they did not ask more detailed questions earlier than when Robey did. They had known him online for some time playing online, wanted to believe that a better sim could be built, and Voss used these online relationships he built (the trust and camaraderie he had built up flying and participating online) couple with false credentials (exposed later) to take advantage of people.
So yes, they did not know him personally face to face but they did know him. The problem is, even in real life, you can’t know anybody 100% exactly. Plenty of people know the person that scam them and have met them face to face and have even done research on the proposed project, company, etc. (ever here of Enron, Adelphia, WorldComm, etc.)
But I can’t understand your logic that they deserved to get ripped off and that Voss is free of culpability.
By your logic if I go to London, take the tube, have my wallet in my back hip pocket and then get pick pocketed I was stupid so I deserve it and the pick pocket is blameless and its fine to take advantage of somebody else if they are being, in your view stupid.
Or I forget to lock my house when I go to work and I come home and have been robbed. Well I was stupid and deserved to be robbed because I forgot to lock up .. so the thieves are somehow blameless in the matter.
In the U.S. that is not how it is supposed to work .. our laws and belief in justice is not built on the principal of caveat emptor (buyer beware). Yes, the buyer still has to be beware but we don’t wash our hands of it if they are taken, saying too bad you should have known better or its your own fault so you deserved it.
Which is why Enron and Adelphia and Worldcomm are being prosecuted. Otherwise by your logic .. hey, employees who sunk tons of money into 401Ks and stocks in the company and then lossed it all .. its your fault because you did not do due
enoug diligence and discovered that management was running a scam. It doesn’t matter that they presented false credentials, lied, doctored documents, and misled to give a false impression of credibility and trust worthiness so that you would invest in them. You were stupid in investing in people you
did not personally know and so deserve to be ripped off.
Nice logic there.
And as for the examples yes a difference of scale in the case of Enron. The sad thing about the American justice system is that money matters. When you are on Enron scale the prosecutors, lawyers and government will go all out. But at small claims court unfortunately many times it’s the case that to fully pursue your case you end up spending more money to get legal satisfaction and remedy than you initially lossed.
From what I understand Michael Hobuss resolved the matter when he got the equipment back eventually from Voss that he bought . So basically he was conned into purchasing a server and equipment for a bogus project. He got the equipment back but like a car he paid full value for the equipment and put a strain on his finances to fund and support a bogus project. Even with the equipment back he basically had to eat the outlay of funds for even if he sold the equipment he could not sale it for what he bought it for. Could Michael Hobuss pursue the matter and had Voss possibly jailed for fraud. Yes, but it seems he considered how much more it would cost to do so and the time involved and decided it wasn’t worth the additional lost time and money to do so and basically said give me my equipment back and that is it. It’s a common thing that happens in our legal system that people let petty crooks go after recovering something instead of spending 2 to 3 times as much trying to prosecute them. In my opinion it’s a failing in the American legal system.
But hey, Michael Hobuss deserve it. The people Voss was trying to scam and making sign NDA's deserved it. The people who sent in donations to a fictitious restoration project of a world war II plane deserved it. They didn't need that petty change anyways. If they did I am sure they would go cross country to the appropriate state small claims court and spend whatever money and time necessary to and pursue the matter to gain back their $10, $20, or whatever amount.
They all deserved to be ripped off because they were stupid and lazy and it doesn't really matter since Voss didn't really make anything substantial off of it.
