yesterday at 8:13 PM
After that report from Reuters came out saying that 10% of META's revenue comes from ads pushing scams and prohibited products I'm starting to think a very large chunk of the internet (and national economy) basically runs on scamming people.
And that's not even considering perfectly legal "scams" like shitcoin pumps and politicians awarding shady contracts to buisness people who donated to them without a technical bribe happening. I would love to know how much of the actual economy is above-board business and how much isn't, but the older I get the larger the "isn't" seems to grow. Is the scam-economy 1% of all real financial transations? 5%? 10%? 20%? I'm honestly not sure.
yesterday at 8:42 PM
I think it's worse than that. Even what people think of as a "legit business" like Amazon and Walmart are scamming a significant percentage of their customers.
Selling people mountains of cheap garbage that will break almost immediately is not much different than theft to me. But it's a scam that benefits enough other people like the shipping industry than nobody will rock the boat.
The economy in general is trending more into figuring out how to siphon wealth from people without money into the pockets of people who already have everything. Poor people are actually pretty profitable because they have little choice in spending.
today at 12:20 AM
> Selling people mountains of cheap garbage that will break almost immediately is not much different than theft to me.
Whilst paying less than a living wage. It’s scams all the way down.
yesterday at 10:40 PM
> The economy in general is trending more into figuring out how to siphon wealth from people without money into the pockets of people who already have everything. Poor people are actually pretty profitable because they have little choice in spending.
There are levels to the game everywhere. One example that I can think of is on the timeshare stuff in Mexico where they exploit retired older people into buying fake ownership of something and end up instead just owning a huge debt.
It’s like the world has entered an era of abundance where the game is no longer about value but rather perception of value and ways to pressure your psychological makings.
yesterday at 9:12 PM
Amazon is explicitly auctioning off (and not even second-price auction) search spots. So if you search for something you don't get shown what you search for but something that Amazon extracts the maximum amount of money from.
yesterday at 9:21 PM
I don't consider selling cheap junk as a scam. To me its more an indicator of what consumers want and are willing to pay for.
If we wanted better quality stuff and weren't willing to buy cheap crap they would stop selling it or they'd go out of business.
These businesses haven't shifted from selling high quality products to junk quietly and without lowering prices. We all know the quality, how is that a scam?
yesterday at 11:44 PM
I question that people truly want this cheap throwaway garbage. Just look at all the seasonal produced use once stuff (think Easter, Halloween, xmas, etc.) that people buy because they are cheap and do it for a moment, the. They go into the bin. When I was young such decoration was previous, cherished and stored for next season. Over time it grew. Now everyone buys some plastic spiderweb because it's cheap and the neighbors down street have deco up as well. Mountains or crap.
yesterday at 9:38 PM
One example of scam behavior:
Amazon, for sure, is well aware of bogus product reviews, and does nothing to fix them. The most galling: hundreds of reviews for products not related to the item.
It's okay to have cheap junk, but not okay to fraudulently pretend it's high quality.
yesterday at 10:48 PM
I think, though I have no way to prove it, that the "Amazon's Choice" is also a "scam"-like moniker. In many of the electronic products I come across, it is often a poorly reviewed product compared to many other options, making me think it is the one that Amazon profits from the most.
yesterday at 11:47 PM
Hey, it's Amazon choice. Whatever positive attributes you associate with the term is up to you. Treat is as any sticker a shop puts onto a product. Its the equivalent to Costco or Walmart home brand.
yesterday at 10:03 PM
> I don't consider selling cheap junk as a scam.
What about selling cheap junk while claiming it is a high-quality long lasting premium product?
while it may be legal, and may be hard to outlaw, it is still a scam
yesterday at 11:04 PM
Someone can tell me the product they own and want me to buy is top quality, its up to me to believe them.
Its also a bit of a fool me once situation. If I believe their quality claims and buy a product to find its junk, shame on them. If I keep going back expecting quality, shame on me.
yesterday at 10:08 PM
Doesn't that mean the Microsoft tech support scam isn't a scam then because the customer willingly transferred his life savings to the scammer?
yesterday at 11:05 PM
The person sending their life savings is absolutely partly at fault there, you do still have to pay attention. Your example is very different though, it isn't Microsoft on the other end of that scam, its a person lying about who they are and using Microsoft's name to run a con.
yesterday at 10:48 PM
Unfortunately that is the same mentality that drives offshoring and such.
Most people are fully aware of it, hence why cheap 1 euro shops (nowadays a bit more than that however) are so prevalent across the globe, or buying counterfeit goods at street bazaars.
Most will rather buy something five times, than one good enough that will last.
yesterday at 11:04 PM
I'm in the buy for quality camp, but with rampant enshitification and private equity cashing in on brand cachet, plus the manipulation of reviews and astroturfing, I find discoverability a real challenge.
yesterday at 9:16 PM
I wouldn’t consider that a scam so much as the inevitable result of brand reputation being diluted into nothing. Intermingling is part of the problem, but the real scam is every single Reddit-brand-check for BIFL is always “20 years ago this was a top-tier brand, now it’s garbage. Check craigslist/ebay”
Which is probably a direct result of things like consumer reports going down the gutter.
With the massive expansion of information available today, reputation should be utterly paramount to sort out the chaff and somehow it’s instead become entirely meaningless
yesterday at 8:30 PM
It's surprising most MLM's are still so obvious. AI is going to be revolutionary for scammers. We're rapidly moving past call-bots that are good enough to bilk seniors. Imagine a MLM where the thousands of other suckers lining up to do the same thing are effectively invisible to the mark. That small fee the mark pays will seem like an unusual and extraordinary exception, but a necessary one. Suspicions will be allayed slickly, deadlines will be adjusted to add just the right amount of pressure, and the payoff will always be tantalizingly close. Every mark's online presence will be scraped so they can receive a custom tailored experience designed to press all their buttons.
It's also going to be about as easy to hold a data-centre in Nigeria responsible for scams running on their hardware as it is to prosecute a crooked call-centre in Mumbai today. AI-supercharged MLM's are going to be harder to block too. A call-centre can be blocked by telecoms (even if most don't currently bother). A MLM exploiting multiple forms of social media, websites, and networking apps on top of phones?
We need to start pressuring our governments to devote more resources to police anti-fraud units. We can't rely on journalists do this job.
yesterday at 8:59 PM
>"It's surprising most MLM's are still so obvious."
From what I have heard & read, the obviousness is either intentional or unintentionally helpful, because it filters out people who would eventually figure out the scam (and would take up the scammers' efforts in the meantime). That said, more complicated frauds like what you're describing will likely proliferate.
yesterday at 10:09 PM
that's what you've read, and everyone's read. I'm not sure it has actual evidence behind it.
yesterday at 9:56 PM
I had a phone call the other day from someone identifying as police officer saying they raided a house and found something likely belonging to me and there is ongoing investigation. They knew my basic personal details. What was interesting that there was almost no gap between what I said and their response and voice sounded quite natural. I kept it for a while, because once I had a doctor call me who sounded like AI, but it was actually his real voice and it was embarrassing as I called him out for being AI. Anyway, they tried to get me to fill a police form (they knew my email as well) - this is where I realised this is a 100% scam. The email was spoofed. I reported this to the police, but they were not interested. I thought impersonation of police officer would be a serious matter. Apparently not in the UK.
yesterday at 10:55 PM
There's a specialist action fraud line you can call for this, and I believe they track this stuff. Otherwise it will be like trying to tell a traffic cop about a non traffic offence
yesterday at 11:08 PM
It's a waste of time. I've done it before and nothing ever came out of this.
yesterday at 10:44 PM
They probably get dozens of calls per day about that sort of thing and the anti-fraud unit is already overwhelmed.
today at 12:14 AM
Meta is malware. I’m surprised nobody thinks this.
yesterday at 9:15 PM
Yep. And it's only going to get worse as the population of wealthy older people suffering from mild cognitive impairment continues to grow. They're the perfect target for online scams: still able to use computers and in control of substantial assets but also lonely and gullible.
yesterday at 9:18 PM
If Your Bank Could Detect Dementia, Would You Let It? - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-11-13/how-finan... | https://archive.today/K2zXK - November 13th, 2026
yesterday at 9:07 PM
>how much of the actual economy is above-board business
Illegal drugs are absolutely a single digit percentage of the economy.
yesterday at 10:55 PM
>I'm starting to think a very large chunk of the internet (and national economy) basically runs on scamming people.
It's called convergence. As we import people from India and China en masse, we become a little bit more like them.
With no corresponding reverse flow, they remain unchanged, so the process is stable for as long as we allow it to be (and for as long as the cultural arbitrage exists.)
today at 12:06 AM
I'm not sure what your point is here.
True blue Americans don't scam? Lol
yesterday at 10:27 PM
Land of the lie, home of the scam, the worst of which is the red team / blue team garbage you people devour everyday designed by the political elite to give you a distinction without a difference and keep you distracted and in conflict with your fellows.
yesterday at 10:59 PM
Wait till you visit China.
yesterday at 10:53 PM
A prohibited product and a scam are not the same thing, like, at all. Putting both of them together is disingenuous.
yesterday at 8:22 PM
Dead Internet theory.
yesterday at 8:35 PM
Isn’t DIT mainly about how no one online posting is actually a person?
yesterday at 8:37 PM
Maybe we need a new term/definition. The idea of you aren't engaging with something in good faith.
yesterday at 9:10 PM
yesterday at 9:36 PM
Evil internet theory wooah
yesterday at 9:44 PM
Joining them both, that makes a Lich internet theory...
yesterday at 10:10 PM
Originally, yes
yesterday at 9:25 PM
[dead]
yesterday at 9:03 PM
Well I know for a fact I’m not a person
yesterday at 8:42 PM
Fraud has been the fastest growing sector for about 20 years now. Much of this is movement of previously simply scammy products into actual scams. The kinds of things that you used to find advertised on late night television are now supercharged by Amazon availability, by ads that can directly target likely marks, and by the terrible state of reviews; it's so easy to manipulate that there's effectively zero correlation between quality and reviews on any major site, and paradoxically the sites actually selling products are the least awful at this.
This is only the start, though, because growing even faster are obviously criminal exploitations. Flat out forgeries dominated the Amazon marketplace due to Amazon's binning practices. This ruined the margins and destroyed the reputations of every quality vendor. They have reversed this course, but too late, the quality vendors mostly went under or were bought up by scammers to ride their reputations, and we are left with marketplaces full of fly-by nights. Every major retailer dropped their quality to zero to keep up.
And last, we get to do the brazen criminality, pig fattening scams, tech support scams, identity theft, criminal gangs raiding supermarkets en-mass, and all manner of wire fraud. These are growing even faster, as an aging population has provided ample prey for these sorts of scams. They are generally headquartered overseas and effectively immune from prosecution.
It is not all Doom. These are problems that have been dealt with before. There is an idiom that has softened with use, "wild west", that accurately describes this. The solution, historically, was the posse system, state authorized activity that otherwise looked an awful lot like vigilante justice. We haven't demanded that yet, but we will soon.
yesterday at 10:11 PM
Why isn't there, like, a website that is like Amazon but not a scam, and people actually use? Actually I know many of these, but nobody talks about them and everyone only talks about Amazon - why is that?
yesterday at 11:41 PM
The logic of profit turns everything towards allowing scammers. eBay, Etsy, and many more have started out with high minded marketplaces of trust before they succumbed to the reality that crap shovelers are lucrative.
yesterday at 10:32 PM
yesterday at 10:27 PM
I got one of those many years ago when I was in college. I desperately needed money, so I found a job listing on Craigslist, sent my resume, got a call back, we agreed on the in-person time and place, it was neat.
I show up at a building 2 blocks from school, a random tenant tells me to form a line by the door that was locked. I was confused because I was the only one there. A second person came in, joined the line. Then a third, fourth, fifth. We were a crowd, standing in front of a door, where I thought I'd interview for a entry level job in tech.
When the door opened and the person on the other side greeted us and a good number of people immediately left. More luck for me to get this job. But turns out, it was going to be a group interview. In fact, not exactly an interview. It was a pitch. And a few lucky ones would have the privilege to sell high tech knives. All we had to do was buy the first batch of knives for something like $300.
yesterday at 10:58 PM
I had the same exact experience in high school. I think I found the ad online and the interview was at the mall. I knew something was off but couldn’t pin it down exactly at the time (now I know it was probably some MLM type scam). I stuck around and was “interviewed” but didn’t accept anything. Later they called my house and my parents told them I wasn’t interested.
yesterday at 11:13 PM
> and a good number of people immediately left.
"If any of you think you're too good to sell perfume in a parking lot, leave now."
I hadn't even considered I might be too good to sell perfume in a parking lot until that moment, but it turned out that I was.
yesterday at 9:55 PM
I've gotten a few scam emails recently and they stem from a post I made on a Who's Looking For Work thread here, years ago. I finally tracked it down and deleted it.
So annoying.
They all were vibe-coded websites of teams in "Japan," looking to collaborate and encouraging me to jump on a call. I was initially excited (because of this job market) before slowly realizing I was being scammed. If you're a scammer reading this: KYS.
yesterday at 8:14 PM
I never got a job in 15 years applying on LinkedIn
yesterday at 11:27 PM
My last 4 jobs were all LinkedIn; but the last was 8y ago. They were all Apply Now.
I clicked. Provided a few things. Had an interview within a few days and the offer a day or two later. It was absolutely lovely compared to Monster or ZipRecuiter or CareerBuilder or whatever was popular at the time.
Now the only Apply Now links appear to be resume harvesters or agencies reposting other open reqs.
yesterday at 9:59 PM
I got interviews and two jobs via LinkedIn, in Europe.
yesterday at 8:20 PM
yesterday at 9:28 PM
Some "AI" HR tools will check your CV matches the online social media profile.
It is lame, but some people treat perspective employees as a fungible service. =3
yesterday at 9:09 PM
It makes me very sad that people are pressured into joining a social network in order to get a job.
yesterday at 8:41 PM
Post on the investigation (only 2 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50448222
yesterday at 8:27 PM
I made a job board scraper when I was looking for work. I found job listings from at least 6 years prior. I replied to some of them to call them on their stale listings. Not surprisingly no response. The lack of oversight or quality control is annoying, so make your own
yesterday at 8:36 PM
One place laid everyone off, in the job hunt after that I found job ads from the same company, for my own role, for enough less than I earned that the ad had to have been many years out of date.
As everyone was laid off, nobody inside to contact. Messaged the (by this point former) CTO on LinkedIn, was a surprise to him too.
yesterday at 10:01 PM
Many places post job ads, but they don't really look for anyone, they just need CVs in case they'll need someone in the future. Waste of time.
yesterday at 10:12 PM
Yet nobody ever gets contacted by one of these companies in the future saying they have your CV and they're hiring now
yesterday at 8:16 PM
This is just a drop in the bucket. Hopefully, this snowballs into a sustained effort to enforce no ghost listings. Its understandable from both the recruiter and recruitee perspective, but something needs to change and it’s probably policy.
yesterday at 9:21 PM
Its really bad (scamming everywhere), and worse - anyone who tries to market anything with intentions to be good/not scam, have to compete with the scammers.
Even companies I would not have thought did anything scammy.. I've seen very obvious fake people, 100s, maybe 1000s of AI bots (just my guess) posting fake posts (what's it like having a job in marketing these days?) claiming to love the product, or even bash / make up fake stories about their competition.
Some of this is obvious to me but I can see that a lot of people don't notice and start trying to engage with the bots. Maybe it has to do with people's assumptions that they can easily detect AI - but its only the super obvious / lower effort stuff that's 'slop' looking. Plenty of it looks human, you have to spend time digging in like a P.I. to figure out the truth.
yesterday at 9:23 PM
Also people use the appeal to authority trick, "I'm a doctor, thanks for tuning in to my show, The Statin Scam" and... buy my b.s. supplement that does nothing"
yesterday at 8:38 PM
60% of the internet is now bots, We can come to the conclusion that Silicon Valley is one big grift of companies funded by corrupt VCs and Ad revenue.
yesterday at 11:27 PM
Only 50,000,000 more to go!
yesterday at 8:54 PM
The fundamental problem here is that it took a CBC investigation to bust the cache. These data should be constantly invalidated.
yesterday at 10:10 PM
If job boards were in the business of matching job seekers to open positions, yes.
That’s not how they make money though. They make money by selling listings.
Same mistake that people make about journalism (including journalists). The amount of news reported is a function of ads sold.
yesterday at 7:52 PM
Most online job listings these days are fake.
yesterday at 11:28 PM
I honestly don't think so, at least not in the scammy way most people think.
Most of them are simply deprioritized and situationally used. Most companies with more than 50 employees (and less than 5,000 let's say) want something more like a pipeline. They often have some interchangeable work and might decide to hire 3 SWEs. So they interview a pool and eventually fill the 3 roles. But why take down the listing? When they post they get 1,000 resumes instantly, but every week they get 100 new ones. So if they decide to hire again they just cull the top 50 most recent and take a look. You could be the best person in the world but if you are resume 51, you are ignored.
AI (on both sides) and hiring manager laziness has made lucky timing the most important factor for any hiring chance.
yesterday at 10:03 PM
Run by scammers to collect personal data, asses wealth, get address...
yesterday at 8:08 PM
[dead]
yesterday at 7:55 PM
[dead]
yesterday at 7:49 PM
Maybe I'm old fashioned. In my opinion people who prey on others who are desperate looking for food/job, and who prey on elderly/kids/disabled, are the lowest scum.
yesterday at 7:53 PM
It no longer works that way. Scumminess is now directly defined by how much money you don't have. The more money you have, the less scummy you are.
yesterday at 8:10 PM
As a parent of two young boys, I am seriously confused in what values I should teach them. I am defaulting to traditionally "good" values because that's how I was raised and all I know. But there's a part of me that feels my kids will be at a disadvantage when they grow up, if they carry my values.
yesterday at 8:11 PM
religion used to promise a heaven for those who did good, and hell for those who do evil
life taught me that living well grants you admission to heaven here while you're alive, while committing things society still considers sin makes you live through hell right here on earth
cant imagine how much better/worse it gets if theres more after death
yesterday at 8:14 PM
nah even ignoring religion, there was this story of if you work hard study hard listen to your parents and your teachers and people of authority you will generally wind up more-or-less okay (not rich! just _okay_, and that's okay).
yesterday at 8:23 PM
its the ability to pass down stories which made us the ?best? species
editing seems to be an emergent property :P
yesterday at 9:20 PM
It's not that confusing to be good to people by default,but look out for your self and not be a sucker?
Unless you mean life skills to survive corporate culture. Then you just look out for your self,but give the impression you care lol. None of it's real relationships anyway
yesterday at 11:09 PM
Oh that's the easy part. Those things, I can teach, am teaching, or will teach when the time comes.
No, the hard part is teaching them on how to _actively_ do bad things. To actively seek out people that can be taken advantage, and to actively seek out ways to take advantage of said people. To be in that mindset all the time, so it becomes their nature. i.e. to be a hacker of people and society.
yesterday at 8:36 PM
"A virtue is something that is valuable even if it gives you nothing. A virtue persists without payment or compensation. Positive thinking is great. Vital. Useful. But it has to remain so even if it gets you nothing. Belief, truth, honor … if these exist only to get you something, you’ve missed the storming point." - Kaldin Stormblessed
As a parent of two young boys I've had the same concerns, but I would rather have them grow up to be men of virtue in poverty that can go to bed at night with a clear conscience than the most powerful man in the world without integrity.
yesterday at 9:47 PM
I take this to mean my negative-karma comments are at least virtuous
yesterday at 8:37 PM
[flagged]
yesterday at 8:01 PM
This does crack me up though...
I've got a friend, who is on SSDI due to mental and physical health issues. And yes, they are real. I've known this friend for 20 years, they are a good person, but they have serious challenges integrating into society between past trauma and the MH/PH problems.
Her sister often 'borrows'[0] from her food stamps or SSDI income to pay for her own shit. Her sister's husband gets a new car every 1-2 years, charges his wife (the sister) and their daughter rent every month, and votes in a specific way because 'people are scamming away our tax dollars'.
IOW, "You're right but it's curious to look at the people who think that and how they pose"
[0] - Often without properly repaying
yesterday at 8:11 PM
Please report this to the attorney general.
The money for those payments is taken from me, from all taxpayers, under threat of violence from the government.
yesterday at 8:07 PM
yesterday at 8:52 PM
Am I misremembering that Ontario recently passed some laws regarding job posting transparency?
yesterday at 11:58 PM
You're not misremembering, Ontario did pass a law, but there are exceptions, and you have to trust the Ontario government is actually going to take action (hard to do with Doug Ford in power).
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standa...
yesterday at 9:05 PM
More shocking is, some non-fake postings also turn out to be result of company internal politics and not really to hire someone. They do conduct interviews, but don't select anyone. They probably want to have unfilled positions as a justification for all their failures or for some other mysterious reason.
yesterday at 9:36 PM
Who depends on LinkedIn for finding a job anyway?
Seriously, this platform is a big shitshow - lots of premium profiles posting AI-polished or AI-generated posts, corporate bootlickers, cringe posts, messages from random recruiters who didn't even bother to read your description.
yesterday at 7:59 PM
[dead]
yesterday at 8:01 PM
at first I was just going to say that screenshot of McCovy looks like a cringey amateur rap video but zooming in I see his eyes and I'm unsettled, distracted
yesterday at 9:15 PM
[flagged]
yesterday at 9:49 PM
counterpoint: this is not true