Quote:
Originally Posted by taustin
It's the way to bet.
But not without cost, for both the local PD and the someone who does.
Let us know how that works out for you. You're more likely to show up on Fark in a story about the victim being arrested for harassing the cops than to get them to care (and spend the money to investigate a crime of less than $200). Seriously.
I know a guy who was scammed out of a couple hundred thousand bucks in a real estate scam. The FBI was only vaguely interested, despite the total amount involved being millions. They're prosecuting, but it will come down to a single count plea bargain, and probably no jail time.
Or, to put it another way, I've worked in retail for 30+ years. In retail, one deals with petty theft, even when the dollar amounts are technically felonies. And if the dollar amounts are small (and we're talking less than $200 here), and nobody was hurt, or threatened in person, in other words, if it's not a violent felony (and it's not), they will only put in a minimal amount of effort. I've seen police balk at pursuing shoplifting charges when they have the crime on video, because of the hours it takes them off the street to process it (and many more hours in court if there's no plea bargain), all for probation and a trivial amount of restitution.
I predict that if BenJammin2 does go to the cops (and he probably won't), they will try to discourage him from even filing a report with them, but will take it if he insists. And they will tell him point blank to not expect anything more. The kind of investigation you're talking about would cost tens of thousands of dollars, at least, and more if it gets complicated. Yes, really, that much, because nobody will talk to the cops unless a subpoena is involved, and that means lawyers and court costs, and very expensive time for computer forensics people. All to recover less than $200. They have better things to spend their time on. Just ask them.
(I agree it would be nice if we could go after people who do things like this, and prosecute them as they richly deserve. But for me, personally, I'd much rather have the cops looking for muggers, murderes, drug dealers, or even real embezzlers, than spending that much chasing after $200 when the card holder isn't responsible for more than $50 anyway.)
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This is simply wrong on so many levels. Again, the stereotypes and assumptions are thick and heavy.
Explain to me what part costs "tens of thousands of dollars". The police obtain the IP address (which the merchant is obligated to provide, according to federal law, specifically the Fair Credit Reporting Act, without court order, subpoena or search warrant). So far, cost: $0. If, for some reason, the police did get a search warrant, they would type it up, take it and get it signed, and send it off (no lawyers involved; the officer types it, and the judge signs it). Again, cost: $0. Once they have the IP address, they look it up on ARIN or Hexillion. Cost: $0. Then they type a search warrant or court order to the ISP. Cost: $0. So now we have the location from which the crime occurred, for a total of...well, $0. Except for the cost of the officer's salary, and we're talking about a total of about three hours work, total, here. And the very expensive computer forensics people? Also cops, and you're already paying their salary, so take advantage of them. Otherwise, you're wasting your tax money.
With regards to what type of crimes you would rather the police investigate, well, we all have opinions. But there is a reason they put statutes against computer crimes in the crimes code, right? Or were they just kidding? And when you have officers specifically assigned to investigate computer crime, that officer isn't going to be otherwise investigating murders or muggings or drug deals.
So your original assertion was that the police don't care (an assumption), then that it would cost "tens of thousands of dollars" (just untrue), and then that you would rather the police investigate something else (irrelevant, especially to someone who is a victim of one of the crimes you have deemed to be unimportant - most of us will never be the victim of a mugging; a large percentage of us will be the victim of an identity theft/credit card fraud; are you willing to just throw that large percentage to the side?)