Jesse Willms, the Dark Lord of the Internet

Re:Jesse Willms, the Dark Lord of the Internet by jlgaddis on Friday December 27, 2013 @06:39PM (#6973152)

> To a certain extent this behavior is nothing new. The 12 CD's for a penny scams I fell pray to as a child come to mind.

I'm not sure that I'd call that a scam. Myself and several of my friends were legitimate customers and never had any issues.

If it were a scam, though, it certainly worked both ways. I worked for Columbia House as a teenager ("data entry"), entering in all those applications that people sent in. We received an absurd number of obviously bullshit applications (e.g.: "Mickey Mouse", "Donald Duck", etc.) -- sometimes one after another, all with the same address and handwriting -- but were told to enter them in anyways.

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Re:Jesse Willms, the Dark Lord of the Internet by hippee-lee on Friday December 27, 2013 @07:40PM (#6973351)

Perhaps scam is the wrong word? Like the online affiliate model, there was quite a bit of fine print that I did not read. Notably the part (I'm paraphrasing here) where I get charged and continue to get charged if certain conditions are not met. As a 10 year old perhaps scam is the wrong word. But, to me, it feels very similar to the affiliate model of advertising online today.

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