I Beat an Online Course Scammer | Hacker News Reader

I Beat an Online Course Scammer

ryanckulp.com

39 pointstrevin27 comments

"i’m a marketer with an online course. it sells for $2,000 which means “no stupid people allowed.”"

Doesn't it mean exactly the opposite?

you should try standup

gotta appreciate the capacity of the author to write the post in such a way as to make me hate him more than the thief

I agree, the guy sounds like someone really arrogant and while what happened is totally wrong it is really hard to feel any empathy towards him :/

no empathy or pity required, i won!

Such a smarmy, annoying author. First time I’ve ever wished PayPal had sided with the scammer.

you must be fun at parties

Is doxxing a scammer suitable for HN?

IMO, the story was fine except for the doxxing. Personal details like his name and address should have been elided.

Edit: On the other hand, I'm fine with linking to the stolen courses and providing a list of the courses to the community.

I don't really agree. If he had sued the guy as was his right, then all this would be public in the court record anyways.

It's really hard to run a civil society without knowing who is accusing who of what.

bingo. criminal reports always public

The first comment of every story need not be "is this acceptable for HN?" Please consider carefully before posting this. :/

I would argue it's an interesting tale, it's about online scams, e-learning platforms, and payment platform issues. Whether you approve of the author's choices to dox the scammer or not, it's arguably valuable reading.

I would counter argue that it's irresponsible to proliferate doxxing.

And personally speaking, I think it's a shame that a valuable message was lost in the poor taste in which it was executed.

Is doxxing an inherent evil? I'm a big fan of right to be forgotten and the ability to have your personal information removed from the Internet, but even that arguably would not interfere with doxxing someone in this manner. Being alerted to the identity of a scammer and his tactics would be in "the public interest" for at least a handful of years.

My question was "Is this against the rules?", not some silly discussion suppression attempt.

Is doxxing (of anyone, even if incredibly guilty like this scammer) allows to be linked to from HN?

'Any man who must say, "I am the King", three or four times in a single blog post, is no true king.'

Yeah the bragging is strong with this one. I've lost count how many times he said he's smart and others are dumb.

just 2-3 times

The article was definitely informative, but quickly became vengeful at the end. Why go to such lengths just because somebody stole your content?

Edit: I realize that he was trying to make an example out of this person. It makes sense to do this to ward off potential thieves.

One could argue trying to ensure the guy isn't able to continue doing this to other people is a public service. This is not someone who tried to rip him off, this is someone who has ripped thousands of people off as a business model. And it doesn't even just impact other online course developers, as the prevalence of this behavior might lead course developers not to offer money back guarantees or refunds.

The unfortunate reality of online crime, is the likelihood that he ever faces real legal repercussions for his actions is pretty small.

> Why go to such lengths just because somebody stole your content?

Stole your content, along with hundreds of others with the intent to resell and profit.

Having been "scammed" by startup jagoffs refusing to pay similar sums of money, there's something primal about it. You want their head on a pike.

If his offer to remove it if the scammer apologizes seems reasonable to me.

IMO it really doesn't matter if people make an example out if it, they should go to such lengths if they have such power - assuming that won't take away their sanity or much of their time. That's how things change.

Companies and countries starts to recognise these problems as the number of complaints gets higher. They become familiar with the problems so they don't get confused with the following cases.

actually, at the end i offer forgiveness

So as much as the guy seems like a tool, he definitely got scammed, he didn't give up at the first sign of defeat, and he shared his success while attempting to show other people scammed how they could win too. Sure he sounds like "That Guy" from the 80s Futurama episode, but there are some teachable moments here and the net balance is positive for humanity as a whole. We shouldn't condemn a gift because we don't like the packaging.

For what it's worth, I really enjoyed your article. Could be made into a decent short story. Without the bit about forgiveness though :-)

I am sorry your post got flagged.

Maybe this is mentioned in the article, but my first thought was that the license is photoshopped.

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