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Comment by hackcasual | Hacker News Reader

Just FYI, if you live in the US, what you just described is criminal extortion.

Interesting. Looking up extortion...

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/extortion.html

"Most states define extortion as the gaining of property or money by almost any kind of force or threat of violence, property damage, harm to reputation, or unfavorable government action."

My IANAL interpretation of that would be extortion wouldn't apply here. Because my security deposit is legally mine, and they were holding it on my behalf, I'm not gaining anything. Demanding my own property back is not the same as profiting. If I had demanded my deposit back plus $1, then it would be extortion. Maybe. Again, IANAL. Fortunately the statute of limitations makes me safe, as this was long ago :)

It's not about whether it's "legally" yours (and even that would be up for dispute) but how you acquired it. You can't threaten somebody to get things, that's extortion

extortion usually involves a threat of force, this sounds more like blackmail?

blackmail is extortion

Perhaps "harm to reputation" as the GP says?

Sometimes moral law and legality differ, and I think he was on the right side of moral law.

This is a complex situation, because another party is involved: the parents. The ethics and morality of accepting a payment (even if it also satisfies a debt) to let the son continue to defraud his parents is certainly something that reasonable people can debate.

By informing the parents you are getting involved in a situation you don't understand. The fraud could be reasonable based on previous actions. Parents know but there is nothing they can do at the moment so they decide to let it slide and confront in person when they make a surprise visit. Telling both parties changes that and removes the parents ability to ambush.

I suspect that this is reading too much into it. As noted by another commenter above:

> "Most states define extortion as the gaining of property or money by almost any kind of force or threat of violence, property damage, harm to reputation, or unfavorable government action."

Under your interpretation, if Alice took Bob's lawn mower without permission and refused to return it, and Bob told her he would call the police and report this unless she returned it, that would be extortion. The police coming and arresting Alice for theft is an unfavorable government action from Alice's viewpoint.

Similarly, if you were contemplating suing someone for damages over a harm you felt they did to you, it would be extortion if you told them you were going to sue to so unless they agreed to settle.

If I get something that I own back, I wouldn't say that qualifies as "gaining" something.

I think it's not only extortion, it's blackmail, and depending on how the parents paid their son it may have been a federal offense: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/873

The son was likely guilty of some sort of larceny (theft by deception) and it may have been a federal offense, especially if it crossed state lines or involved the postal system.

Since that is criminal (rather than civil) wouldn't they have to convince the DA/Prosecutor to try the case, which seems unlikely in practice.

Unfortunately, while technically true we usually just call behavior like this "collections".

Even if you were owed money? I could see if you tried to get money but this is money already owed to you.

Collection agencies (or whatever they are called in the US) hound people for money they owe to third parties. They often call your workplace or relatives as a way to get you pay.

For extortion there needs to be a threat, and the threat needs to be unrelated to the thing of value you want. Collection agencies generally just call up, and even if they do threaten to call, since it's a threat directly related to the debt, that's generally not extortion.

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