Is scamming always the wrong thing to do??....

After reading thread title you probably all said YES.....

I'm curious if any of you changed your mind after reading the following news story.....

Quote:

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Catfished! Girls Scam ISIS on Social Media for Travel Money

July 29, 2015

If you’re low on funds for that big vacation, you could always ask to borrow some, run a Kickstarter campaign … or swindle a couple of Islamic State recruiters. It may not be the safest way to make money, but that’s what three young women from Chechnya, a Russian republic in southeastern Europe, did.

The Chechen women are under investigation for fraud after they allegedly scammed IS members into giving them money on the pretense that they would use it to travel from their homeland to Syria. The ladies got away with some $3,300 before being discovered, according to RT News.

The IS members allegedly reached out to the young women on their social media accounts, asking them to join the militant cause. The women kept in touch with IS members and even sent fake pictures to string them along.

After the IS members wired the money, the “con artists” closed their accounts, stopped all communication, and kept the windfall. They had no intention of actually leaving the country, though one admitted that she used to consider joining.

“I don’t recall any precedent like this one in Chechnya, probably because nobody digs deep enough in that direction,” police officer Valery Zolotaryov told a local Chechen newspaper. “Anyhow, I don’t advise anyone to communicate with dangerous criminals, especially for grabbing quick money,” he added. Wise advice.

The women’s (totally illegal) stunt isn’t the first of its kind. RT News reported that sometimes men create fake accounts, pretending to be females, with the same IS-swindling intentions.

The Islamic State often targets Muslim communities like Chechnya’s to recruit people who are willing to inflict individual acts of terrorism on their own soil. Members have been said to use social media to attract a wide reach of followers. But it’s usually women who are scammed during these arrangements, as they are married off to fighters and often become victims of sexual abuse, the Mirror reports.

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https://www.yahoo.com/travel/catfish...374397897.html

In the long run, I think the question of what the girls did being "right or wrong" will be secondary to people questioning whether getting caught and publicly named while attempting to defraud an organization like IS will turn out to be the smartest thing the girls ever did.

After all, it's not like IS is renowned for its' calm, rational responses to situations.

As to the morality question, I don't think it exists, when a state of war has been declared, only one of the parties involved is playing by any sort of "rules" and half the world is actively seeking to bomb the other party out of existence or shoot them on sight.

I'll be the first to admit this brought a big smile to my face. Same thing when any of these big frauds collapse and these self-deserving scam players lose large sums of money while choking on their promises.

My personality flaws out of the way, there have been some disturbing stories of ISIS sympathizers being arrested recently. Hate to think about a few kids trying this ruse to pay for a trip to the Jersey Shore only to wake up to the sounds of a battering ram and flash bangs. Then again:RpS_wink:

Okosh, this is one of the most interesting topics you have ever brought up on forums. Thanks for the info and a good read! The answer to your question depends on the ethical system from which the person who is making the moral judgement is operating. There are so many around, it's not possible to answer in general.

The practical problem here is that the girls were not careful enough to not get caught. This situation is likely to end up costing them lot more than $3,300 they gained from their efforts, so from a purely pragmatic standpoint it was a wrong to do.