Spammer Gets $11 Billion Fine

Spad writes "It's not a typo, The Inquirer (amongst others) is reporting that an Iowa-based ISP has been awarded $11.2 billion in a case against spammer James McCalla, who was found guilty of sending over 280 million illegal spam emails. Under state law, the ISP was entitled to $10 per illegal e-mail sent. According to the Quad-City Times, McCalla has also been banned from using a computer for 3 years. From the article: "CIS acknowledged that it is unlikely to see any of the judgment money but said that it was time that spammers learnt that their actions would result in an economic death penalty"."

Comments

Bankrupcy?

[srock2588]

Are you allowed to declare bankrupcy if you owe money via criminal court order?

This dude just got F'd in the A.

Re:Bankrupcy?

[dr_dank]

Are you allowed to declare bankrupcy if you owe money via criminal court order?

Nope, judgements and federally subsidized loans cannot be discharged by bankrupcy.

Re:Bankrupcy?

[flicken]

According to the article, the IPS doesn't expect to collect any of the money. So it is likely that they will cancel the debt. Which means, according to IRS publication 525, that the spammer will owe taxes on the forgiven debt.

Let's see... $11.2 billion, at the highest tax bracket of 35%, that's $3.92 billion he'll owe the IRS.

IRS publication 525:

Canceled Debts Generally, if a debt you owe is canceled or forgiven, other than as a gift or bequest, you must include the canceled amount in your income. You have no income from the canceled debt if it is intended as a gift to you. A debt includes any indebtedness for which you are liable or which attaches to property you hold.

If the debt is a nonbusiness debt, report the canceled amount on Form 1040, line 21. If it is a business debt, report the amount on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) (or on Schedule F (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Farming, if the debt is farm debt and you are a farmer).

Chew on your own hay

[suso]

That's ok. MR JAMES MCCALLA read an email a week ago about how to get out of debt by declaring bankruptcy.

Re:Guess they learnt their lesson!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is from http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutsp elling/learnt?view=uk

These are alternative forms of the past tense and past participle of the verb learn. Learnt is more common in British English, and learned in American English. There are a number of verbs of this type (burn, dream, kneel, lean, leap, spell, spill, spoil etc.). They are all irregular verbs, and this is a part of their irregularity.

Now you learnt something else: Google is not an answer to everthing.

Re:Would love to see more of this

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I love my server setup to deal with Spam: greylisting -> postfix -> mailscanner -> razor2 -> pyzor -> dcc checks -> spam assassin -> clamav -> bitdefender -> mailscanner -> ~/Maildir I haven't had a real spam get into my INBOX in months

Wow, do you get any mail at all?

Not exactly...

[flyinwhitey]

"* LAWSUITS AND JUDGMENTS

The filing of either a Chapter Seven straight bankruptcy or Chapter
Thirteen debt adjustment immediately stops any lawsuits from being filed
or judgments being taken against you. If a law suit is pending at the
time of such filing, it can go no further. If a judgment has been
taken, its enforcement can go no further. If a creditor has a judgment
and is garnishing your wages, the garnishment can be stopped. Filing
for Chapter Seven straight bankruptcy may relieve you of the obligation
to pay the judgment. In a Chapter Thirteen debt adjustment, you may be
able to satisfy the judgment over a period not to exceed five years. If
the judgment has placed a lien on your home, that lien can be removed if
it interferes with your homestead. If lawsuits or judgments are a
threat or reality, the protection afforded under the bankruptcy laws may
be an appropriate solution for you."

It appears that in some states the law is a little different, but generally the answer is yes, you can file bankruptcy.

Re:I would rather that...

[BushCheney08]

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've passed up opportunities to get laid because I was just too busy deleting spam...

If they are smart.

[www.sorehands.com]

Let them cancel half the debt, then report the income to the IRS and then file a report with the IRS that these guys are committing the tax fraud and send dicovery documents to to IRS and then collect the reward of the money from the IRS. That way the IRS can crawl up their ass with a microscope, then they still get some money from that.

Re:If they are smart.

[John Hurliman]

Not only that, but this company will never pay taxes again for the rest of its existence. Report 11 billion income on the books, cancel the loan and write off 11 billion to bad debt and carry that forward as a loss eternally. The company now permanently operates in the red even though they (might) pull a profit every year, and they can 1099 the guy to screw him over with a non-bankruptable debt to the IRS that will seize his assets, garnish up to 25% of his wages and destroy his credit until he's dead.

Re:The problem is Visa/MC/PayPal

[scovetta]

Probably not the easiest thing to do:
1. Although most spammers are trying to sell "products", there are plenty (Nigeria, Phishing, etc) that don't.
2. It's extremely easy to accept credit cards (takes about 2 days to use PayPal-- I'm sure it's similar for other companies)-- Placing the burden of spammer-checking on the credit card gateways (or parent companies) would significantly increase the cost to businesses of accepting credit cards.
3. It's be rather easy for me to spam YOUR product in an attempt to (a) blackmail you, or (b) get credit card companies to drop you (in the case of a competitor).
3a. It would be equally easy for you to spam and then claim that it's actually me doing it.
4. What about companies that accept PayPal (or similar)?

Personally, I think we're on the right track. Tougher laws, better technology. I don't think we need more to add more bloat to the process of selling products.