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AOL Digs Up Yard for Spam Gold
Registered Coward v2 writes "AOL is planning to dig in a MA couple's yard looking for buried gold and platinum owned by a spammer they successfully sued for spamming AOL. AOL said Tuesday it intends to search for gold and platinum bars the company suspects are hidden near the home of Davis Wolfgang Hawke's parents on two acres in Medfield, Massachusetts. The family said it will fight in court to oppose AOL's plans."
And using heavy machinery does seem a bit like overkill. If the guy did bury his ill-gotten gains there, then he did it with a spade. Surely an old fashioned metal detector would do the trick, and failing that one of those clever underground scanners the archeologists use.
AOL could be made sure to fix any damage the do (grass, trees, etc)..
Have you ever tried to "fix" a tree with a bulldozer?
KFG
... isn't there a way that they could use a helicopter equipped with metal detection devices to determine if anything is buried on the property without actually digging? (I'm pretty sure I saw this on a Law & Order: Criminal Intent once).
I would assume that a non-intrusive "search" of the property would at least be a middle ground between the two sides.
Hagrin.com
Take away all income and possessions until the debt is paid.
.gold and platinum bars, because. . .
.
Someone didn't read the article. His income was from spamming and the only siezable possessions are a used cop car (whereabouts unknown) and . . .
. .
He now either has the choice of living in povery. .
He has already made that choice. For some reason he just likes the idea of living in poverty with gold and platinum buried somewhere. Makes him feel comfy or something just knowing it's there while he's eating cold Kraft macaroni and cheese in the back seat of his used cop car, down by the Connecticut River.
KFG
Because, as TFA stated, Davis Wolfgang Hawke did not turn up at the trial and cannot be found (at least by AOL), but they do have reciepts that he had purchased gold at the time, they believe in order to survive litigation more effectively.
As much as I hate the spammer, I have to credit him that he was bright enough to know how to commit a lucrative crime. People who work average pay jobs but start profiting from fraud or theft, often expose themselves as they start turning up to work in Ferraris and buying big new houses, they just shout to the world "I am making too much money somehow". Patiently buying gold is a smart way to work, you just have to know when to quit so you can spend your cash, away from the scene of the crime. I guess DWH has done just this.
Personally, I can see the logic in hunting in the parents garden, as it seems he was living there when he was aquiring the gold. But isn't it more likely he has just taken them wherever he has gone?
If this were really happening, what would you think?
He converted it all to gold... Which isn't such a bad idea the way the dollar is devaluing. Then he disappeared, presumably to come back and get it when AOL have given up.
People are creatures of habit and familiarity, he's probably hidden it somewhere he's familiar with and is fairly sure it's unlikely to be disturbed. Places he's visited regularly, holidayed, relatives etc. The more often he's been there the greater the familiarity and the greater the chance he's hidden it there. AOL are going after the logical first target.
Deleted
I first thought that this posting was a spoof only to check that it is real. This shows how low can AOL get. After sacking half of its workforce it wants to dig backyards. Is it not digging its own graveyard...?
...if they dug up my back garden, they'd find 5 years worth of unsolicited ISP CDs they used to send me - oh, let's call them spam for the sake of argument - and bloody annoying they were too!
True, but assuming AOL gets permission from a court to search the area, they really have no motivation to be less destructive than they're allowed to be. If they can demonstrate to a judge that there's reasonable cause to believe that the couple are protecting a cache of misbegotten goods, and one of their goals is also to make a point to the world/public about spamming and how it's not a good thing to do, then it would make sense that they would try and argue for the most destructive method of searching available.
I'd say that the best way to do it would be to go in there with heavy equipment, and just run all the dirt on the property down to a depth of about six feet or so through a sifter. It's probably reasonably cheap from AOL's perspective (all you need is a backhoe and a separator/sifter -- that's probably not the right term for it, but you've probably seen the machines that do this), and it creates a nice TV image if what you want to show is a spammer/family-of-spammer getting their lives trashed.
A whole lot of people out there really hate spammers; it's one of those things that pretty much everybody hates and has to deal with, and the idea that people who profited (potentially) from spam are getting their lives turned upside down isn't necessarily a bad PR move. Of course, it could easily backfire if the people in question can portray themselves as the victims, but if they're sufficiently uncharismatic, don't think for a moment that the American public won't be beside themselves with glee seeing their lawn get trashed. Public opinion in this country has a bit of a vengeful streak -- there's nothing we like better than seeing karma come around and bite someone in the ass.
All depends on who can make themselves look like the good guy.
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