You're talking about the intrinsic cost of the option, but an option is worth more than just its intrinsic cost. If your options are indeed fully vested, then you could sell them as options on the open market without any need to redeem them (or as you say, from the principal of the investment).
Had they not been caught, it is likely that they may have stuck the cardholder with the bill in the end. Merchants don't roll over that easily anymore.
They don't have a choice. When you dispute a charge, if the merchant can't produce a receipt with your signature on it, they're SOL.
The Denny's piece of the action was only one part of how the trail let to the jerks who were burning up thousands and thousands of dollars of other people's money.
Other corporations' money... In some cases. In one case it was a hotel room that probably would have gone unused if it wasn't for the "identity thieves".
And don't think that even if you don't carry a balance on your credit cards - hell, even if you only pay cash for things - that the prices you may for merchandise and services everywhere you go are no impacted by theft (of all sorts, including this kind).
Not significantly. If the rate of fraud were significant, then you'd see a lot more stores which don't accept credit cards, and you could turn to them to buy your stuff. The credit card companies would eventually go out of business, and the world would be a better place. But it isn't significant.
But usually fraudulent transactions are charged back to the merchant, so the tip basically vanished...
I would think that Denny's still honored the tip (assuming it wasn't ridiculous). Although, it probably is his or her own damn fault for not checking the signature on the card.
Anyway, yeah, it sucks to work for Denny's and rely on people other than your employer to pay you. That's one of the reasons I won't spill any tears over Denny's getting ripped off. Hopefully the "waitress" will get a new job and the Denny's will go out of business. But I doubt it.
You have a problem with the owner of a credit card having a say in who uses it?
Of course not (then again, you don't own your credit card, the bank does, but besides that). I'm saying that they have no way of knowing for sure that he indeed was the owner of that credit card.
It's an overhead you idiot, the single instance may make no discernible difference but the accumulation of those instances does.
How often does someone steal something from a Denny's with a fraudulent credit card transaction? You're acting like it happens often. The fact of the matter is that Denny's is already paying 2 or 3% for every single credit card transaction. That they pay an extra bit when someone is using a stolen card and they don't check the signature isn't a very big deal.
It looks like the worst that can happen is that if you don't catch it within 2 days the losses go from $50 to $500. Definately not an account drain.
The real problem is that possession is nine points of the law. So if someone drains your account, the onus is on you to get your money back. With a credit card, the onus is on them to collect the money they claim you owe them.
There's also the problem of the bounced checks if you happen to have some cashed at the same time. And even if the bank does manage to give you back your bounced check fee, the person you're paying with the check very well may not.
All that said, I still use the paypal debit card for my transactions (just because of the 1.5% cash back they give me). But I don't keep a whole lot in my paypal account, and I don't pay the rent or anything at all by check through the account, so it's really not that bad. Oh yeah, and I don't lose the card in the first place. Yeah, OK, if my wallet gets stolen and used in the time it takes me to report it maybe I'm liable for $50. I'd have to check, but with a lot of cards you aren't even liable for that. $50 is the just maximum (OK, I guess if the thieves knock me unconcious for a week I'm liable for $500, maybe).
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/atmcard.htm "ATM or Debit Card Loss or Fraudulent Transfers (EFTA). Your liability under federal law for unauthorized use of your ATM or debit card depends on how quickly you report the loss." "For example, if you report the loss within two business days after you realize your card is missing, you will not be responsible for more than $50 for unauthorized use."
When I cleaned out my refrigerator today I threw out some food that got shoved to the back and went bad. By your logic it would be okay for some guy to sneak into my house and steal food from my pantry because I waste some of my food.
Sneaking into your house is kind of scary. But stealing food? We're talking about food here. If someone's going to risk going to jail to steal food from me, hell, I'll give her the food voluntarily.
Oh, but wait. I'm a person, not a corporation. There goes your precious double standard again.
No, I certainly don't care if someone steals food from you. Hell, I don't care if someone steals a million dollars from you. There's a double standard for ya.
Not all of us want to depend on the government to take care of our every need.
Huh?
Besides, if you read the article you would see that the police were in no hurry to do anything until he called and told them he knew exactly where they were right that moment.
Apparently they've got more important things to worry about than some dubious report about some idiots stealing money from Denny's. I don't blame them.
Or those of us who purchase products from merchants who accept Discover. Here's a dirty little secret: costs roll downhill to the consumer.
They roll downhill to the stupid consumer. The one that racks up thousands of dollars in debt at 20% interest. If I buy something from a merchant who accepts Discover, it's because the product is worth the price.
Government regulations require debit card issuers to set a maximum liability of $50 if the debit card is reported lost or stolen within two days of discovery. If your card isn't lost or stolen, your liability is $0.
Well, that's just stupid. Tell that to the waitress who served them and didn't get a dime when she could have gotten a real tip from non-criminals.
You don't think the waitress got a tip? I don't see why you'd think that.
One thing that people should realize is that when an anonymous big corporation gets hurt, it's not really a corporation that's getting hurt. It's the stockholders.
I realize this. It doesn't change my argument. If you own stock in a corporation you're completely responsible financially for the actions of that corporation (to the extent of your investment). If you don't like what the corporation is doing, don't buy stock in it.
It's everyone that has a 401(k) or a mutual fund or any other diversified investment. These aren't rich day-traders, these are old people living off this money, or young people trying to save a few bucks for when they can't work any more.
So the $0.50 cheeseburger costs grandma with her 100 shares of a mutual fund which owns Denny's (is Denny's publically traded?) as 0.5% of its holdings $0.000000000005 and costs some rich guy who owns 10% of Denny's $0.005. In the end, I think the world is better for this.
What this guy did was every bit as noble as if he tackled a purse-snatcher.
You mean the guy who stole from Denny's? I wouldn't go that far.
I think you have "thief" confused with thief. They really stole his money.
How do you know this?
And why wouldn't the people at Denny's help him? He has his credit card and ID to prove that he is who he says he is.
Did they even check his ID? They certainly didn't check the last guy's ID that claimed to be him.
If someone stole your car, would you say, "So what? They're only stealing from the insurance company."?
No. I don't have insurance.
A defrauded man, his credit card companies, restaurant & hotel employees, and the police come together to arrest two thieves and somehow this is a bad thing?
Assuming it's true, it's not a bad thing. The end result, anyway. I think the means are a bit suspect.
This is the way things should work, people taking responsibility and looking after their own interests and those of others.
Bah, I can see looking out for the interests of others. But not for the interests of Discover Card or whatever other megacorp. Especially Discover Card, though. Discover Card is evil.
I don't care about the incident itself (if it actually happened). I don't care that some credit card thief got caught. I enjoy arguing about it, but I don't care...
I've seen examples of charities becoming private corporations (typically because they want to move into political endorsements that support their cause but violate their charitable legal status)
They're still a non-profit organization, though. Just not a 403(c) charity.
and of private companies going public. Logically, those two transitions can happen sequentially.
Except that a non-profit organization can't go public, since it doesn't have any shareholders.
If the vendor is liable in the case of a fraudulent purchase, why don't they demand signitures?
Because the inconvenience of demanding signatures isn't worth the few dollars they lose every time someone buys a cheeseburger and fries and doesn't pay. It's the same reason they offer free refills and that if you complain about your order they give you a new one and don't even ask for the old one back.
Try to buy something expensive without a signature, on the other hand, and you won't get very far. In fact, when I buy something expensive on a credit card I usually am asked for ID.
Because it's people who are stealing money like that that make busienss costs higher (when they have to pay back the credit card companies for fraudulent charges they have to make it up somehow).
If you care about the miniscule amount of money that these businesses lose to credit card fraud, you wouldn't use a business which takes credit cards in the first place, since they're paying something like 2-3% for every single credit card transaction.
Do you enjoy paying a "criminal tax" to keep some lazy bastard in a life of luxury? Because that's what your doing right now every time you buy something from somewhere that takes credit cards.
That's why I use my paypal debit card, which pays me 1% on every "credit card" purchase I make. 1% is much higher than the criminal tax. 1 out of 100 purchases are not fraudulent (certainly not at a business like Denny's or a hotel, anyway).
Hopefully someone finds your CC number someday so you, too, can find just how unimportant the whole matter is.
I hope so too. Screw the credit card companies. I'd rather a petty thief has the money.
If it's no big deal, paste your name, CC number, expiry date, verification code, billing address and any other relevant information in a reply to this post.
If I did that I'd be negligent and the credit card company could sue me.
I'm not upset. I really don't care. Some guy stole some money from Discover Card. Some other guy caught them. The thief went to jail. This is news? Even if it were true, which I have my doubts about, so what?
I think it's interesting that so many people were willing to go to such lengths on the say-so of some random guy with a credit card. The fact that those people were willing to do that is precisely why credit card theft is so easy in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
provided the virus isn't released in the wild, which is easy to ensure
You can't win the prize without releasing the virus into the wild.
You're talking about the intrinsic cost of the option, but an option is worth more than just its intrinsic cost. If your options are indeed fully vested, then you could sell them as options on the open market without any need to redeem them (or as you say, from the principal of the investment).
What constitutes a virus, anyway? Mac executables are writable, right? If so, writing a virus is pretty trivial.
Two buttons are _more difficult_, not _too difficult_.
How is two buttons more difficult than one? Maybe we should switch to a one key keyboard, too.
Maybe it'd be legal to do this with Blockbuster DVDs. After all, there aren't any late fees with Blockbuster.
Had they not been caught, it is likely that they may have stuck the cardholder with the bill in the end. Merchants don't roll over that easily anymore.
They don't have a choice. When you dispute a charge, if the merchant can't produce a receipt with your signature on it, they're SOL.
You obviously didn't RTFA, or this thread.
You are wrong.
The Denny's piece of the action was only one part of how the trail let to the jerks who were burning up thousands and thousands of dollars of other people's money.
Other corporations' money... In some cases. In one case it was a hotel room that probably would have gone unused if it wasn't for the "identity thieves".
And don't think that even if you don't carry a balance on your credit cards - hell, even if you only pay cash for things - that the prices you may for merchandise and services everywhere you go are no impacted by theft (of all sorts, including this kind).
Not significantly. If the rate of fraud were significant, then you'd see a lot more stores which don't accept credit cards, and you could turn to them to buy your stuff. The credit card companies would eventually go out of business, and the world would be a better place. But it isn't significant.
But usually fraudulent transactions are charged back to the merchant, so the tip basically vanished...
I would think that Denny's still honored the tip (assuming it wasn't ridiculous). Although, it probably is his or her own damn fault for not checking the signature on the card.
Anyway, yeah, it sucks to work for Denny's and rely on people other than your employer to pay you. That's one of the reasons I won't spill any tears over Denny's getting ripped off. Hopefully the "waitress" will get a new job and the Denny's will go out of business. But I doubt it.
Of course you didn't have to pay, it's a well known fact that that fraud has absolutely no effect on the cost of credit.
You are assuming I have credit card debt with Discover Card. Actually, I do, but it's at 0%. And since this incident, it hasn't gone up.
You have a problem with the owner of a credit card having a say in who uses it?
Of course not (then again, you don't own your credit card, the bank does, but besides that). I'm saying that they have no way of knowing for sure that he indeed was the owner of that credit card.
It's an overhead you idiot, the single instance may make no discernible difference but the accumulation of those instances does.
How often does someone steal something from a Denny's with a fraudulent credit card transaction? You're acting like it happens often. The fact of the matter is that Denny's is already paying 2 or 3% for every single credit card transaction. That they pay an extra bit when someone is using a stolen card and they don't check the signature isn't a very big deal.
It looks like the worst that can happen is that if you don't catch it within 2 days the losses go from $50 to $500. Definately not an account drain.
The real problem is that possession is nine points of the law. So if someone drains your account, the onus is on you to get your money back. With a credit card, the onus is on them to collect the money they claim you owe them.
There's also the problem of the bounced checks if you happen to have some cashed at the same time. And even if the bank does manage to give you back your bounced check fee, the person you're paying with the check very well may not.
All that said, I still use the paypal debit card for my transactions (just because of the 1.5% cash back they give me). But I don't keep a whole lot in my paypal account, and I don't pay the rent or anything at all by check through the account, so it's really not that bad. Oh yeah, and I don't lose the card in the first place. Yeah, OK, if my wallet gets stolen and used in the time it takes me to report it maybe I'm liable for $50. I'd have to check, but with a lot of cards you aren't even liable for that. $50 is the just maximum (OK, I guess if the thieves knock me unconcious for a week I'm liable for $500, maybe).
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/atmcard .htm "ATM or Debit Card Loss or Fraudulent Transfers (EFTA). Your liability under federal law for unauthorized use of your ATM or debit card depends on how quickly you report the loss." "For example, if you report the loss within two business days after you realize your card is missing, you will not be responsible for more than $50 for unauthorized use."
Google for it... it's proven that consumers pay 33 - 66% more whenever they pay with plastic (that's why McDonald's takes CCs).
In aggregate, maybe. Personally, I pay 1.5% less when I pay with plastic (that's why I use my paypal debit card with 1.5% cash back).
When you're laying down cash, you instantly realize how much less you're gonna come away with and the marketers can't track you.
For a few hundred dollars a year, I'll let em track me.
When I cleaned out my refrigerator today I threw out some food that got shoved to the back and went bad. By your logic it would be okay for some guy to sneak into my house and steal food from my pantry because I waste some of my food.
Sneaking into your house is kind of scary. But stealing food? We're talking about food here. If someone's going to risk going to jail to steal food from me, hell, I'll give her the food voluntarily.
Oh, but wait. I'm a person, not a corporation. There goes your precious double standard again.
No, I certainly don't care if someone steals food from you. Hell, I don't care if someone steals a million dollars from you. There's a double standard for ya.
Not all of us want to depend on the government to take care of our every need.
Huh?
Besides, if you read the article you would see that the police were in no hurry to do anything until he called and told them he knew exactly where they were right that moment.
Apparently they've got more important things to worry about than some dubious report about some idiots stealing money from Denny's. I don't blame them.
Or those of us who purchase products from merchants who accept Discover. Here's a dirty little secret: costs roll downhill to the consumer.
They roll downhill to the stupid consumer. The one that racks up thousands of dollars in debt at 20% interest. If I buy something from a merchant who accepts Discover, it's because the product is worth the price.
Government regulations require debit card issuers to set a maximum liability of $50 if the debit card is reported lost or stolen within two days of discovery. If your card isn't lost or stolen, your liability is $0.
Well, that's just stupid. Tell that to the waitress who served them and didn't get a dime when she could have gotten a real tip from non-criminals.
You don't think the waitress got a tip? I don't see why you'd think that.
One thing that people should realize is that when an anonymous big corporation gets hurt, it's not really a corporation that's getting hurt. It's the stockholders.
I realize this. It doesn't change my argument. If you own stock in a corporation you're completely responsible financially for the actions of that corporation (to the extent of your investment). If you don't like what the corporation is doing, don't buy stock in it.
It's everyone that has a 401(k) or a mutual fund or any other diversified investment. These aren't rich day-traders, these are old people living off this money, or young people trying to save a few bucks for when they can't work any more.
So the $0.50 cheeseburger costs grandma with her 100 shares of a mutual fund which owns Denny's (is Denny's publically traded?) as 0.5% of its holdings $0.000000000005 and costs some rich guy who owns 10% of Denny's $0.005. In the end, I think the world is better for this.
What this guy did was every bit as noble as if he tackled a purse-snatcher.
You mean the guy who stole from Denny's? I wouldn't go that far.
I think you have "thief" confused with thief. They really stole his money.
How do you know this?
And why wouldn't the people at Denny's help him? He has his credit card and ID to prove that he is who he says he is.
Did they even check his ID? They certainly didn't check the last guy's ID that claimed to be him.
If someone stole your car, would you say, "So what? They're only stealing from the insurance company."?
No. I don't have insurance.
A defrauded man, his credit card companies, restaurant & hotel employees, and the police come together to arrest two thieves and somehow this is a bad thing?
Assuming it's true, it's not a bad thing. The end result, anyway. I think the means are a bit suspect.
This is the way things should work, people taking responsibility and looking after their own interests and those of others.
Bah, I can see looking out for the interests of others. But not for the interests of Discover Card or whatever other megacorp. Especially Discover Card, though. Discover Card is evil.
I don't care about the incident itself (if it actually happened). I don't care that some credit card thief got caught. I enjoy arguing about it, but I don't care...
I've seen examples of charities becoming private corporations (typically because they want to move into political endorsements that support their cause but violate their charitable legal status)
They're still a non-profit organization, though. Just not a 403(c) charity.
and of private companies going public. Logically, those two transitions can happen sequentially.
Except that a non-profit organization can't go public, since it doesn't have any shareholders.
If the vendor is liable in the case of a fraudulent purchase, why don't they demand signitures?
Because the inconvenience of demanding signatures isn't worth the few dollars they lose every time someone buys a cheeseburger and fries and doesn't pay. It's the same reason they offer free refills and that if you complain about your order they give you a new one and don't even ask for the old one back.
Try to buy something expensive without a signature, on the other hand, and you won't get very far. In fact, when I buy something expensive on a credit card I usually am asked for ID.
How is that scary? He had the credit card that was just used a few hours ago.
And how did they know he wasn't the one who stole it?
Are you really concerned that people might forge your credit card, then go around to restaraunts asking for descriptions of you?
No, but it's that kind of blind trust that is what makes credit card fraud so easy in the first place.
Because it's people who are stealing money like that that make busienss costs higher (when they have to pay back the credit card companies for fraudulent charges they have to make it up somehow).
If you care about the miniscule amount of money that these businesses lose to credit card fraud, you wouldn't use a business which takes credit cards in the first place, since they're paying something like 2-3% for every single credit card transaction.
Do you enjoy paying a "criminal tax" to keep some lazy bastard in a life of luxury? Because that's what your doing right now every time you buy something from somewhere that takes credit cards.
That's why I use my paypal debit card, which pays me 1% on every "credit card" purchase I make. 1% is much higher than the criminal tax. 1 out of 100 purchases are not fraudulent (certainly not at a business like Denny's or a hotel, anyway).
Hopefully someone finds your CC number someday so you, too, can find just how unimportant the whole matter is.
I hope so too. Screw the credit card companies. I'd rather a petty thief has the money.
If it's no big deal, paste your name, CC number, expiry date, verification code, billing address and any other relevant information in a reply to this post.
If I did that I'd be negligent and the credit card company could sue me.
I'm not upset. I really don't care. Some guy stole some money from Discover Card. Some other guy caught them. The thief went to jail. This is news? Even if it were true, which I have my doubts about, so what?
I think it's interesting that so many people were willing to go to such lengths on the say-so of some random guy with a credit card. The fact that those people were willing to do that is precisely why credit card theft is so easy in the first place.