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posted by on Thursday January 05 2017, @06:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the this-is-truly-outrageous dept.

The trial of a Southern California-based financial scam is now set to go to the penalty phase next Tuesday to determine how much the company and the scheme's architect, Steve Chen, should pay the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Last month, a federal judge ruled that Chen's Gemcoin operation was fraudulent. "The violation took place over years and involved elaborate schemes," US District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner wrote in a summary judgment against Chen. "Defendant has shown no sign of recognition of wrongdoing and has offered no assurances against future violations." The SEC argued in court filings on December 21, 2016 that the remaining issues should be determined by the judge and not a jury and that said judge should find "in favor of sizeable penalties."

Amazingly, the amber mines did actually exist, according to a report filed late last year by the court-appointed receiver.

Some background on the Gemcoin scam and ensuing lawsuit.

How could an average person have known this was a scam? And how is this Gemcoin different, i.e. less reliable, than a more established crypto-currency like Bitcoin? Money is only money because people accept it. What makes Gemcoin a scam rather than a failed attempt at competing with Bitcoin?

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @09:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @09:43PM (#449952)

    The world would be a better place if people had to take responsibility for being scammed.

    This is wrong on so many levels.
    1) To a large degree, people do take responsibility for being scammed. If a poor person on the street scams you out of money by claiming they are hungry, it's gone and you aren't getting it back. If somebody steals your identity, you may be able to rectify it but only after a lot of time and hard work. If you buy a product which doesn't do what you think ("it slices, it dices, it Julianne fries") at best you need to take the trouble to return it, and frequently you just write it off as a loss.
    2) This is entirely victim blaming. There is no reason to think that everybody should know everything. How would you know if XYZ drug is good or bad... and that XYZ software is good or bad, XYZ car, etc?
    3) If you reward scammers by letting them keep the benefits of their scams, does that make the world a better place or a worse place? I would suggest it encourages scammers, would make more of them, and overall makes the world a worse place.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday January 05 2017, @11:02PM

    by sjames (2882) on Thursday January 05 2017, @11:02PM (#449985) Journal

    I largely agree, but there is one point to address.

    There is NO SUCH THING as identity theft. If you convince a bank that you are me, I still have my identity. The BANK has been scammed. The whole identity theft thing is just the bank trying to scam me in return rather than accepting that they foolishly handed a wad of money over to someone without knowing his identity. The credit rating thing is more properly treated as libel against me since they are clearly reporting falsehoods with reckless disregard for the truth. Essentially they are little better than the town gossip these days.