You Can Shut Down Scammers, But Collecting Money Is More Difficult

from the probably-fine-for-the-scammers dept

This probably isn't all that surprising. Shutting down scam operations usually isn't all that difficult. However, collecting money from fines is a bit trickier. That's what regulators in the UK have found after shutting down a bunch of phone scams and fining them. The scams are shut down, but the fines go unpaid. Of course, the problem, then, is that the scammers don't really see much of a downside to running the scam. They get to keep all their money, and when the government comes knocking they just go and hide somewhere until they can start their next scam. Maybe the UK should try the method used in the US. After Fax.com was fined $5.38 million by the FCC and refused to pay, the FCC waited a year and a half and made a big splash by announcing they had fined them $5.38 million (without mentioning they had already done so, unsuccessfully). The FCC gets all the publicity twice while the fines continue to go unpaid and the scammers just set up under new business names. Oh, wait, that isn't all that different than what's happening in the UK after all -- just without the double dose of publicity.

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