Mr. Know-It-All: Is My PayPal Frequent-Flier Scheme Illegal, or Even Feasible?

• BY JON MOOALLEM  

My credit card gives me frequent-flier miles. Why can’t I set up a PayPal account to charge myself thousands and use that same money to pay off the card?

A Chicago consultant once ran a scam like this, except it wasn’t a scam, because it’s perfectly legal, and it wasn’t really like this, because it was much, much better.

Brad's Deals / YouTube.com

In 2008 the US Mint began selling $1 coins on its website for $1 each, with free shipping. (The Mint wanted to replace as much paper currency as possible with longer-lasting coins.) Brad Wilson, who is the proprietor of BradsDeals.com, charged a few boxes of 250 $1 coins to his credit card, racked up the corresponding airline miles, and then deposited the coins in his checking account to pay off the credit card charges. Just like that, he’d essentially laundered money through the federal government and conjured frequent-flier miles out of thin air. “OK,” Wilson said to himself, “let me try to scale this up a bit.”

Before long Wilson was running shipments of $1 coins worth $40,000 apiece and had rented a UPS mailbox near his bank for nearly instantaneous pick up and deposit. The airline miles piled up. (Actually, Wilson was using his credit card to earn Starwood points, not airline miles, then converting them into American Airlines frequent-flier miles at the companies’ standard exchange rate of 1 to 1.25 — therefore upping his take even more. This is just the way Wilson operates.) When he got to almost 4 million frequent-flier miles, he stopped.

When I talked to Wilson, he quickly diagnosed the many flaws of your idea, even though it is legal — for example, PayPal would charge a fee on each transaction, and, more important, the company is notoriously vigilant and easily spooked and can delay a transaction if it suspects any sort of foul play, thus tying up your money. But even as he eviscerated your plan, Wilson saluted your effort and encouraged you to keep trying: “Every once in a while, an idea pops up that doesn’t have a catch.”

Our neighbor named his Wi-Fi network TwatRocker. We occasionally steal his Wi-Fi, because it’s the strongest signal in the back of our house. We have a young daughter, who doesn’t know yet that “TwatRocker” is dirty, but I worry about when she does. Can I force this creep to change the name?

Ugh. I imagine you must feel like Jean Valjean in Les Misérables: a loving man, nearly broken by a conspiracy of circumstance and abuse, forced to steal bread for his sister’s hungry children. Except in this case, the baker’s a pervert and the only bread in the window is shaped like a penis, and Jean Valjean, not wanting to see innocent, milky-cheeked children eat this vile loaf, wonders whether he can ask for a plain old roll instead.

Isn’t that how it feels?

Well, the truth is much less dramatic, according to Stanford law professor Mark Lemley. For starters, “no way is ‘TwatRocker’ obscene,” Lemley says. Offensive, maybe. But your neighbor isn’t projecting it into your home; your daughter sees it only when she actively accesses the Internet. And as Lemley points out, “if that’s the worst thing she sees on the Internet, you are a very lucky person.”

“IF THAT’S THE WORST THING YOUR DAUGHTER SEES ON THE INTERNET, YOU’RE A VERY LUCKY PERSON.”

Also know that you are not technically stealing anything. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (the law Aaron Swartz was famously charged with breaking) is notoriously vague about what constitutes “unauthorized access” to a network. But more important, it’s hard to argue that access is unauthorized if the network has no password. Maybe, Lemley says, your neighbor wants everyone to share TwatRocker freely.

My point is, don’t we all sometimes inflate our problems into sprawling, agonizing epics? Aren’t we all guilty of Les Misérablizing the difficulties of daily life? Do you hear the people singing? Singing the songs of angry men? Well, that’s you — and your neighbor. And me too — each of us staging our lonely revolutions against the perceived monarchy of everyone else.

We can do better. Go knock on your neighbor’s door. Explain the problem. Talk it out like human beings. Maybe invite him to a musical.

I think my girlfriend is stealing jokes and insights about the news from Twitter — throwing them into conversations like they are hers. How do I prove it and catch her?

What your girlfriend is doing, if she is doing it, is dishonest—a tiny betrayal—and you have some options about how to address it. You could easily look at the accounts she follows on Twitter, search for her source material, and call her out when she uses someone else’s jokes. Try something like “Ha, I loved that tweet from Sarah Silverman. What a funny lady!” But remember that episode of Louie, where Louis CK confronts Dane Cook about stealing his jokes? He does so thoughtfully, tempering his anger with humility and bigheartedness. Go watch it, because the second option would be to settle your problem with this same maturity. “Are you willing to admit, even for a minute, that maybe you inadvertently took ‘em?” Louie asks. “Maybe it was inadvertent, but maybe it did happen?” It’s a master class in generous accusation. Sometimes it’s OK to steal from Louis CK.

References:

How One Man Earned 4 Million Airline Miles by Buying...

This Man Earned 4 Million Airline Miles by Buying Dollar ...

"D. B. Tuber" robs an armored car guard at the Bank of America in Monroe on September 30, 2008.

On September 30, 2008, in one of the more unique bank robberies in Washington state history -- one that makes the national news -- an armored car guard is robbed outside of a Bank of America branch in Monroe (Snohomish County).  The robber posts a Craigslist ad several days before the robbery, seeking workers for a phony job in Monroe; the workers are instructed to wear the same work outfit. Those answering the ad receive emailed instructions telling them to meet near the bank at 11 a.m. on September 30, and about a dozen men show up at the prearranged hour. At the same time the robber, similarly attired as his decoys, assaults the armored car guard outside of the bank and flees with $400,000. The robber escapes by floating away in a yellow innertube on nearby Woods Creek, earning him the nickname "D. B. Tuber." A 28-year-old man, Anthony Curcio, is later convicted of the crime.

The ad went up on Craigslist late in September: "Laborers with landscaping experience wanted for a job in Monroe." Those who answered got an email back telling them to meet at 11 a.m. on September 30 in Monroe at two different spots -- an Albertson's parking lot and Eagle Park -- located near the intersection of Old Owen Road and Highway 2, and both right by a Bank of America branch. The ad also instructed the workers to wear safety glasses or equivalent eye protection, ventilator mask, yellow safety vest, and a long-sleeved shirt; follow-up emails instructed them to wear a blue shirt if possible, and to wait for the project manager once they arrived.  About a dozen men arrived at the two locations at the appointed hour and waited patiently outside in the mild morning for a job supervisor who never showed up. 

By 11:15, the men were beginning to realize they'd been scammed. Then they found out how badly.  While they were waiting for their ghost employer, another man nearby, similarly clad as his decoys in a mask and long-sleeved shirt, watched as an armored car guard, carrying canvas bags filled with cash, walked out of the bank and up to his armored vehicle parked nearby. At about 11:04 a.m. the robber raced up to the guard, sprayed him in the face with pepper spray, and snatched a bag of money from the guard.  He then turned and raced 100 yards across Old Owen Road and through some underbrush to Woods Creek, shedding his accessories as he ran. Two men who witnessed the robbery tried to chase the yegg down, but he leapt into the creek and vanished.

Floating to a Fleeting Freedom

There were conflicting reports as to just how the crook got away. People couldn’t really believe that he used an innertube (one witness said he swam away), but it was true. The thief hopped aboard a yellow innertube that he had stashed in the creek and floated to his escape; the innertube was later found about 200 yards away. The sheer audacity of the heist and subsequent escape quickly earned the robber the moniker "D. B. Tuber" in a nod to the infamous 1971 case involving the airplane-hijacking, parachute-escaping robber D. B. Cooper.

The Seattle P-I reported that a similar ploy with look-alike decoys was used in a 1999 movie, The Thomas Crown Affair, in which an art thief escapes with a masterpiece from a museum while security guards are distracted by several nearby look-alikes hired by the crook. Perhaps this gave the Tubed One the idea for the extras in the Monroe robbery, though the police responding to the real-life crime were not fooled by the decoys. But the Craigslist ad was an added touch, and the innertube getaway was all original; Seattle FBI spokeswoman Roberta Burroughs told The Herald (Everett) that she had never heard of a similar tactic in 15 years of investigating bank holdups.

The amount of money taken was initially not disclosed, but was later learned to be about $400,000. The armored-car guard was treated at the scene for exposure to pepper spray and released. The national media quickly picked up the story, giving the city of Monroe its 15 minutes of fame in the early autumn of 2008. But although the crime had been well planned, the felonious floater had left a clue or two, and thanks to a tip from a citizen and a DNA sample from the mask dropped by the robber as he fled, police arrested Anthony Curcio, 28, of Lake Stevens (Snohomish County) on November 3, 2008. In July 2009, Curcio was sentenced to six years in federal prison for the crime.

Curcio was released in 2013 and moved to Woodinville in King County. In 2014, he was reported to be living quietly as a stay-at-home father to his two children. In an interview with The Seattle Times that September, Curcio acknowledged his mistakes and said that since his release he had spoken at area schools in Washington and Oregon on the dangers of drug addiction, which he said led him into a spiral that eventually culminated in the robbery.

Sources:

Bankrobber recruited Craigslist decoys to confuse police

Wash. Man Pulls Off Robbery Using Craigslist, Pepper Spray

The Second San Fernando Massacre

Narco gangster reveals the underworld
Cartels have taken cruelty up a notch, says one drug trafficker: kidnapping bus passengers for gladiatorlike fights to the death

On Mexican Federal Highway 101 bus-loads of Mexican citizens and tourists alike were vanishing without a trace. No ransom demands or otherwise were ever made and the authorities were beginning to doubt their original theory of kidnappings. Then they discovered a truth far more grisly and even more surreal than simple kidnappings. Welcome to San Fernando...

San Fernando, a town of 57,000 people and roughly 100 miles from the US border, is no stranger to mass killings and massacres. Only one year before in 2010 the city was famous for another massacre wherein the mass murder of 72 undocumented immigrants took place, this was the first San Fernando Massacre. The Mexican state of Tamaulipas was at the time home to the Los Zetas drug cartel whose headquarters was believed to be in the small village of El Huizachal on the outskirts of San Fernando. It was this group that was responsible for both San Fernando Massacres.

In the first massacre, the killings were the result of a conflict between the immigrants and the cartel, the cartel had bigger guns and won, simple as that. However, in the second San Fernando massacre the Los Zetas were being truly creative in their efforts to resolve an imposing threat from neighbouring drug clans.

The bus loads of people were being abducted for the very specific purpose of training them as assassins. Once abducted the women would be sequestered to make-shift barracks where they would be repeatedly raped for the pleasure of the Los Zetas soldiers. This would happen day in and day out until they had eventually gone insane, or the cartel decided that they were for some other reason no longer usable at which point they would be executed.
The men, on the other hand, were chained in a large garage structure that provided little shelter from the elements. Each day they would be put into pairs and given ordinary tools such as hammers, sickles, or even regular wood saws. These tools were meant as weapons for the male captives to use when led into a pit and forced to fight to the death (like the gladiators of ancient Rome). After several rounds of one-on-one gladiator battles to the death, the survivors would be rewarded with their first meal and informed of their new purpose in life as assassins for the Los Zetas drug cartel.

This practice was being a carried out in San Fernando for the better part of six months with little intervention from the authorities. The townspeople knew what was happening, but fearing for their lives they never spoke out against the cartel, even when they’re own family members were amongst the “new recruits”. 

In a 2012 article in the El Universal, several anonymous residents gave testimony of the events in Tamaulipas. One elderly woman stated: "We could not do anything. We were fighting for our lives and watched helplessly as they were being taken. The abduction of the buses were in full daylight, even outside the bus station. But we could not say anything, we remained silent. We have family, we have children and we cannot leave here." More chilling are the words of her granddaughter: “My mom always reminds us before we leave: if they come for you don’t be trapped alive. So at least we'll have your body and know where you are and lay our flowers.”

Despite the shroud of silence, there are only so many people, especially tourists that can go missing in a six month period before the authorities take notice. In august of 2011 six hundred and fifty Mexican soldiers flooded the streets of San Fernando forcibly removing the local police force and beginning a massive hunt for the Los Zetas base. What they found during their search were the unmarked graves of 193 female victims of rape, torture, and murder, and the male victims forced to fight as gladiators.

The known members of the Los Zetas drug cartel involved in the massacre were arrested in short time, but it is likely that many were never found. There were far more deaths than initially thought, when Édgar Huerta Montiel, a high-ranking boss in Los Zetas was interrogated he told Mexican federal authorities that there were approximately six hundred victims, roughly one hundred per month. Today Mexican Federal Highway 101 is known as 'The Highway of Death', although it is now relatively safe, it was in 2011 described as "burned vehicles, bullet-shot trucks on the side of the road, and dead bodies, often decapitated, that the cartels would leave behind."

References:

Mexican crook: Gangsters arrange fights to death for entertainment

The 'Second Massacre of San Fernando' (2011)