Every day there is somebody who is getting scammed by an online scam. Sometimes the end results from a scam could be very minor while other times it could be really devasting and it could mean losing money or even in some cases putting yourself in harm’s way. In many cases scams can seem really believable and because many people fall prey to them. So far this year, $94,053,888 have been lost due to online scams while about 132,617 cases have been reported and of those cases, 10.8% have resulted in a financial loss (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). There are many types of online scams out on the web such as “phishing scams, greeting card scams, reshipping, and repayment processing fraud, lottery winnings,” (Landesman, 28) and dating and romance scams (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). Article Summary One day a woman by the name of Georgina was introduced to Facebook by her children (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018).
They set her up an account and showed her how to work Facebook (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). After learning how to use Facebook from her children, Georgina gets a Facebook request which she accepts from a complete stranger who she learns name is Jim (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). Jim tells her that he is lonely and stuck on duty in Afghanistan out in the middle of nowhere and that he needs someone to keep him company (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). Then over a period of time, the two grow close and Jim eventually shares with Georgina that he has lost his wife cancer and it turns out Georgina has lost her husband to the same disease (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018).
After that, Jim then decides to tell her that he is now stationed in Nigeria and that he will soon be finished with the U.S. military (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). On top of that, he also sends her pictures that is fact and belongs to someone else online (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). He then goes on to tell her that he can’t wait for them to be together and starts to email her every day instead of contacting her over Facebook because he felt that it would be easier (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). As it turns out Jim is actually a scammer, however, Georgina does not know this, but when she does it would already be too late (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018).
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The first major part of his scam after he builds this fake relationship starts off with Jim telling Georgina that he wants to start a jewelry store and that by him being already in Nigeria, he would be able to access gemstones cheaply (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). He goes on to tell Georgina that he is coming to see her, but he is having problems with his bank card in Nigeria and that he could not get the funds he needed to pay the taxes on the gems (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). Since she believed Jim and trusted him, Georgina decided to send some money to him to cover the taxes on the gems which amounts to $15,000 (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). Then when Jim goes to Malaysia, his gems gets seized by the Malaysian government and the only way that we’re going to release the gems would be if he gave the government $20,000 (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018).
Again she fell for his scam and she eventually sent the money to the Malaysian government and when she did, she was then told that Jim was now in jail for smuggling and that she now needed to contact a lawyer for him (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). Once she contacted the lawyer, she was told by them, that she would need to get Jim an Anti-terrorism and Money Laundering certificate which would cost $10,000 as well as Jim’s court fees plus the lawyer’s fee would be an addition $5,000 (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). It eventually gets to the point that she was getting a call every day saying that something had to be paid for Jim, certificates signed by officials, and bills (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018).
It got to the point where Georgina eventually took her issues to the police (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). When Georgina told the police about Jim and how she was constantly being asked to sign papers and pay large sums of money, the police told her that she was, in fact, being scammed (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). They then went on to tell her that from what she described, she has experienced a dating and romance scam (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). Then after breaking the news to her, they went onto to tell the money she lost would not be able to be recovered (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018). Doing the course of the scam Georgina believes that she lost well over $100,000 (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, 2018).
In this article, Jim really did a horrible thing. What he did to Georgina was really unethical. He really fooled her into thinking that he was this great man who really loved and cared about her and he used this to take advantage of Georgina. Ethical Concerns In the organization, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), there are seven rules that members must abide by in terms of ethics. They are “contribute to society and to human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders in computing, avoid harm, be honest and trustworthy, be fair and take action not discriminate, respect the work required to produce new ideas, inventions, creative works, and computing artifacts, respect privacy, and honor confidentiality” (Association for Computing Machinery, 2018).
In terms of this article, the person name Jim broke three of these rules which are “contribute to society and to human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders, avoid harm, and be honest and trustworthy” (Association for Computing Machinery, 2018). The first rule that he broke was contributing to society and human well-being, acknowledging that all people are stakeholders in computing (Association for Computing Machinery, 2018). When Jim was scamming Georgina into sending over her money, he was not contributing to society and human well-being, but instead, he was doing just the opposite (Association for Computing Machinery, 2018). Another rule that he broke was “avoid harm” (Association for Computing Machinery, 2018). By Jim scamming Georgina out of her money, he actually brought harm to her. The type of harm that he brought was not physical but was financial. He brought financial harm to Georgina and not because of what he did, she is not broke. The last rule that he broke was “be honest and trustworthy” (Association for Computing Machinery, 2018).
When Jim scammed Georgina out her money, he definitely was not honest and trustworthy. Instead, he fooled her into thinking a he was honest and trustworthy and then scammed money from her which is not an act of an honest and trustworthy person (Association for Computing Machinery, 2018). Ethics and Hampton University Technology Policies At Hampton University, there are 13 ethics that students must follow when it comes to technology. Of the 13 ethics within the Jim only broke one of them. That ethic is “using any technology resource to annoy or harass or defame is prohibited (Hampton University, n.d.).” The way Jim broke this rule was that Jim was constantly scamming Georgina for money and because of him doing that she now is broke because she lost so much money from his scams and this could possible defame her when it comes to her family and friends. Final Thoughts From reading this article I really felt heartbroken that a person would do this to another person. I wish that Georgina could have seen that she was getting scammed from the beginning and would have been able to put a stop to everything before it got so out of hand.
I really think from the beginning, she has really expressed what was really happening with her and Jim to some of her friends and family and I think that if she would have done, a person would have noticed that something was not right and hopefully she would have taken their advice and informed the police about what was going on. However, since this did happen to Georgina, I really hope she will be able to recover from this substantial loss. Conclusion One thing that I got out of writing paper is the fact, as a person you have to constantly be aware of the fact that this world is not perfect and that there are always going to be people who are going to be unethical.
However regardless of what that person is doing that is unethical, people have to be able to recognize that person’s actions as being unethical and being to distance themselves from that person or in some cases even report that person. A person being unethical can involve a person violating another’s personal privacy, breaking into something secured, or doing any other thing that could be seen as being unethical. However, if a person can spot this from the beginning, they could possibly protect themselves from any type of hardship or damages that could be brought on because of that person is unethical.
