iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/08/2026

Google bears the lion's share of the blame here, but Visa and the other credit card companies are critical to these scams. 52/

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/08/2026

Card companies allow merchants to set terms of service that refuse refunds under almost any circumstances, and, more often than not, the card issuers side with the merchants over their own customers when they call to cancel a charge from one of these scammers. 53/

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/08/2026

I discovered this for myself when I was tricked into buying theater tickets from a ripoff site that had registered the URL of the show I wanted to go to. 54/

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Miles O'Reilly @milesoreilly.com · 06/08/2026

It doesn't make it more ethical, but since the merchants pay the card companies through a percentage of their sales, *they* are the customers. And that makes us, the cardholders, their product. They don't care about being fair to you any more than Land o' Lakes cares about being fair to a cow.

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