swindled patreon

73. The Salesman (William J. McCorkle)

🕑 Added 2021-10-25 20:35:49 +0000 UTC

Comments

sucriC drawkcaB

It's more about mandatory minimums, long sentences being about revenge, not actual rehabilitation. At least that's what I got of it.

Celine

I feel bad for Chantal

KELLY BARRERA

another great show!

AskJeeves

I understand long sentences for violent criminals. I understand long sentences for people who steal huge amounts of money. I have trouble getting too excited about people who just do minor junk like this. It almost seems like it would take less tax money to do a public education campaign about how if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is than it cost to jail this couple. Losing $69 isn't great, but that much jail time over rented boats and fake testimonials seems absurd by comparison to the harm MLM companies do legally. Also money laundering seems to be what the Feds use when they can't actually prove you've done anything wrong. The whole thing just seems sketchy to me. Anyway, I get the more sympathetic tone here.

Ken Smith

Yes we should keep in mind that their victims lost $69 on a set of worthless cassettes. The sentences here were perverse.

Ken Smith

In New Zealand they probably would never have been charged and if they had would have got community service. I have no issue with punishing cons but taking away years of their lives when they could be productive and contributing to society is a tragic waste of human resource.

Marika Langot

Wait, have I missed something here? We finally get a story where the white collar criminals are treated as criminals, I get that 20 yrs of prison is tough, but the tone seemed disproportionately sympathetic to them... And there were no stories of their victims, I have a feeling that the wife's whining about her conviction could sound quite different with such context. Not to mention that their activity reinforced the rags-to-riches narrative which hurts us all and somehow is never falsified by any fall of this kind of frauds.

Alan

Good episode. I think this episode, in the current lineup of this season, is a good illustration of how the show started to where you are today. Now when I hear good ol' classic swindles as this one it seems so ho-hum, like wow, those people really didn't have any complexity to their scheme 😂 also, props to all the great music in this show.