37 ms·

This seems a tad unethical

asciident 7y ago
I was actually thinking about ethics a lot while I was doing this little project. By ethics do you mean morals or something different? What framework would you suggest for determining the ethics/morals of doing something like this, where we're playing by the legal rules by trying to optimize for our own benefit?
- jsf01 7y ago
  Think about it like this. The logical conclusion of people acting like you did is that credit card issuers increase interest rates to make up for their losses. That makes life worse for everyone but the people exploiting the loophole. You’re no different from the people who exaggerate their losses to insurance companies in order to claim extra insurance money. Because of them, premiums have gone up. You might see yourself as some kind of Robinhood figure, but ultimately it’s going to be the other people participating in your network that suffer.
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    It's very different - one of those people is lying.
  - asciident 7y ago
    Thanks for the reply. There is a clear difference between claiming extra insurance money and what I'm doing: lying to get more insurance money is fraud, while what I'm doing is exactly what the service is intended for (sending money to others for free). But using your framework of, "if everyone did this, how would this affect the business and others using the business," then I (and many others) are doing a lot of other unethical things. Ad blocking and card counting (in blackjack) clearly would be deemed unethical under this criteria, but here's a bunch of other more tangible examples. There's a popular pastry place that has 50% off sales on Sunday afternoon because they are closing Monday so they sell the remaining stock at a significant discount before close. I only go there on Sunday afternoons, but if everyone did that, then the prices would go up for all. Another thing I do is using the books, video games, movies, and streaming services offered by my library and never buy any real media. But if everyone did this, then bookstores, theaters, and streaming companies would go bankrupt.
    - Gpetrium 7y ago
      You may be following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. The cashback was created as an incentive, you found a way to exploit the business model for personal gain in ways that can have an impact on others ability to enjoy the system while having a material impact on the provider of the service. Most in your position will say "but I am only a small piece of the cog" however, if a small minority starts to think the same way, it can have a real impact on a variety of things, including trust between parties. Everyone tries to rationalize their actions, whether it is or becomes socially acceptable is another matter.
      - Starknaked 7y ago
        It's not the user's responsibilty to ensure these incentives are sustainable. Look at what happened with the Hoover free flight program.
        IanCal 7y ago
        The user is the one, well, using it! Sure, in some cases it's not obvious if you're abusing the system but this seems pretty clear.
        Starknaked 7y ago
        The best way I've seen businesses get around this issue is to just have an upper limit on the incentive like interest applies only to the first $x. Its often a nice bonus for people that were going to use them anyway but not enough for people to justify exploiting the incentive alone.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        Well, everyone that takes a VC subsidized ride on Uber is also having a negative impact on their business. If the business makes rules that are unsustainable for their business, it’s their fault. They could very easily set limits to curb abuse.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I’m going to preface what I’m about to write by saying yes I understand life happens and I’ve carried a balance on a credit card charging high interest at one point in my life. - If you have a credit card with decent cash back/rewards program. The interest rate is going to be higher. If you are carrying a balance month to month. You’re doing it wrong. - If life happens and you do end up with a balance and your credit is decent, you should be able to get a no interest for x months, no interest balance transfer. Credit Cards aren’t a life necessity. Homeowners insurance and car insurance are. Taking advantage of the rules as they exist is not unethical. Insurance fraud is both unethical and illegal.
  - TimTheTinker 7y ago
    > The logical conclusion of people acting like you did is that credit card issuers increase interest rates to make up for their losses. Actually no, they pay for it directly out of transaction fees levied on sellers (which are usually around 3-5%). Some of that they take for themselves, and some they use for consumer rewards. It's a great way to make a lot of money and keep consumers incentivized to use them. Economically, it's sort of like crappy product/service things licensed to prisons (like video telephones) that charge hefty fees to the inmates and their families, and give a significant portion of those fees back to the prisons. They're taking advantage of the incentives they can provide to the decision makers (prison administrators, or consumers in the case of credit cards) to overcharge the other party (inmates, or vendors), and make a lot of money in the process.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Your scenario only happens if the credit card company is incompetent. But then the bad guy is the incompetence really...
- anon4748393 7y ago
  Be careful with stuff like this. Credit card contracts typically require a fee for anything that amounts to a cash withdrawal instead of a purchase. Depending on the exact construction, it might be fraudulent to knowingly breach the contract to bleed the bank. If it’s not worth talking to a lawyer about it, it’s probably not worth doing.
- IanCal 7y ago
  A simple overall rule here is to consider what the intended behaviour was from the company offering this. Anything that fits the rules, but is outside what you would consider expected behaviour is essentially exploiting a bug. A similar thing happens when someone offers "unlimited storage" for home broadband users backups and people start hosting many many terabytes of porn / isos / whatever. Sure, they're entirely within the allowed behaviour, but it's clearly intended to make it easy for people to backup their photos and documents without having to know if a gigabyte is enough or not. I would say I feel like using something in a way not intended (even if allowed) that is detrimental to the person/people offering it is unethical when considered in isolation. I'm actually a little surprised this needs saying, is this not a common view? edit - I guess not if it was downvoted so quickly (I know, I know, I'm not complaining about the internet points, it's honestly very interesting to me). Are people that on board wit h heavily abusing systems just because it's technically within the rules? Remind me to never offer free pizza at a HN event as someone may turn up, say "you didn't specify a per person limit" and walk off with the food intended for everyone.
  - holidaygoose 7y ago
    I don't subscribe to your view at all, but I think this is an interesting discussion. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that users/customers should be trying to guess what the intention of the company is, and doing things not aligned with those goals is unethical? My local gym and Moviepass (remember them?) expects people to sign up and rarely use the gym or watch movies. Otherwise, they would go out of business if everyone actually constantly used them. Is my using the gym or watching movies every day unethical? It sounds like you're calling lot of people unethical. Aren't people heavily abusing Moviepass by actually watching movies nearly every day? In a more hypothetical scenario, let's say Facebook does not want people to use its platform to organize political/activism activities, because it makes the company look bad. It does not prohibit it, but let's say the CEO says on a talkshow that he wants people to use Facebook only for positive things. Would that make organizing on Facebook unethical? It just seems like your view doesn't match how most of society views their social contract with for-profit companies.
    - 7y ago
trophycase 7y ago
Somewhat disagree. Not only do these spending bonuses encourage endebtedness and consumerism, but don't forget that such bonuses likely aren't offered the the poor (read: bad credit score), and the credit card companies use and sell your information to advertisers (and probably hedge funds) while credit rating agencies likely do the same and are basically not held accountable (see Equifax). If these are companies like JP Morgan - Chase, then let's also not forget how they were helped by the American taxpayer during the recession and that basically nobody was held accountable. I'm also of the opinion that it is basically impossible for any corporation to do business ethically, so I largely have no problem with it.
thatoneuser 7y ago
The poor banks and credit card companies...
RaceWon 7y ago
Take a close look at the USA Hospital (/Healthcare) business model. No payment of property taxes ("Hey, we're a non-profit--nothing to see here"). They get all kinds of Free labor ("Volunteering is good for the community"). They solicit and receive Every manner of donation under the Sun ("We're a Non-Profit; please help us out"). They Make Billions and Billions of dollars... just sayin
- derrida 7y ago
  "Teacher, billy punched sally and got away with it, that means I can punch johnny too!" As for the ethics of this CC deal: fuck 'em. :) Global speculative capital makes money on arbitrage and legal fictions that produce financial instruments all the time, if a consumer can play that game, god bless em.
- jimmydddd 7y ago
  All true. Which makes it hard to understand how so many hospitals are in financial trouble. Like you said, low taxes, volunteers, donations, and charging $600 for an aspirin -- and many can't stay afloat. Strange.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

I was actually thinking about ethics a lot while I was doing this little project. By ethics do you mean morals or something different? What framework would you suggest for determining the ethics/morals of doing something like this, where we're playing by the legal rules by trying to optimize for our own benefit?

jsf01 7y ago
Think about it like this. The logical conclusion of people acting like you did is that credit card issuers increase interest rates to make up for their losses. That makes life worse for everyone but the people exploiting the loophole. You’re no different from the people who exaggerate their losses to insurance companies in order to claim extra insurance money. Because of them, premiums have gone up. You might see yourself as some kind of Robinhood figure, but ultimately it’s going to be the other people participating in your network that suffer.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  It's very different - one of those people is lying.
- asciident 7y ago
  Thanks for the reply. There is a clear difference between claiming extra insurance money and what I'm doing: lying to get more insurance money is fraud, while what I'm doing is exactly what the service is intended for (sending money to others for free). But using your framework of, "if everyone did this, how would this affect the business and others using the business," then I (and many others) are doing a lot of other unethical things. Ad blocking and card counting (in blackjack) clearly would be deemed unethical under this criteria, but here's a bunch of other more tangible examples. There's a popular pastry place that has 50% off sales on Sunday afternoon because they are closing Monday so they sell the remaining stock at a significant discount before close. I only go there on Sunday afternoons, but if everyone did that, then the prices would go up for all. Another thing I do is using the books, video games, movies, and streaming services offered by my library and never buy any real media. But if everyone did this, then bookstores, theaters, and streaming companies would go bankrupt.
  - Gpetrium 7y ago
    You may be following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law. The cashback was created as an incentive, you found a way to exploit the business model for personal gain in ways that can have an impact on others ability to enjoy the system while having a material impact on the provider of the service. Most in your position will say "but I am only a small piece of the cog" however, if a small minority starts to think the same way, it can have a real impact on a variety of things, including trust between parties. Everyone tries to rationalize their actions, whether it is or becomes socially acceptable is another matter.
    - Starknaked 7y ago
      It's not the user's responsibilty to ensure these incentives are sustainable. Look at what happened with the Hoover free flight program.
      - IanCal 7y ago
        The user is the one, well, using it! Sure, in some cases it's not obvious if you're abusing the system but this seems pretty clear.
        Starknaked 7y ago
        The best way I've seen businesses get around this issue is to just have an upper limit on the incentive like interest applies only to the first $x. Its often a nice bonus for people that were going to use them anyway but not enough for people to justify exploiting the incentive alone.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Well, everyone that takes a VC subsidized ride on Uber is also having a negative impact on their business. If the business makes rules that are unsustainable for their business, it’s their fault. They could very easily set limits to curb abuse.
- scarface74 7y ago
  I’m going to preface what I’m about to write by saying yes I understand life happens and I’ve carried a balance on a credit card charging high interest at one point in my life. - If you have a credit card with decent cash back/rewards program. The interest rate is going to be higher. If you are carrying a balance month to month. You’re doing it wrong. - If life happens and you do end up with a balance and your credit is decent, you should be able to get a no interest for x months, no interest balance transfer. Credit Cards aren’t a life necessity. Homeowners insurance and car insurance are. Taking advantage of the rules as they exist is not unethical. Insurance fraud is both unethical and illegal.
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  > The logical conclusion of people acting like you did is that credit card issuers increase interest rates to make up for their losses. Actually no, they pay for it directly out of transaction fees levied on sellers (which are usually around 3-5%). Some of that they take for themselves, and some they use for consumer rewards. It's a great way to make a lot of money and keep consumers incentivized to use them. Economically, it's sort of like crappy product/service things licensed to prisons (like video telephones) that charge hefty fees to the inmates and their families, and give a significant portion of those fees back to the prisons. They're taking advantage of the incentives they can provide to the decision makers (prison administrators, or consumers in the case of credit cards) to overcharge the other party (inmates, or vendors), and make a lot of money in the process.
- chrischen 7y ago
  Your scenario only happens if the credit card company is incompetent. But then the bad guy is the incompetence really...
anon4748393 7y ago
Be careful with stuff like this. Credit card contracts typically require a fee for anything that amounts to a cash withdrawal instead of a purchase. Depending on the exact construction, it might be fraudulent to knowingly breach the contract to bleed the bank. If it’s not worth talking to a lawyer about it, it’s probably not worth doing.
IanCal 7y ago
A simple overall rule here is to consider what the intended behaviour was from the company offering this. Anything that fits the rules, but is outside what you would consider expected behaviour is essentially exploiting a bug. A similar thing happens when someone offers "unlimited storage" for home broadband users backups and people start hosting many many terabytes of porn / isos / whatever. Sure, they're entirely within the allowed behaviour, but it's clearly intended to make it easy for people to backup their photos and documents without having to know if a gigabyte is enough or not. I would say I feel like using something in a way not intended (even if allowed) that is detrimental to the person/people offering it is unethical when considered in isolation. I'm actually a little surprised this needs saying, is this not a common view? edit - I guess not if it was downvoted so quickly (I know, I know, I'm not complaining about the internet points, it's honestly very interesting to me). Are people that on board wit h heavily abusing systems just because it's technically within the rules? Remind me to never offer free pizza at a HN event as someone may turn up, say "you didn't specify a per person limit" and walk off with the food intended for everyone.
- holidaygoose 7y ago
  I don't subscribe to your view at all, but I think this is an interesting discussion. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that users/customers should be trying to guess what the intention of the company is, and doing things not aligned with those goals is unethical? My local gym and Moviepass (remember them?) expects people to sign up and rarely use the gym or watch movies. Otherwise, they would go out of business if everyone actually constantly used them. Is my using the gym or watching movies every day unethical? It sounds like you're calling lot of people unethical. Aren't people heavily abusing Moviepass by actually watching movies nearly every day? In a more hypothetical scenario, let's say Facebook does not want people to use its platform to organize political/activism activities, because it makes the company look bad. It does not prohibit it, but let's say the CEO says on a talkshow that he wants people to use Facebook only for positive things. Would that make organizing on Facebook unethical? It just seems like your view doesn't match how most of society views their social contract with for-profit companies.
  - 7y ago

trophycase 7y ago

Somewhat disagree. Not only do these spending bonuses encourage endebtedness and consumerism, but don't forget that such bonuses likely aren't offered the the poor (read: bad credit score), and the credit card companies use and sell your information to advertisers (and probably hedge funds) while credit rating agencies likely do the same and are basically not held accountable (see Equifax). If these are companies like JP Morgan - Chase, then let's also not forget how they were helped by the American taxpayer during the recession and that basically nobody was held accountable. I'm also of the opinion that it is basically impossible for any corporation to do business ethically, so I largely have no problem with it.

thatoneuser 7y ago

The poor banks and credit card companies...

RaceWon 7y ago

Take a close look at the USA Hospital (/Healthcare) business model. No payment of property taxes ("Hey, we're a non-profit--nothing to see here"). They get all kinds of Free labor ("Volunteering is good for the community"). They solicit and receive Every manner of donation under the Sun ("We're a Non-Profit; please help us out"). They Make Billions and Billions of dollars... just sayin

derrida 7y ago
"Teacher, billy punched sally and got away with it, that means I can punch johnny too!" As for the ethics of this CC deal: fuck 'em. :) Global speculative capital makes money on arbitrage and legal fictions that produce financial instruments all the time, if a consumer can play that game, god bless em.
jimmydddd 7y ago
All true. Which makes it hard to understand how so many hospitals are in financial trouble. Like you said, low taxes, volunteers, donations, and charging $600 for an aspirin -- and many can't stay afloat. Strange.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]