Fucking grandma

Oh no, we don't want to bilk the elderly:

...

InfoUSA advertised lists of "Elderly Opportunity Seekers," 3.3 million older people "looking for ways to make money," and “Suffering Seniors," 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. "Oldies but Goodies" contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list said: "These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change."

...

Now, I don't know but in my book, living a long life should have refined your bullshit detector. I don't have much sympathy for the gullible, maybe it's because of where I was brought up (the suburbs of NYC) or the fact I've lived on 4 different continents, but if something seems to good to be true, it usually is. I also believe that if someone approaches you to sell you something, chances are they're the ones who are going to be making out on the deal.

But what really pisses me off is these corporations who go out of their way to fuck grandma and grandpa over.

...

Although some companies, including Wachovia, have made refunds to victims who have complained, neither that bank nor infoUSA stopped working with criminals even after executives were warned that they were aiding continuing crimes, according to government investigators. Instead, those companies collected millions of dollars in fees from scam artists. (Neither company has been formally accused of wrongdoing by the authorities.)

"Only one kind of customer wants to buy lists of seniors interested in lotteries and sweepstakes: criminals," said Sgt. Yves Leblanc of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "If someone advertises a list by saying it contains gullible or elderly people, it’s like putting out a sign saying 'Thieves welcome here.'"

...

It's all about the bottom line. They don't care who gets hurt, who starves, who gets tossed out on the street after their life savings are used up. The same can be said about the HMO industry, the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and all the rest who've gotten big and fat thanks to the lawmakers they have in their pockets. Accountability is a thing of the past. As Dave Johnson says:

So...so what? Rule of law was so 20th-century.