Spammer Discovers His Insurance Policy Doesn't Cover $6 Million Spam Fines

from the just-so-you-know... dept

Mon, Aug 3rd 2009 10:59am — Mike Masnick

Scott Richter was a bigtime spammer, who was so proud of being a spammer, at one point he planned to release his own line of "Spamking" clothing (seriously). In 2005, though, he filed for bankruptcy (even though it appeared his spamming operations were still rolling in cash. That same year, there were reports that Richter had actually gone legit and he was actually removed from the infamous ROKSO list of known spammers (not an easy list to get removed from). Except... sometimes it's just difficult to stay away. MySpace sued Richter in 2007 and won a $6 million award against him (though, Richter claimed victory since MySpace wanted much more).

Now, Michael Scott alerts us to the news that Richter tried to have his insurance company pay the fines, but a court has now said that these fines were excluded from the policies, and thus Richter is on the hook for the fines instead. That seems like a good thing. It would be pretty troubling if spammers were able to buy insurance against getting fined.

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Filed Under: insurance, scott richter, spam

10 Comments

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yozoo, 3 Aug 2009 @ 11:03am

dumb ass
he should have collateralized the risk into dividend paying bonds then sold them as securities . . . what a moron
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Travis (profile), 3 Aug 2009 @ 11:38am

This guy sounds like a real winner.
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DanOfSoCal, 3 Aug 2009 @ 11:41am

Re: dumb ass
That's hilarious!
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James, 3 Aug 2009 @ 12:07pm

YAY!!
I'd absolutely love to see more rulings like this against spammers.. that and maybe a stoning ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Aug 2009 @ 12:09pm

s/was/is/
Richter is still spamming. He's gotten somewhat better about hiding behind front companies, but he's still doing it. And he's running a registrar (Dynamic Dolphin) in part to reduce the cost of the tens of thousands of domain names his activities require.
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Otm Shank (profile), 3 Aug 2009 @ 1:39pm

Not necessarily troubling
It wouldn't be so troubling if you could buy insurance against being fined. Who would underwrite something like that, however, if your business model is based on spamming people?
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Ryan, 3 Aug 2009 @ 2:16pm

Re: Not necessarily troubling
How would that work? Anybody that provided that would just be inviting insurance "fraud", like a provider that offered fire insurance that covered setting your own place on fire. I think it has less to do with the risks of a business model than on the fact that a spammer would just calculate the expected fine and buy it if it was cheaper than the fine. Probability and risk don't really come into play.
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ted112, 20 Nov 2009 @ 6:40am

This is funny
LOL, this is a hilarious story. I agree with Travis' comments about this guy: "This guy sounds like a real winner." Though he is playing the game by breaking the rules, if he can get himself out of the trouble he is in now, overcome the $6 million dollar fine, and find more ways of making more money and being under the radar, there are few things that will stop him. He should've looked for insurance agents and then talked to a broker about getting insurance for spam fraud! LOL
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James, 28 Aug 2010 @ 6:53am

this is funny story. He definitely needed to look into insurance directory and talk to one of the guys!
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Sammy, 22 Mar 2013 @ 6:15am

Insurance company to pay out for his spamming? This guy is more silly than he sounds. Serves him right to pay fines for spamming so much!

Author: exoticcarinsurance.co
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