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Twitch troll tries to donate $50k then chargeback as a prank. It ends bad.

~Cross~

Member
But doesn't credit cards have limits? Unless he used a bank account.

Yeah, either the paypal is linked to a bank account, in which case it already had the money or the credit card linked to the paypal has no fucking limits which would be hard to get even with amazing credit. The guy had the money, or at the very least his family did. Also any bank would have tripped alarms with these kinds of spending. It was deliberate, it had to be
 
I'm not sure "burned" is the right adjective to describe how utterly monumental a 50k debt is. Imagine a sudden doubling of your expenses. I know for a fact my life would be ruined. It was a stupid prank by someone who clearly doesn't understand money and likely was spending his parents money who made the unfortunate mistake of trusting their son. The kid deserves punishment, but not to have his life shot to bits. His family definitely doesn't deserve the same.

Hard to feel bad. This wasn't some accident he knew what he was doing and as far as I'm concerned that money is gone. It's not like there is some good or product he can return to get the money back. It was (in theory) a donation or payment made in exchange for someone entertaining you via an Internet stream. It's like spending $50k at a strip club. You can't return those lap dances. Fuck'em. And like i said, if he didn't have his parents permission to use the card then his parents should file fraud with the CC company and have him arrested. Their call. Eat their stupid kid's mistake or have him arrested.
 

Chris1

Member
How can people feel bad for the parents?

If they didn't notice $50k go missing for over a month they're idiots and deserve it. That or they're loaded and literally didn't notice the $50k go missing, in that case they won't miss the $50k anyways, and will have learned a lesson.
 
Yes seriously. Considering the large proportion of people living paycheck to paycheck 50k in sudden debt doesn't ruin lives it ruins families. If his parents aren't rich as fuck you're talking about losing homes outright. PayPal should definitely refund. If not the parents need to due out something.

Maybe his parents should have done a better job at teaching their child the consequences of his actions. Better yet his parents should not have given him access to a credit card.Like someone said this isn't a situation where a 3 year old accidentally pressed a button to buy a lot of stuff on a mobile game. Serve him and his parents right. I have nieces and nephews his age and they don't go around doing stupid shit like that and you know why? Because their parents taught them right.

Parents who assumed their kid wasn't a complete idiot. A grave mistake.

That's not Paypal or the credit card company's fault though. If I had an 18 year old, I would never leave them with my credit card. Saying that I don't trust anyone with my credit card info besides my wife and my mom.
 

Asd202

Member
Yeah, either the paypal is linked to a bank account, in which case it already had the money or the credit card linked to the paypal has no fucking limits which would be hard to get even with amazing credit. The guy had the money, or at the very least his family did. Also any bank would have tripped alarms with these kinds of spending. It was deliberate, it had to be

Maybe the bank acount had someting like 10 million dollars? :p

I'm reading his Twitter. He's 18 and he frequents casinos.

What a gambler.
 

Toxi

Banned
Doesn't refunding a donation to a streamer actually cost the streamer money? I watch cs go streams a lot and one streamer was saying he lost like ~$400 bucks in paypal fees from some guy refunding thousands of dollars of donations from him.
Yes. That's the point of what this asshole was doing; he wanted to "troll" streamers by making big donations and waiting a month so they'd feel safe using the money, then do chargebacks so they suffer.
 

Linkark07

Banned
After watching the video and seeing the reactions of the streamers (especially the second one), I honestly believe the kid should pay for what he did and not take back the money from the streamers.
 
What age bracket does this kind of streaming usually target. I'm only 23 and I feel like a crotchety old man for thinking this is inane and ephemeral.

There's probably some stratification in there. I'd say "text to speech" for donations in particular is the sort of thing you do if you're targeting a much younger crowd, because it's really just there so people can inflict dank memes on others.

The donations/subscriptions pop-ups is a lot more general, and it really depends on how obnoxious it is. There are a lot of streamers who just have a simple plain-text pop-up ("[X] donated $[Y]. Thank you!") in a fairly non-obnoxious place, but the more sound and color that's happening, the more you're probably looking at a teenage target audience.

I think a lot of them do it just because there's a ready-made "streamer" app package that includes all this rot and they don't bother to turn it off.
 

MiguelItUp

Member
They shouldn't have given him access to a credit card.

Exactly. The kid is old enough to know right from wrong. Pranks are fine, sure, I mean I'll always appreciate a good sense of humor. But a line needs to be drawn somewhere. Donating money to anyone or anything with the intention of taking it back is not funny at all. I don't care if they're streamers or not, it's just not right. Not to mention this kid kept doing it, not once but several times. He had plenty of times to stop and he didn't, he just kept on going.
 

Cleve

Member
That's a lot of money. He should be able to get it back. Sure he was a dick, but he's a kid.

He's 18, right? When do we stop the 'he's just a kid' excuse? 21? 26? 30?

If his parents want to get their money back, they can say their credit cards were stolen, let the credit card company handle it with law enforcement, if they don't want to do that, they can accept responsibility for his shitty behavior.

He intended to financially hurt lots of people because he thought it was funny.
 

Tigress

Member
I'm not sure "burned" is the right adjective to describe how utterly monumental a 50k debt is. Imagine a sudden doubling of your expenses. I know for a fact my life would be ruined. It was a stupid prank by someone who clearly doesn't understand money and likely was spending his parents money who made the unfortunate mistake of trusting their son. The kid deserves punishment, but not to have his life shot to bits. His family definitely doesn't deserve the same.

This, so much this. he should pay all the chargeback fees but 50k is easily life ruining and I think ruining his life is not fitting to the crime.
 

Archtreyz

Member
Patents are responsible for their kids, they should get nothing back. If he was taking from his parents they should have noticed the money missing at some point.
This is absolutely silly logic. That's like saying 'People are responsible for their money. If they are robbed, they shouldn't be able to get it back.' Anyone can take a credit card and use it, whether it's their own child or not.
 
Glad to see this blow up in someone's face finally. Hope the guy who did it is piss poor, maybe he'll learn to respeck his money.
 

Bikram

Member
Yeah, either the paypal is linked to a bank account, in which case it already had the money or the credit card linked to the paypal has no fucking limits which would be hard to get even with amazing credit. The guy had the money, or at the very least his family did. Also any bank would have tripped alarms with these kinds of spending. It was deliberate, it had to be

Yeah it all seems too much. If the kid or his family has so much money in the bank, then it would not be so bad for them. I can so no way of spending so much with credit cards.
 

univbee

Member
How can people feel bad for the parents?

If they didn't notice $50k go missing for over a month they're idiots and deserve it. That or they're loaded and literally didn't notice the $50k go missing, in that case they won't miss the $50k anyways, and will have learned a lesson.

Longer than a month I can understand, but plenty of people wouldn't notice as long as the card kept working, until the bill came in, which could be a few weeks later.

I'd really like to know how he could even charge $50k to a card, though, surely a kid living with his parents would have a credit card with a credit limit of like 3-5 grand max, and likely lower?

That said depending on the kid's age and the specifics of where the $50k came from, might have to declare bankruptcy or enter a consumer proposal (if available where he lives), both of which suck but at least give some chance of financial recovery eventually.
 
I swear we are living in a society where people think there is no repercussions or consequences for their actions. Is life even real to them?

I can't imagine how the Twitch streamers must have felt as this was playing out.

He's 18, right? When do we stop the 'he's just a kid' excuse? 21? 26? 30?

If his parents want to get their money back, they can say their credit cards were stolen, let the credit card company handle it with law enforcement, if they don't want to do that, they can accept responsibility for his shitty behavior.

He intended to financially hurt lots of people because he thought it was funny.

80-year-olds will be using it as an excuse one day. 80 is the new 12.
 
There's probably some stratification in there. I'd say "text to speech" for donations in particular is the sort of thing you do if you're targeting a much younger crowd, because it's really just there so people can inflict dank memes on others.

The donations/subscriptions pop-ups is a lot more general, and it really depends on how obnoxious it is. There are a lot of streamers who just have a simple plain-text pop-up ("[X] donated $[Y]. Thank you!") in a fairly non-obnoxious place, but the more sound and color that's happening, the more you're probably looking at a teenage target audience.

I think a lot of them do it just because there's a ready-made "streamer" app package that includes all this rot and they don't bother to turn it off.
What exactly does "dank" mean in this context? I'd rather not Google it at work.


I used to watch a few YouTubers stream around 2012-2014 and never saw stuff like this.
 

Juraash

Member
So my recollection is using charge backs, in this way, is fraud. It's been a long time since I've had to deal with anything charge back related, so correct me if I'm wrong.

If I'm remembering the above right though, this was bound to bite this dude in the ass at some point. Actions have consequences and I don't really have any sympathy for the guy.
 

Steejee

Member
Good lord, I have excellent credit, three CC's, no balance on any of them, and even factoring in that one is an Amex (which doesn't have a pre-set limit) I wouldn't be able to charge $50k in a single month unless I immediately paid off the highest limit one at least once, possibly twice before charging again. All three would probably block at least one of the transactions.

So I have to assume a bank account was linked with $50k+ in it, or Paypal itself had $50k in it, either way it means they were pretty loaded or really well off, and didn't pay much attention to their bank account. I don't know why you'd ever have $50k in Paypal or link it to an account with that much, it's just asking for trouble.

All that means that 'charging back' can't really happen. Paypal is not a CC company or a Bank- in fact they fought an attempt to label them a bank. I'd feel pretty bad for them but all that combined makes it sound like a person and family with more money than sense.
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
I swear we are living in a society where people think there is no repercussions or consequences for their actions. Is life even real to them?

I can't imagine how the Twitch streamers must have felt as this was playing out.



80-year-olds will be using it as an excuse one day. 80 is the new 12.
because we are
 

~Cross~

Member
Umm... yes. Claim as fraud and theft then money is returned. Credit card have safeguards for things like these.

It is entirely up to the banks that issue the credit to decide whether or not to refund. In this case paypal is acting as the bank. So he could go to the actual bank and complain but paypal is pretty much going to tell them to go fuck themselves and they cant do anything about it.
 

Jackshun

Banned
1. He is an adult.
2. Committing fraud.
3. He is rich.
4. He should pay the money plus damages.

You can't play games with banks and money. He is lucky PayPal does not bring charges against him.
 
18 years old means he should know about the basics of money
Plus from reading this thread he seems like a kid of rich parents so I feel no sympathy
Don't give your kids access to credit cards

glad no charge back is happening
 

univbee

Member
So my recollection is using charge backs, in this way, is fraud. It's been a long time since I've had to deal with anything charge back related, so correct me if I'm wrong.

If I'm remembering the above right though, this was bound to bite this dude in the ass at some point. Actions have consequences and I don't really have any sympathy for the guy.

A chargeback where you say "I didn't authorize this transaction" when you did is fraud, yes. Chargebacks for other reasons get a bit complicated and vary from country to country (e.g. a bunch of people in the EU are doing chargebacks for their Star Citizen contributions which they are 100% legally allowed to do per EU regulations, people in the U.S. are more SOL though).
 

Steejee

Member
So my recollection is using charge backs, in this way, is fraud. It's been a long time since I've had to deal with anything charge back related, so correct me if I'm wrong.

If I'm remembering the above right though, this was bound to bite this dude in the ass at some point. Actions have consequences and I don't really have any sympathy for the guy.

Yeah CC companies don't treat charge backs as a trivial thing. They don't just go 'sure' and carry on - they tend to investigate why (after all it costs them money) and flag your account. Multiple chargebacks can result in a hold on your account and a hit to your credit score.

I feel like a lot of these idiots that do the chargebacks with streaming don't really have much real world financial experience.
 

Kuraudo

Banned
This isn't a prank, it's fraud.

It could ruin his life, but successful chargebacks could also ruin the streamers' lives. Actions have consequences and while I have sympathy for him, he isn't the innocent party here.
 

jett

D-Member
The reactions from the first girl were the best. She started getting worried at one point but then the possibility of it being real just overcame her haha.

Unless that guy is a millionaire he's fucked for life, isn't he.
 
What exactly does "dank" mean in this context? I'd rather not Google it at work.


I used to watch a few YouTubers stream around 2012-2014 and never saw stuff like this.

The best you can hope for is someone spamming emojis--which speech-to-text will just read aloud, since it can't actually display them, obviously--and the worst is someone spouting some sort of hateful rhetoric or vitriol through robo-voice.

Nine times out of ten, it's just going to be as many "W" as they can fit in the donation text box. (The text-to-speech will try to pronounce each "W" individually.)
 

HMD

Member
The internet also loves to pretend someone is poor when he clearly isn't.

Because this dickhead wasn't attempting to do the same to others?

The kid is an absolute dickhead, and he should pay for any and all damages but a 50k debt at 18 can destroy his life. If he can somehow chargeback at least half of the donations I really do think he should, a 25k debt is a lot more manageable and not as life destroying as a 50k debt.


In my very limited understanding, he's using paypal and fraud laws don't count there?
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
The kid is an absolute dickhead, and he should pay for any and all damages but a 50k debt at 18 can destroy his life. If he can somehow chargeback at least half of the donations I really do think he should, a 25k debt is a lot more manageable and not as life destroying as a 50k debt.
But he shouldn't be spending this much anyways. I find it hard to find much, if any sympathy for him. People must face the consequences of their actions.
 
It's just Twitch.

Yeah, it's shitty of this guy to fake donations only to charge back... But no one's life should be ruined over something like that

Hope he's rich and this is a lesson to learn.
 

nakedeyes

Banned
What an idiot! Its an awful prank if that is what it was intended to be.. What is the deal with paypal? Did he need to actually have those funds in there to spend them like that? I would guess so..

If the dude had 50k to throw around to fuck with people, I don't really feel bad for him for actually losing it.
 
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