Originally published at: Anonymous caller tricks shoppers into licking store staff's feet - Boing Boing
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“So greed made you do what?”
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Is it wrong to laugh? I mean it’s funny but it’s fucked up. I don’t know what’s worse that people are conditioned into believing/doing this or that people will take advantage of them. Or maybe I’m the worst laughing at this.
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This is part of a spectrum of compliance, all rhe way from the Milgrim experiment to the Neuremburg rallies. Its not innate to people, it needs constant shoring up. Greg Gianaforte is one more cog in this machine.
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I know that we’re just sheeple, but seriously?
The store, Poundworld, offered them a £200 gift card.
It was the punchline that really had me rolling.
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At PoundWorld, licking feet and being ridden like a pony is just the half of it.
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Eventually the shoppers realized that there was no competition and went to the police.
EVENTUALLY!!!
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The post title is as far as I’m willing to go with this one. Over and out!
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Your average nastyass amoral clown leaves me cold, yet sometimes there are people who journey so far off the moral map, they almost become explorers. I think the worst I heard was a guy who claimed to have terminal cancer, and got his wife and children to raise money so he could try an experimental cure, which was actually another mistress who got the same treatment. That’s in a moral place I never knew could exist until he drew the map. I don’t admire these people, heck no, but then I have difficulty in admiring some real explorers and mountaineers too for the terrible things they did to themselves and the people they took with them.
This one is pretty tame. Not funny, but almost.
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To the surprise of no one, Law and Order covered this turf quite a ways back, complete with Robin Williams doing what he did best-
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No, that’s not actually what happened, according to the story. The shoppers left, but came back and continued with the charade:
“I started to think this was a scam and my mum then mentioned this to the staff and eventually we left saying if this was a prank we would want compensation. The manager asked to take my number and promised to let me know what happened,” she said.
Naomi then received a call on her mobile from the prank caller. "The manager must have been contacted by him again and given him my number.
“He said to go back to the store and when you arrive, you have to knock on the door on your hands and knees. You have ten minutes left to win the money.”
Naomi and her mother then returned as did as instructed and the ordeal continued for another half an hour. Eventually the manager of the store called the company’s HR and was told to contact the police.
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Actually, I am surprised that they “went to the police” in the first place. Maybe the legality of this is clearer in some jurisdictions than where I have lived. But generally around here it has been legal to get unfortunate, gullible people to debase themselves for hopes of some reward. Even with “real” contests, prizes are generally not guaranteed. It’s crass and tasteless, but contemporary models of employment and political representation are based upon the same kind of mindset. It would be hypocritical to accept it in one domain and express outrage in another.
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As someone who was not so prudent, let me say that you’ve chosen wisely.
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I think you are on to something here. I fully reject what the perp of this cruel joke did, but you have to respect(?) the level of the moral dungeon he ventured into. It makes me wonder if this is just the first stop on the bus ride further down?
There are many stories of cancer hoaxers, shysters, con artists, etc - but these people are usually motivated by something like money.
But in this case - money is not the objective. This person is exploring a darker level of humor than most would care to consider.
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Yupyupyup! This is an old (by internet standards scam), dating back to 2006:
It even has it’s own Wikipedia page!
Seems like they caught the guy by pulling camera footage from the Walmart he bought the phone card at. I wonder how long those tapes are retained?:
[quote]Using the records of the Panama City Walmart, which showed them the cash register and the time of purchase of the phone card, Mount Washington police were able to find surveillance camera footage of the purchaser of the card. The Massachusetts investigation had gone cold when their surveillance video failed to show the purchaser — the cameras had been trained on the store’s parking lot and not on the cash registers.[8]
The purchaser in the Panama City video was wearing a correctional officer’s uniform of the kind used by Corrections Corporation of America, a private security firm. Videos and still photographs from the two Walmarts were compared, and the same man was seen entering and exiting the Massachusetts Walmart at the time when a phone card was purchased there. Police used these images to produce front-and-back composite images of the suspect. Subsequent queries directed to the private security firm’s human resources department led to the identification of the phone card buyer as David R. Stewart, a married man with five children, who was then arrested.[/quote]
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I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not. Look at all the game shows that involve doing disgusting things, or embarrassing things, or just plain stupid things. And several of these shows involve a contestant just pulled off the street like this, rather than someone auditioning for a traditional game show. Hell, there’s even a prank show where the whole point is to do stupid shit to people and see how far they’ll let you go, and they don’t even win anything! Why wouldn’t these shoppers assume this was on the level? @anon47741163 is right. People have been trained to comply with this sort of crap, not just by psychologists and politicians, but also by popular media.
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What is especially despicable is that Poundworld is a shop for people well down the socioeconomic pecking order who may be desperate for money.
I hope he gets identified, as publicly as possible.
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I’m curious exactly how long this took. From the events described it wasnt very quick.
Wow!
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What makes my skin crawl even more, is wondering if yet another “brave adventurer” is even now reading this on BB and cooking up yet another variation on the scam. These stories ahould be useful as antivirus alerts, not zero day exploits to be weaponized.
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