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ray@lemmy.ml to Technology@lemmy.mlEnglish · 11 months ago

She Made $10,000 a Month Defrauding Apps like Uber and Instacart. Meet the Queen of the Rideshare Mafia

www.wired.com

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She Made $10,000 a Month Defrauding Apps like Uber and Instacart. Meet the Queen of the Rideshare Mafia

www.wired.com

ray@lemmy.ml to Technology@lemmy.mlEnglish · 11 months ago
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Priscila Barbosa came to the US with a dream of making it. Using gig-economy platforms she built a business empire up from nothing. There was just one huge problem.
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  • ynazuma@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Failry old news. The Wired article is long and offers nothing but verbiose language and opinion.

    The Skinny:

    Barbossa is a Brazilian immigrant who along with another Brazilian and a group of 17 other people, used stolen identity data to create fake Uber and Door Dash driver accounts to defraud these companies. They would sell or rent these accounts to unqualified drivers. The scheme netted them about 791,000USD. Barbossa got 3 years in prison, three years probation, and a 20,000 dollar fine.

    • bamboo@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      20k for 791k, about a 2.5% fee

      • deranger@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Probably have to forfeit the money on top of the fine.

        • explore_broaden@midwest.social
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          11 months ago

          According to the article they did seize whatever they could.

          • The Menemen@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            Also, the 20k is her fine, they gained the 790k between 20 people.

            Don’t know how they distributed it, but 790k for 20 people isn’t a lot of money.

    • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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      11 months ago

      Is it really fraud to take money back from a fraudster?

    • smackjack@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I wonder if she’s the reason why I received a 1099 tax form from Uber earlier this year, even though I’ve never driven for them.

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      Why do you need special qualifications to work for Door Dash lol

      • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Usually, they fail the background check, don’t have a license, their car doesn’t meet requirements. Etc

        • The Menemen@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          Also people without a work permit.

  • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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    11 months ago

    As a teen, she kitted out her home PC with a terabyte of memory…so she could play Counter-Strike

    Is this even a tech journalist who wrote this story? Man, wired has gone down hill.

  • asap@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Thanks for the paywall OP 🙄

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.wired.com/story/priscila-queen-of-the-rideshare-mafia

    • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 months ago

      Wayback Machine link too: https://web.archive.org/web/20240717171003/https://www.wired.com/story/priscila-queen-of-the-rideshare-mafia/

    • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      while you’re doing God’s work, to also remind people that the “bypass paywall clean” browser extension exists, and works on a lot of websites.

      • Cheradenine@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Wired is soft paywall too. Clearing cookies works

    • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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      11 months ago

      Loafs fine without js

  • Lime Buzz (fae/she)@beehaw.org
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    [sarcasm] Wow, Whatsapp owned by Facebook (the privacy violators) isn’t secure? Colour me surprised [/sarcasm]

    Shame she didn’t get away with it. Another case for abolishing borders and letting people work and stay places if they want/need to. Also for the US to stop having such an effect on other countries, directly or indirectly.

    • explore_broaden@midwest.social
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      11 months ago

      I don’t think there was anything in the article indicating the privacy of WhatsApp was actually breached, they got info by reading WhatsApp messages from other people in the chat who had already been arrested and from Apple.

      • Lime Buzz (fae/she)@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        Oh, okay. Thanks for explaining!

        Either I missed that or didn’t pick up on it.

  • delirious_owl@discuss.online
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    11 months ago

    Outside, she placed several phones under her Porsche’s wheels and drove over them.

    Thats like Hollywood-level dumb.

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