Is that a fact?
If that's true then I can go buy a stolen car from a slick-haired suspender-wearing fraudster, crash it through a competitor's shop window and walk away scot-free.
Martin Grunin - Facebook Ads Fraud - Bank Fraud - mgrunin
- Thread starter BigWill
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Is that a fact?
If that's true then I can go buy a stolen car from a slick-haired suspender-wearing fraudster, crash it through a competitor's shop window and walk away scot-free.
Dat NYC public education we're working with bro.
He coulda sold the bmw (it'll be seized now) at the beginning of this whole ordeal to get some defense other than that sovereign citizen shit, for example. He has tax problems too, he had warnings that something was coming...
Maybe the title is under his Dad's name and it won't be seized? Grunin sure isn't trying to hide that BMW, which leads me to believe that it isn't "his".
So Grunin's defense is that he isn't responsible for the unpaid balances on the Facebook adverting accounts (which he created by defrauding Facebook) because he sold them off, and the buyers ran up the charges.
Honestly it seems like an interesting defense. I'm sure it was against Facebook's T&C's to sell accounts, but he claims he wasn't asked to agree to any T&C's.
Trying to think of a physical analogy..
If I steal a car and then sell it to someone else, and that someone kills a pedestrian, the buyer is going to be responsible for damages. Not me who stole the car.
Even if he did sell them, he supposedly created them through fraudulent means. The fact that his name server was used for the domains involved is damning evidence that is hard to ignore. In any event, he is now trying to defend himself and it's too late for that. I doubt this judge will have mercy on him.
i said in my opinion is she's average. i'm not much into the objective standard business. you may be.
I don't think there's any question that he committed fraud to have these accounts created.. but he sold them to other people who then ran up the huge advertising bills. It still doesn't seem clear to me who is really responsible for those advertising debts.
Shouldn't Facebook have gone after the people that bought the accounts too?
I'm sure the federal prosecutor will be interested in the people who purchased them. The shitstorm is probably just starting for him and who ever else was involved.
Its pretty clear.
The whole point of tort law is to "make the victim whole" and to deter the damaging behavior. If you look at it from that perspective, its pretty obvious you can't commit fraud, benefit financially from that fraud, then claim you aren't responsible for obviously foreseeable damages because someone else did it.
Parties can also be jointly and severally liable for the same tort - meaning everyone involved is liable for the damages and the victim will recover from whoever they can.
In this case, Facebook could have sued Grunin and everyone who brought accounts from him, and that's the usual practice if they were trying to maximize their chances of recovery but that doesn't seem to be their goal. They just wanted a scalp and he was the low hanging fruit.
If you don't like my armchair analysis (understandable), there are court docs posted in this thread where FB's lawyers explain why legally Grunin is liable.
Yeah. I know a guy. He'll meet you at the Brighton Beach Pier tomorrow at 3:15pm. Make sure to wear a pink fedora and shoemoney t-shirt (that's how he'll know you're one of us).
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