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

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

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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Comments on “Spammer Discovers His Insurance Policy Doesn't Cover $6 Million Spam Fines”

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10 Comments
Ryan says:

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.

ted112 (user link) says:

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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