My friend used a ticketing website in which he said that he would be making fake email addresses to refer himself to the site. When he gets a referral, and the referral purchases something on that site, he gets a free 10 dollars to spend in his original account. I say this is illegal since he is stealing money from the site, but he said it's ok, because he's actually making new accounts, and is buying products with the fake accounts. (Referred accounts have to purchase a product for credit to appear in the original account. However, he purchases items worth 1-2 dollars on the fake accounts, and then gets 10 dollar referral credits, so is therefore making a profit of about 8-9 dollars). What are your thoughts on this issue? Can he get sued for this?
Anytime someone uses deceptive practices over the internet in order to obtain benefits to which he or she would not otherwise be entitled, a red flag should go up, which it clearly that it has (at least in your mind), otherwise you would not have posted the question. The first place to start is the terms of use of the website. Chances are it prohibits the practice your friend is engaging in. If by fake you mean the email addresses are non-functional, that right there could be used as a basis for a fraud claim or prosecution. Another potentially relevant issue is whether he is creating fake identities to with the fake email addresses relate. If so, that could run afoul of laws preventing posing as others online. Hope this helps.
Seems to me very likely to be considered fraudulent, since it sounds like he is obtaining money by false pretenses.
Fraud laws generally require that the defrauded party reasonably relied on the falsity to his/her detriment, which may or may not be present in the situation you describe. One theoretically possible defense therefore might be a lack of reliance if this type of thing is done all the time and knowingly tolerated by the owner of the website. That seems unlikely, but possible I suppose.
One thing to note is that fraud is something that can result in the fraud perpetrator being sued, it is also generally a crime. So, for instance, committing fraud over the Internet may end being a federal wire fraud, which can result in imprisonment in a federal penitentiary up to twenty years. In other words, not something to mess around with.
I concur with Mr. Adli and Mr. Montague. Your friend is on a dangerous, illegal path. He's essentially representing something that isn't true, pretending to be a business that he isn't, has a fake email address, and is deceiving people into giving him money. And, it's across state lines. He ought to stop what he's doing immediately. It's not cute, clever or funny. There are civil and criminal penalties for this not to mention the fact that his conduct makes it more difficult for genuine business owners to conduct their business.
