• DarkMessiah@lemmy.world
    106·
    9 months ago

    …How do these people not realise they’re being scammed? It’s… blatant!

    It could only be more obvious if the documents were being held by a Nigerian Prince who wanted to send $1 million along with them! I feel like I could walk up to one of these fools and tell them, “I am actively scamming you, but if you trust me with a few dollars, magical fairies will come and restore you to your prime and grant you and those you love eternal youth, life, and wealth,” and they’d give me everything they could get their hands on!

    It’s almost hard to not pity them at this point…

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOPM
      52·
      9 months ago

      The Facebook groups have thousands of people. I think the parallels between these people and Qanon are pretty significant.

    • kautau@lemmy.world
      49·
      9 months ago

      The best (worst?) part about this… that address is a church

      They are being scammed by a church, but is a time honored tradition

        • jaybone@lemmy.world
          13·
          9 months ago

          Some people like the community aspect of it, and doing charity / volunteer work. But other than that you are mostly right.

          • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            9 months ago

            Could also choose to engage with your community and do charity/volunteer work without supporting organizations like the Catholic church that actively shield pedo priests from prosecution. So many ways to do good without also enabling evil.

      • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
        7·
        9 months ago

        To be fair, it’s probably a randomly chosen address that has nothing to do with the church. It’s not exactly like they’re going to process returns.

    • Hikermick@lemmy.world
      13·
      9 months ago

      It would be fun to come up with a grift like this but use the same twisted legalese to claim what they are paying for is worthless. If you can’t beat em, join em.

      • jaybone@lemmy.world
        2·
        9 months ago

        I would worry someone might try to sue you or prosecute you for making fake documents. I’m wondering if I could do a similar grift for the flat earthers. Seems more tricky to capitalize on that but less likely to land you in legal trouble.

        • lad@programming.dev
          2·
          9 months ago

          Maybe selling long hidden true maps of the flat earth infused with wisdom of the ancients would do the trick. It must also adhere to other conspiracies though, like a Finland sea in place of Finland

    • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
      7·
      9 months ago

      I have been so tempted over the years to set up scams for crazy people. Homeopathy, SovCits, crystal healing, Trump fans. My greed is slightly less powerful than the self-loathing I’d endure having to have more contact and immersion in these worlds - to do a good scam, you have to know the domain, talk the talk, and I just can’t.

      But I don’t hate the people scamming these suckers. It isn’t like not scamming them is going to help them be less stupid.

  • wahming@monyet.ccEnglish
    73·
    9 months ago

    At this point we should just rename the community to InsaneSovCits. Not that I don’t get a chuckle out of the posts

  • Ozymati@lemmy.nz
    62·
    9 months ago

    Who wants to open a business with me to fleece sovcits who think this kind of thing is legit?

  • athos77@kbin.social
    55·
    9 months ago

    Countries that have accepted the World Passport

    The following is a list of countries which, on at least one occasion, have recognized the World Passport on a “de facto” basis, by stamping a national visa and/or entry/exit stamp.

    I like the fact that they argue their passport isn’t fake because some bored / overworked customs guy once stamped it.

    Their website has a Legal section as well, but I’m too tired to look through it.

    • Im_old@lemmy.world
      5·
      9 months ago

      You could have your passport stamped at the tourists’ office in Machu Pichu (to show that you have been there). I should have got my world passport stamped! (I took a picture with a Lama instead of doing that queue).

  • voracitude@lemmy.world
    44·
    9 months ago

    Isn’t applying for a passport like this, from any third party, kind of directly counter to what sovcits say they stand for? What with the sending of photos and money to a shadowy organisation to be registered in a database, and all.

    • fsxylo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      19·
      9 months ago

      What sovcits believe in is being as much of a stupid dumbass as possible because being intelligent makes you a sheep.

  • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
    35·
    9 months ago

    I’m less familiar with these sovcits but this post got me thinking, what do y’all think the Venn diagram between this type of person and those who complain about “illegal” immigrants looks like? Are these the same nutjob racists or are they a different kind of nutjob?

    • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
      28·
      9 months ago

      When you start digging into who is behind the conspiracy, you tend to hit “the Jews” (or a corresponding dogwhistle) pretty reliably, which leads to concerns less about illegal immigrants, and more about brown people.

      I had a friend who went from moon landing conspiracism to flat earth, sovcit, Nazi over the course of a couple of years. I called the coming Nazism well over a year ahead of time, and people thought I was nuts. When most conspiracies blame the Jews, I can’t understand why people get surprised by it.

      • lad@programming.dev
        6·
        9 months ago

        That’s a bit of ‘surprised Pikachu’ energy, like what else would you expect if most conspiracies are “[some group based on an arbitrary trait] is in control and hides it”

        The exceptions are probably just trollz that went out of control and found real followers, like flat earth

        • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
          3·
          9 months ago

          Most of the Nazis don’t know what they believe - you look at /pol as an example - haha funny racist jokes - I’m just saying this to trigger the libs… unless you’d be up for a little genocide - because if you’re into that kind of thing, I might be too.

          Schrodinger’s Nazi.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOPM
      25·
      9 months ago

      A lot of sovcits are actually black (the Moorish Science Temple has a lot of them for some reason), but they all haaaaaate Jews. Sovereign citizen movement has roots in white supremacy for sure though.

    • RegalPotoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      44·
      9 months ago

      You kinda want them to manage to get past the TSA so they can get arrested trying to illegally enter another country and have to decide if getting help from the state department is worth admitting they are a US citizen

      • Hikermick@lemmy.world
        5·
        9 months ago

        I haven’t traveled out of the US in quite a while but I don’t think you have to show TSA a passport but you do need identification to get through

        • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
          8·
          9 months ago

          A lot of the time (if not always), they require you to use your passport as your ID for international flights

          • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
            4·
            9 months ago

            Some countries, like Australia, require you to show the airline a valid visa before you fly. If you land without one, the airline is responsible for the cost to repatriate you. Obviously to get a visa, you’d need a valid passport.

        • cbarrick@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          9 months ago

          I don’t know about TSA (I’ve never not used my passport as ID when traveling internationally).

          But the airlines will validate your documents before giving you a boarding pass. You have to either scan it into the app or show it to an agent at check-in.

  • AllToRuleThemOne@lemmy.world
    23·
    9 months ago

    Same energy over here in germany. People buy id cards stating they are citizens of the „Deutsches Reich“. Of course there are several groups claiming they are an exile government, succesors, etc. and ripping of delusional people. Frankly, no pity from me.

  • Randelung@lemmy.world
    18·
    9 months ago

    Hey so

    How illegal would it be if I set up “services” for these idiots and took their money? I could even advertise as non-legal documents and “spread the rumor” that they totally are legal, it just has to say that.

    I’m sure lots of them would freely give me their money for a “count of iceland”-or-whatever-title-that-was-like document.

    Edit: Oh, guess I’m too late lol

    • IMongoose@lemmy.world
      25·
      9 months ago

      It’s possible that it’s the perfect crime. Because this is definitely fraud, but as long as it’s a sovcit going after you you have a high chance if beating them in a court of law as long as you have lawyer. Because they will be self representing and spouting complete insanity. You do have a pretty high chance of getting shot though, so do all your business online.

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        9 months ago

        I’m seriously thinking on it. Seriously. Surely a first-year law student could form a disclaimer that would pass muster.

        “This product/service/whatever is not legal for use by citizens of the United States of America. This product/service/whatever confers no legal, uh, anything, in an American court of law.”

        “Not legal tender.”, sort of thing. My god, you could take these people with monopoly money.

        At this point I’m tired of being a decent, moral man. Why should I not grift these idiots? Why should I not print up Trump flags and Jesus flags? I could sleep at night taking these idiot’s money.

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
          4·
          9 months ago

          Seriously

          I think if you specifically say something like “non-legal documents”. You might even be able to get in “for novelty purposes” some where in there?

          You only need them to buy it once its not like they are going to be repeat customers.

      • Delphia@lemmy.world
        8·
        9 months ago

        They also have to find you when you get the IDs made in HongKong, The passports in Malaysia, all shipped to Uzbekistan in packaging that clearly says “movie props” where they are packaged up and shipped to the customers with no return address, the website is hosted in moldovia and you only accept payment in bitcoin.

      • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
        5·
        9 months ago

        I’m not a lawyer nor do I know anything about anything.

        But this is an excellent opportunity to look into shell companies, and forming a double llc. It allows you to keep your personal information out of the public.

        Lawsuits are laughable and can be ignored with a lawyer. Unless you really fuck up because you made your corporate seal look too similar to a actual government one, customers suing you would be dismissed or can be ignore.