Scams versus mistakes and why it’s notable
Calling a mistake a scam belittles actual scams.
Some people have extreme reactions when something goes wrong at a domain name firm: they say they were scammed.
Such was the case the prior week with the person who thought he’d won a GoDaddy auction, only to find out a network problem caused him to think he’d won when he was really outbid.
Yes, there’s a problem with how GoDaddy’s countdown timer is set up that can lead to this issue. But saying GoDaddy is trying to scam people is very different from what really happened.
Scam is not a word that ought to be used lightly. The word suggests that someone had malicious intent and purposefully did something. A programming issue is not a scam. It’s a mistake.
Firms ought to address these issues quickly. They ought to be held to task if they don’t. Yet, there are two problems with labeling things as scams that aren’t actually scams:
- It makes you look hysterical so people won’t pay much attention to the facts.
- It belittles actual scams — something we need to be on the lookout for.
