I gotta say, I was a little surprised that so many Dopers would cop to watching this show with me, but it’s refreshing. I wouldn’t say I *like *the show necessarily, and I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it if my wife didn’t tell me when it was on, but it is a harmless enough way to pass the time.
Maybe I’m just a little (way?) more trusting (gullible?) than some of you, but I never once considered that the scam may have just been scripted. I can see reasons, both noble and selfish, why the producers would choose to do that, but never would have made the connection myself.
The worst part of the Craigslist Scam episode was when Maci and her new boyfriend took their one-year old on a Go-Kart, which is bad enough, but they didn’t even put a helmet on the kid. Is that really legal in The South?
Oh, and I think the CL scam was completely scripted from start to finish.
It’s a nature show. It would be unethical to intervene.
Reality shows are only about five percent removed from sitcoms.
At the very least, frankly, she should be getting paid scale. If she’s not I hope the actors’ guilds are fighting this shit.
The reason I care is that the people filming obviously knew it was a bad idea, and thus, by inaction, committed an immoral act. You can’t do anything about people who fall victim that you don’t know about, other than trying to educate them. But when it’s happening right in front of you? You definitely should be stopping it.
But, of course, I still doubt it was real–unless the producers are evil geniuses and know that people that people would think it fake.
ETA: And what makes you think I don’t help the homeless I encounter? Granted, I offer food, not money, but still.
Actually, I remember reading where part of why tv stations looooove reality shows is that the “actors” on them don’t have to register with SAG so they don’t have to deal with that pesky union when it comes to shit like this.
Forget MTV… they want the ratings. What about the bank where she banks at? When I worked for a bank, if I knowingly allowed someone to do something like that, I would be in deep trouble. Furthermore, a check that size should have raised some warning bells because of federal Regulation CC (anti-money laundering statutes). When she came back to withdraw the money, the teller should have seen the previous deposit and started asking questions.
MTV isn’t responsible for her being an idiot. Her bank, however, should have acted more responsibly.
ETA: I don’t watch the show, but I will cop to watching MTV True Life when there’s nothing better on… :rolleyes:
I worked at a credit union, and it boiled down to “you are an adult and if you choose to do this, you are at fault”. I had several people come to my window (and many others I saw at my co-workers’ windows) with scams and we’d explain it was a scam and why you could tell it was one. Maybe 1/4 of the people would decide to listen to us. The others would still deposit it after I flat out told them, “this will bounce back. I can guarantee you it is NOT a good check”.
At that point, we would put a note on the account to the effect of, “on (date) member brought in check (info) that was likely a fraud. Counseled them on this and advised not to deposit it. After discussion, member decided that s/he wanted to take the risk.” and told them that we were putting it on there.
But really, you could only do all of that if you had the background info*. We had tons of people who would come in with legit checks for $5,000, $10,000, even $50,000. Yeah, they had holds on them but they’d clear. It’s not part of your job to ask them where a check is from; that’s their business and if they want to share it with you, they’ll tell you. If someone came to a teller window with a check for $10,000 and just said, “I know there’ll be a hold on this; just put it in checking”, what do you do? You put it in the account with the standard hold that we were told to put on checks for $xx,xxx amount.
And then 5 business days after that hold, it’d bounce. :: shrug :: They’re adults. We can counsel them if we have the information to do so, but we’re not their parents or caregivers. And you can’t just say, “well, make the hold on checks even longer!” because people with legit $10k checks are not going to put up with having what amounts to a 3 week hold on their check until we 100% know for sure it cleared.**
- Yeah, I won this lotto contest in Atlanta, even though I never entered any lotto many states away and they just need me to cash this $10,000 check and mail them back $2,000 for the taxes and stuff! Sigh.
** I had one guy who did let me put a 20 business day hold on his scam check. This guy broke my heart.
He had a check that was an obvious scam, but he was out of work (I’m in Michigan and our economy has sucked ass for a loooong time now) and needed money. This random check in the mail basically sounded like God answering his prayers for him. I explained exactly why it was a scam, and he said, in a quavery voice, “look, I know it’s probably a scam, but I just have to take this chance. I don’t have money for my family..” :(. At that point, I pointed out how the letter didn’t say there was any deadline to get their money Western Unioned to them, so why don’t we just put a really long hold on this money so we can be 1000% sure that it won’t bounce, then if it clears, you can then send the money? I explained that that way, if it wasn’t a scam ( :: coughcough :: ), he’d still get his money, but if it WAS a scam, then he wouldn’t be out thousands of dollars he didn’t have. He agreed to this… and (duh) it bounced. But at least he wasn’t out any money of his own.
A couple of points:
I’m sure we’ve all watched documentaries about straight up damaging stuff- hardcore drug use, violence, etc. The point of being a documentary producer is you don’t step in because that doesn’t make for a truthful documentary style. While we could certainly argue MTV’s intent here, for me, I see it like they are presenting a fly on the wall perspective of what it’s like to be a teen mom. Just like I would be pretty shocked to see a documentary about heroin use where the director jumps in and begs the person not to harm themselves by smoking crack, I don’t really expect the producers here to step in and be like, “JESUS CHRIST, YOU FUCKING MORON! READ THE GIANT YELLOW BANNER AT THE TOP OF CRAIGSLIST THAT SAYS TO NEVER FUCKING WIRE MONEY TO PEOPLE!!!”
Secondly, the girls are compensated for their time on the show. I’ve seen low numbers and higher numbers, but most seem to agree that they get about $24k a season. I don’t have a cite because I’m about to leave work in a minute and can’t dig it up, but I’ve read that in several places. Not to mention the fact that these girls are all over magazine covers right now, which you are paid for (of course, they aren’t making Angelina Jolie cover money, but still decent money). And several of them have part time jobs on the show, too.
So, if Farrah’s broke, it might have more to do with her ability to manage her finances than her lack of funds. While 24k isn’t exactly rolling on dough, it’s enough that she’d be able to get by on that alone if she had to— but she doesn’t, because she has other revenue sources as well. Clearly, home girl is just dumb (so dumb. Fo real).
I know that the girls get paid for being on the show, but part of me hopes that MTV is paying them in some sort of trust for the babies. I could see a single mom, even the ones on this series (they’re mostly not bad kids, just irresponsible and immature) agreeing to that type of compensation package. Maybe 50/50 between her personal payment and something for her kids’ trust.
What about the boyfriends, baby daddy’s, parents, etc… Do we think they’re also paid? It would be odd to pay a boyfriend who could be dumped and out of the picture at any moment (I’m looking at you, Gary.)
Don’t they legally have to pay anyone who is on tv at least scale? Which is a few hundred bucks per shooting day, isn’t it?
As far as the girls— most of these girls are pretty dumb, I’m sure they gleefully accepted the money completely for themselves and squandered it (hey, Farrah!). But hey, they are adults, they need to learn.
I didn’t want to dignify this with a response, but it’s been eating at me since I first read it, and I just want to say that you’re WAY out of line to suggest that I don’t care about the homeless or jobless or victims of other scams just because I didn’t bring them up. I tried to keep this within the scope of the one scam I saw on a particular TV show.
On MTV Canada, they feed in the Twitter updates for the moms. Apparently all the moms just got together in New York for the show. Farrah said she and Sophia went to FAO Schwartz. Suuuurrrreee she could have just gone there to be touristy, but I doubt it.
The teens make $60,000 to $65,000 a year according to this new article.
Craigslist is my new best friend. I get all my jobs, cars, apartments and duh boyfriends there. <G>
I don’t have a tv or seen this particular show and if I have I bet I promptly switched the channel or shut it off. Thats just me. I listen to radioparadise.com and play scrabble and am working on a BookTVmovie screenplay.
This particular thread blew my mind. Reminded me of “I Love Lucy”. America at the time related to Rickey coming home to Lucy’s shenanagins. Now this show shows an exaggerated daily life of today that regular folks can relate to blows my mind.
I’ve never seen the show, and honestly, I stand in line at the supermarket looking at these girls on the covers of all the rags thinking “Really? People care about these kids?” Of course, I think the same of The Hills and Jersey Shore, except that I can’t help but feel (admittedly having seen none of them) that as PALATR entertainment goes, there’s a qualitative difference between being amused by Speidi or Snooki than by teenagers leaving their babies unattended in sinks.
(Which is not a slam on anyone who watches any these shows. Hey, they’re on, and you’re sitting on the couch, and stuff happens. I get it. 
)
But if they’re paying these kids $65K a year, I don’t wanna hear shit about them ‘struggling’. That’s more than a lot of well educated people with good jobs make.
Well, that explains Maci’s apartment in Nashville! I was wondering how the hell she could afford that and put Bentley in daycare.
It’s way more than I make!
I am on hold with MTV right now* waiting to pitch my new show, Teen Thugs. Camera crews will follow 6 gang members 24/7, showing their lives, loves, and struggles. See them rob grandmothers! Thrill as they beat up their girlfriends! Cheer them on as they sell crack outside of schools! Gold, I tell yah!
- Not really, alas. I have little doubt that it would be a huge hit, though, especially if it ended with a Dragnet-style voice-over telling how much time each participant got for the crimes committed on camera.
OK, I rescind any concerns I had… fuck that bitch.