Decoy (person)
A loss leader is a person who on behalf of service providers or producers in terms of advocacy advertises certain goods which devalues the competition or other actions in the interests of the client performs, but it conceals its own partiality. The intent behind the mission is based on the use of word of mouth , the belief of potential customers in authentic recommendations (other apparently inexperienced customers). So it is a form of deception .
At auctions
The term Gebotstreibung or English shill bidding (of English. Shill : decoy bait; to bid : offer) denotes the bidding on the sale by persons who are allegedly not associated with the seller, but in reality in agreement with this the price in the Drift high.
This form of price manipulation is particularly easy on internet auction platforms such as B. eBay feasible, since here the provider can act with different identities . While this was still very easy in the early days, auction providers today use technical means to maintain the buyer's trust and prevent shill bidding. This is done, for example, in that a buyer's rating profile shows which sellers he has recently bought from and vice versa.
On the Internet
Shills are used specifically in online discussion forums , newsgroups or in places where customers give product recommendations. You appear here as inexperienced customers, neutral experts or otherwise unsuspecting in order to promote certain, mostly commercial interests of the client in the sense of representing interests . Websites can also be opened with the same intention .
For example, representatives of a company can post unsuspicious, positive comments on a product of the company when making product recommendations in online shops. In other cases, competing products may be rated negatively or otherwise devalued.
An example of an internet decoy is Steve Milloy , editor of junkscience.com and a columnist at FoxNews.com , who specializes in distributing skewed representations of scientific data for the benefit of certain companies. He portrays dioxins , pesticides in food, lead as an environmental toxin, asbestos , passive smoking or global warming as scare tactics and fraud.
In marketing
Here, recruited actors appear as apparently convinced customers in order to promote a product. The transition to the testimonial is fluid.
In the area of crime, espionage and terrorism
The shell game is a well-known example of the systematic use for criminal purposes, in that they, as a supposedly cooperating audience, help in staging real profit prospects and entice the victim of fraud, who have been deceived about this and their own powers of observation, to dare to bet but lose.
In an internet version of the marriage fraud (English Romance Scam ), stimulating identities are created, especially in the disembodied spheres of the internet, in particular via singles or contact exchanges, in order to counteract the longing of those so tempted for direct contacts (online dates) for the purpose of creating real intimacy, sexual intercourse and / or improperly encourage marriage. With the help of embellished photos, false biographical information or hot oaths of love and then news about sudden, no fault of their own distress, the victim is induced to transfer assets or to disclose personal data, which in turn is later used in fraudulent activities. See also Nigeria Connection .
Erotic decoys, who later blackmailed their victims , approached Peter Graf and Susanne Klatten , for example .
In the secret service environment, a decoy, also known as a honey trap or Romeo / Venus trap , describes the erotic seduction of a target person. This is documented in order to then persuade the target person to cooperate with the material or to blackmail them.
The Israeli secret service abducted Mordechai Vanunu from Italy to Israel after using a decoy to induce him to travel to Rome.
The Stasi used decoy specifically on opposition members, for example on representatives of the church. The Stasi sent underage decoys to Wolf Biermann .
“The Soviet KGB in particular works with decoys. An attractive agent approached the then French ambassador in Moscow, Maurice Dejean, in the early 1960s. The KGB photographed the British Conservative MP and businessman Anthony Courtney in 1961 in a Moscow hotel in a clear situation. Through his relationship with a Russian woman, the Singapore embassy cipher agent Keng Su was coerced into espionage. In the last year [1981] the KGB tried to wedge the American Deputy Military Attache James R. Holbrook with a girl: On a sightseeing trip, after a party, the American was photographed with a lady in bed. "
On the evening of August 7, 1985, a woman in a Wiesbaden discotheque made pretty eyes for the 20-year-old US soldier Edward Pimental . The GI left the disco in anticipation of a sexual adventure with her - and was found shot the next morning. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court later came to the conclusion that Birgit Hogefeld was the decoy. The RAF later reached the Rhein-Main Air Base site with the ID card he had captured in the murder . There they set off a car bomb that killed a US soldier and a civilian employee and injured 23 people.
Conversely, decoys can be used to clarify and prevent legal violations. For example, through an offer to buy from the undercover investigator to the drug dealer, which leads to the confiscation of the goods he then showed; or to monitor the protection of minors by using minors as buyers of alcohol. It is problematic, however, if an agent provocateur instigates violations of the law that would otherwise not be committed.
In 2017, the then Federal Chairman of the Austrian FPÖ and later Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, at a meeting with the alleged Russian billionaire niece Aljona Makarova in Ibiza, was tempted to make statements that made him appear corrupt and ready to covertly take control of annoying media with her . The publication of secret records in May 2019 led to the government crisis and a new election as the " Strache Affair ".
Legal situation
Shill bidding is generally prohibited or is contractually excluded from the auctions, as it distorts the market situation.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Targeted infiltrates to create a mood?
- ↑ Article on Steve Milloy
- ↑ Steve "Junkman" Milloy biography page ( Memento from April 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Information and tips on police crime prevention of the federal states and the federal government
- ↑ Sex parties with Micha. How the Stasi researched the GDR church headquarters . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 1992, pp. 31-32 ( online - 21 September 1992 ).
- ↑ Joachim Walther : In the stinking underground. The writer Joachim Walther on the total control of GDR literature by the Stasi . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 1996, pp. 224-233 ( online - 23 September 1996 ).
- ↑ Mielke's signature hurts them . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1982, pp. 36-48 ( Online - Mar. 1, 1982 ).
- ↑ Georg Bönisch / Michael Sontheimer: RAF series (VIII): The third generation - the fight never ends . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 2007, pp. 62-70 ( Online - Oct. 29, 2007 ).
- ↑ Representation of the Federal Working Group for Child and Youth Protection eV with criticism and w.Nachw.
- ↑ Focus, May 21, 2019: " Have no niece", decoy pretended to be relatives , Kristina Kotter and Leo Leder, Austria's Chancellor Kurt announces new elections , SWR-aktuell