Current State of Extorting Businesses

[TranXify]

Just now, Lemonade319 said:

Right, the issue is the seemingly every business that airs an ad is being extorted, that what it seems like. With no repercussions it will continue, the repercussions shouldn’t be brought down by an invisible OOC barrier. The ones whos job it is to bring about repercussions for criminals who are committing is the PD and it’s brother and sister organisations. 
 

As a mostly criminal RPer I’d be devastated  if the administration took away things for me to do and did it themselves, idk why as a member of PD you’re so willing for admins to take RP in the form of these kind if investigations away from you.

You are suggesting that PD and SD are required to police the server, rather than provide policing roleplay. I do agree that those factions could have a hand in policing the server and maintaining law and order, but I actually do not believe it is entirely on them. This is what has been said previously. PD and SD can not single handedly, and I do not even think that it is their job OOCly, to police the server. Keeping things somewhat balanced from an OOC perspective is always nice to allow a chance for roleplay to occur.

[Lemonade319]

9 minutes ago, TranXify said:

You are suggesting that PD and SD are required to police the server, rather than provide policing roleplay. I do agree that those factions could have a hand in policing the server and maintaining law and order, but I actually do not believe it is entirely on them. This is what has been said previously. PD and SD can not single handedly, and I do not even think that it is their job OOCly, to police the server. Keeping things somewhat balanced from an OOC perspective is always nice to allow a chance for roleplay to occur.

The job of PD is to act as realistically as possible as the local police force, that involves not just tackling first response type crime but also investigating other crimes such as this. They have the tools to easily combat this crime in the form of surveillance equipment. Just because people don’t want to RP this side of being in the police doesn’t mean OOC restrictions should be placed on criminal role players. That’s absolutely insane.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Lemonade319

[Ylva]

50 minutes ago, mj2002 said:

I read your reply earlier. I still think there should be a separate faction involved in these sorts of investigations, if there is any interest in doing such. Otherwise, if there is a shortage of detectives interested in this type of roleplay, perhaps it is a good moment to start recruiting for it?

It takes approximately three-four months to become a Detective within PD, that's how long it took me anyway back in 2019 but I've roleplayed as a Detective on other communities, it isn't as simple as throwing up an advertisement for "We need organized crime detectives!". Yet, for some reason everyone thinks we're a fully manned detective bureau with numerous detectives that can counter any OCG and we wouldn't support a rule that solved the current status quo of illegal factions running to exort anything the moment a green blip on the map pops up.

 

Plus, all of these arguments that "If you see bad RP, report it" and "I don't see any reports coming from any of you" coming out of the woodwork on this thread are literally null and void seeing as if a faction is doing it wrong, they get a faction report and those are private and are to be PM'd to FM. So, how do any of you in this thread know if reports are already being made, anyone in this thread complaining about this roleplay may have already filed a report, it's for them to know.

 

If you're already PMing faction reports to FM? Great! If not? I'd suggest doing so, even though nothing may happen for your report in question, the evidence still counts as it all adds up to the point where action can be taken.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Ylva

[DanneBRE]

I don't see the issue, I myself was extorted as a "mobster" for having a business in a certain area, the money was later paid back and A LOT of roleplay came with me being extorted. Everything isn't about money. Just report people if they come and say " Hi, give me 5k  or you get killed".

Extortion provides you with a lot of opportunities and roleplay. 

 

Not going to out anyone but the police is actually doing a lot behind the scenes, you business-owners just don't see it and criminals react to whatever PD does as well. 

[Kipps]

I don't understand why anybody is motivated to complain about this.

 

Extortion can be really interesting for both sides. It gives business owners an opportunity to build relationships with organized crime groups, and to potentially evolve into fronts for illicit activities like money laundering, fencing or drug distribution. Alternatively, owners can look for security firms or rival groups to to try and stave off extortionists who will ruin them. But most competent extortionists won't want a business to close or go bust - because that means they won't get paid - so there's invariably a degree of support and cooperation involved too. 

 

Instead of complaining on the forums about how all this opportunity for fun roleplay is being forced on you, just try and go along with it.

 

If you're upset because your 24/7 is being extorted, set up a community business owners meeting and then maybe invite a community liaison officer from the LSPD to meet with you all - or organise a letter writing campaign to City Hall and get the media involved too. Or join up together to hire security guards between your businesses. There are dozens of ways you can go about this which are way more entertaining than making forum threads. 

 

 

[DasFroggy]

Just now, Kipps said:

I don't understand why anybody is motivated to complain about this.

 

Extortion can be really interesting for both sides. It gives business owners an opportunity to build relationships with organized crime groups, and to potentially evolve into fronts for illicit activities like money laundering, fencing or drug distribution. Alternatively, owners can look for security firms or rival groups to to try and stave off extortionists who will ruin them. But most competent extortionists won't want a business to close or go bust - because that means they won't get paid - so there's invariably a degree of support and cooperation involved too. 

 

Instead of complaining on the forums about how all this opportunity for fun roleplay is being forced on you, just try and go along with it.

 

If you're upset because your 24/7 is being extorted, set up a community business owners meeting and then maybe invite a community liaison officer from the LSPD to meet with you all - or organise a letter writing campaign to City Hall and get the media involved too. Or join up together to hire security guards between your businesses. There are dozens of ways you can go about this which are way more entertaining than making forum threads. 

 

 

The complaints seem to largely be aimed towards the individuals who have no interest in making it interesting so much as making a situation in which they are rewarded with script profits, with literally no interest in the Dynamics outside of that. You are correct that it does present opportunity, but the result is more often something subpar and fraught with OOC complications.

[Torlo]

5 hours ago, Kipps said:

If you're upset because your 24/7 is being extorted, set up a community business owners meeting and then maybe invite a community liaison officer from the LSPD to meet with you all - or organise a letter writing campaign to City Hall and get the media involved too. Or join up together to hire security guards between your businesses. There are dozens of ways you can go about this which are way more entertaining than making forum threads. 

 

 

If you think 24/7's should be allowed to be extorted, you're being ridiculous. 24/7 is based off of 7/11 which in game and in real life is an international and multi billion dollar business. They don't extorted in real life and they shouldn't be extorted in game because it makes no sense. For that same reason, you should not be allowed to extort a Burger Shot or a Cluckin Bell, it's like extorting a McDonald's or KFC, it's ridiculous and makes you look bad. 

[Kipps]

Just now, Torlo said:

If you think 24/7's should be allowed to be extorted, you're being ridiculous. 24/7 is based off of 7/11 which in game and in real life is an international and multi billion dollar business. They don't extorted in real life and they shouldn't be extorted in game because it makes no sense. For that same reason, you should not be allowed to extort a Burger Shot or a Cluckin Bell, it's like extorting a McDonald's or KFC, it's ridiculous and makes you look bad. 

 

Are the owners of these stores going to pay a substantial chunk of their proceeds to whichever conglomerate they're a part of? Of course not. You only talk about 'realism' when it suits you. 

If you want to pretend your store is part of some big corporation, then do what any store owner in that position would do and call the cops about extortion attempts. You'd then go to your higher ups who would pay for security, contact other local stores/franchises under the umbrella to warn them about the incident, and lobby politicians and other elected representatives to do more to ensure the safety of businesses in Los Santos. 

 

Or, you know, you can just make forum posts demanding that criminal roleplay be regulated to death. 

[Trupiano]

So lets recap this thread real quick.

 

The people for regulation won't call the cops because they are scared OOCly of getting CKed. Staff members and community members have explained repeatedly that a CK won't be accepted on the simple basis of "They called the cops".

 

The people for regulation won't report the situations because they don't wanna clog up the report system (???) and won't provide actual evidence of bad extortion RP on this thread, simply rehashing the same "I got extorted once and I didn't really like it" story. 

 

The people for regulation have made bold claims that extortion doesn't happen at this wide of a scale in real life. Illegal RPers have agreed but have pointed out that this is because Law enforcement cracks down on extortion in real life, while the LSPD on the server doesn't. Meaning this is an IC issue that needs to be addressed by law enforcement, not OOC rules.

 

The people for regulation refuse to try to RP with criminals who are extorting them because somehow, speaking to a criminal = becoming a criminal yourself (???).

 

This thread should have been locked and archived 10 pages ago. Every point raised by the people for regulation has been countered and dismantled piece by piece ten times now. It's clear that this has nothing to do with fear of CK or not wanting to clog up the report system and everything to do with not wanting to lose precious fake virtual money to a criminal. As stated in another thread, you can make 30k in a single opening so to be mad like this over 20k a week is ludicrous.

 

Either handle it IC, report it or stop crying on the forums.

[DasFroggy]

25 minutes ago, Henning said:

So lets recap this thread real quick.

 

The people for regulation won't call the cops because they are scared OOCly of getting CKed. Staff members and community members have explained repeatedly that a CK won't be accepted on the simple basis of "They called the cops".

 

The people for regulation won't report the situations because they don't wanna clog up the report system (???) and won't provide actual evidence of bad extortion RP on this thread, simply rehashing the same "I got extorted once and I didn't really like it" story. 

 

The people for regulation have made bold claims that extortion doesn't happen at this wide of a scale in real life. Illegal RPers have agreed but have pointed out that this is because Law enforcement cracks down on extortion in real life, while the LSPD on the server doesn't. Meaning this is an IC issue that needs to be addressed by law enforcement, not OOC rules.

 

The people for regulation refuse to try to RP with criminals who are extorting them because somehow, speaking to a criminal = becoming a criminal yourself (???).

 

This thread should have been locked and archived 10 pages ago. Every point raised by the people for regulation has been countered and dismantled piece by piece ten times now. It's clear that this has nothing to do with fear of CK or not wanting to clog up the report system and everything to do with not wanting to lose precious fake virtual money to a criminal. As stated in another thread, you can make 30k in a single opening so to be mad like this over 20k a week is ludicrous.

 

Either handle it IC, report it or stop crying on the forums.

This summary as a whole fails to address a number of concerns. However, if you are certain and willing to stake your reputation on such bold claims as the automatic rejection of CK permissions that may even remotely be motivated by an extortion or other form of theft failure due to a response from the victim, I suppose the concerns expressed can be put at ease.

 

By your word, a CK cannot be pursued if an extortion attempt backfires and results in opening possibly even an entire organization to risk. The bosses will just have to accept that a single man or woman responsible for their downfall, is ultimately immine to any long lasting retribution.

 

With that settled, I think we can continue a pleasant discussion regarding examples of fun and functional extortion tactics. My personal favorite tends to be the intimidation of various patrons, to give an impression of an area being too unsafe to visit 'favorite' establishments.