Current State of Extorting Businesses

[Daylong]

to chip my two cents in, I don't mind extortion at all as long as it is properly portrayed, if it's not? you can go ahead and report it. as people mentioned, you can make friends through extortion or take another route, go to cops, solve stuff like that. if you have ties with other illegal organizations, they might clear it up for you. depends on your character really and what of use he could be to the extortionists. if you seem like a creative role player with a character that seems/looks promising, with rich/outsourceable surroundings that doesn't just grind his business and might be able to put something else on the table or show initiative to befriend or get involved? hell, you might even end up at the same side as the extortionists and start earning money yourself. role play can go sideways, up and down or in circles. i dont see too much of an issue here. 

 

if people choose to go recklessly after the money, there's no cure for ic stupidity, it's a part of character, it's their own risk. getting involved as i mentioned before, is also a risk. but that's where all the thrill is, right?

Edited June 26, 2020 by Daylong

[Eriks]

Deal with it in character.

[Torlo]

Extortion is a weird issue on rp servers because it seems a lot of illegal factions are stuck in the 90s. Either gangs color coat for some weird reason or the mafia walks into your business like it's 1995 and demands money. There's also extortion that makes no sense, like extorting a 24/7, which is like a mafia walking into a 7/11 and demanding the random clerk who's getting paid 8 dollars an hour to tell them who the owner is, again a 7/11, it makes zero sense. 

[alina2137]

My only problem with extorting is how the scripted stores are treated. From hardware stores to 24/7s - it's usually the owner or someone high up who's there as a point of contact and they're the ones who will pay. Many new people join the server and go to work at these stores in order to get to know how the server works and just chill, make some money in peace before they can make connections to move on to RP jobs and what not. But it doesn't matter to most illegal roleplayers, 'cause they will come in and ask a cashier who works 2 days a week for 1-2 hours to pay the fuck up. I had this happen to me a few times and it's annoying, we usually /bjoin to work at a business without knowing who the owner or manager is and end up getting extorted as cashiers, clerks or retail workers. Why don't they bother the owner of the business? I can't be arsed, if this store gets destroyed and I lose my job, I'm gonna move to another 24/7 and work there. And I can already see people telling me to handle it IC, but how the hell do I handle it IC like, bro, I'm just a civilian, I don't even own this store, why is there four gangbangers threatening me about it? I don't care. That doesn't solve anything. I'm gonna go work at another store and they're gonna come back a week later and harass the new cashier and probably kick his teeth in for not paying up and it's gonna escalate. Endless circle of stupidity.

[Denise]

22 hours ago, UTOPIA said:

Should really just ring the cops! If you're being extorted, threatened, harassed, and you're a civilian? If you really feel like there is no way to escape your circumstances, I'm sure there are plenty of detectives who would love to hear about your problems, who's causing them, etc.

 

There are a multitude of ways to escape your difficult circumstances, and though I understand it can be frustrating to be throwing away your character's hard earned cash, you also need to realize; this is a role-playing server, what happens to your character is what happens to your character. If you've invested your time in grinding out money rather than investing your time in genuine role-play? Shame on you, it deserves to be taken!

 

Why not take an alternative approach, befriend these people, get involved in some way? That's the beautiful thing about role play, you can solve your problems in hundreds of different ways, there is not just one path that can be gone down. For those of you asking for OOC intervention because you are so hopeless? I can't help but laugh at you.

If you call the police in game, you can be character killed for it which I can't see as being particularly desirable for any roleplayer. Court transcripts are public IC and witness testimonies are easy to access by crime syndicates which, regardless of what crime you are reporting, can be a contributing factor to a CK (see https://forum.gta.world/en/index.php?/topic/27371-character-kill-appeal-sergey-arkhangelsky/).

 

You call the police in game to report extortion and it leads to legal ramifications, you risk losing your character, your development, and, subsequently, your business. If you don't call the police, you're forced to either indulge in the criminal underworld to seek counter-protection or to pay up. It sort of fucks people who want to roleplay characters who are primarily legal or have a significantly legal focus.

 

The responsibility is on everyone to encourage and facilitate a functional environment with many opportunities and avenues to take your roleplay, and extortion doesn't provide this like you seem to think it does. Your argument is flawed because you assume there are several practical and cooperative methods to address extortion when, in reality for IC business owners who aspire to be more legal than criminal (which is something we should want to see on the server given what would be the wild crime rate), it's not that easy.

 

It's not practical for every business to be extorted, and I think that chain robbery rules should also apply to chain extortion.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Denise

[Engelbert]

The issue people are talking about here isn't really an IC issue. It's about how is it portrayed, not that "Hey my shop is extorted, what should I do?" 90s are gone people, mafia doesn't wander around shops trashing them IF a poor clerk who might not even know who their employer is.... (cause in most of times, you are hired by someone, that doesn't even own the shop, but acts as a manager), cannot pay them. Yes they can, from the register. That's not extortion, but a robbery in that case. And robberies are more common than extorting 24/7s. Criminal groups want money?

Start thinking. Nobody extorts businesses by ruining them anymore.

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by Engelbert

[Caporegime]

20 minutes ago, Engelbert said:

The issue people are talking about here isn't really an IC issue. It's about how is it portrayed, not that "Hey my shop is extorted, what should I do?" 90s are gone people, mafia doesn't wander around shops trashing them IF a poor clerk who might not even know who their employer is.... (cause in most of times, you are hired by someone, that doesn't even own the shop, but acts as a manager), cannot pay them. Yes they can, from the register. That's not extortion, but a robbery in that case. And robberies are more common than extorting 24/7s. Criminal groups want money?

Start thinking. Nobody extorts businesses by ruining them anymore.

 

Are you 100% sure about that there bud?

[Chef]

The situation is still being seen as far too black and white. Should anyone be shaking down the 18 year old kid behind the counter at the 24/7 instead of speaking to someone on the corporate level? Of course not. As people have said dozens of times in the previous posts - REPORT IT for bad portrayal. 

 

The black and white remarks of "oh I'm legal" are still plastered over this thread and it gives me a laugh. You're not legal, you're not illegal. You're a person, a character. It's not as clear cut and divided in reality and it shouldn't be in game either.

 

Having been an integral part of FM last year, and having commited 2 CKs in my 3 years on this server? I can tell you an app will not and can not be accepted over the simple reason that "they didn't accept my extortion attempt" UNLESS you threaten their life in the moment which is never a wise idea in any high tension situation (common sense counts for something, doesn't it?). You need to show proper escalation of conflict, and beating up the kid at the cash register before coming back to CK the owner doesn't cut it. 

 

As for the remarks about how the '90s are gone. Here's a snippet from a news release in 2017 regarding the Genovese crime family in NYC and their still active extortion rackets:

 

"GIOVINCO’s activity for the Genovese Crime Family was centered on two local chapters (the “Unions”) of a labor union.  GIOVINCO participated in a host of schemes designed to manipulate and siphon money from the Unions for the benefit of the Genovese Crime Family.  Among other things, GIOVINCO extorted a financial adviser (the “Adviser”) and a labor union official (“Official-1”) for a cut of commissions made from union investments.  Audio recordings captured GIOVINCO planning to “rattle the cage” of a victim, and to have another victim’s “feet held to the fire.”  When Official-1 failed to pay the commissions demanded by GIOVINCO and other members of the Genovese Crime Family, Official-1’s life was threatened by GIOVINCO and his co-conspirators."

 

Imagine if the business community got together ICly that were fed up with extortionists and the lack of protection from law enforcement and involved city council in a protest for better law enforcement in the community? Wow, talk about a fantastic roleplay opportunity. Instead the effort is being wasted crying on a forum thread. @UTOPIA and @Eriks said exactly what needed to be said. This is now just dragging on pointlessly.

[shiroq]

27 minutes ago, Engelbert said:

The issue people are talking about here isn't really an IC issue. It's about how is it portrayed, not that "Hey my shop is extorted, what should I do?" 90s are gone people, mafia doesn't wander around shops trashing them IF a poor clerk who might not even know who their employer is.... (cause in most of times, you are hired by someone, that doesn't even own the shop, but acts as a manager), cannot pay them. Yes they can, from the register. That's not extortion, but a robbery in that case. And robberies are more common than extorting 24/7s. Criminal groups want money?

Start thinking. Nobody extorts businesses by ruining them anymore.

 

 

[keva1]

I disagree with you, @Martyn. It definitely is an unfair agreement between the one trying to extort and the business owner. Why wouldn't it be? If you are a civilian without criminal connections (as many business owners are), you lack the power to face the mob all by yourself, so the only option left is to call the cops, albeit it would make the mob go mad at you and sometimes it can be faced as a bad portrayal of your character (depending of his circumstances, of course).

 

However, I also believe that it doesn't make sense for a faction to extort companies far away from their turfs, because there wouldn't be a way of actually keeping an eye on the extorted businesses and it would only difficult things, ended up being a pain in the ass for both parts involved. A faction can't be ubiquitous and would never have the ability of running the entire city, hence why I believe the staff must lay their eyes on this kind of RP, preventing it to be done in a poor manner. The community can also warn the staff about bad roleplays.

 

And I agree with @Shanks and @Henning when they say it is an IC issue. Still, I think that the ones who are trying to extort a company must have some subjects in their minds (sometimes an OOC one, so it doesn't become an abusive OOC relationship that will force the extorted company to vanish). Things like the size of the company (and consequently their profits) and the actual OOC capacity of making money (sometimes a company is purely RP based and can't really get the community to cooperate with it, so it ends up making a tiny amount of money) must be taken into account while RPing around extortion.

 

And as @Chief said before, the recent incorporation of bugs & wires will spice this RP, helping civilians to cooperate with the police and take down the mob and also forcing the mobsters to be more careful.

 

When people do it right, the extortion RP can be very pleasuring for both sides.