Bogus Ad Puts Child Up For Sale on Xbox Live
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Xbox, Live, Child, Sale | Themes: The Internet
Evidently, someone advertised a woman's daughter for sale on Microsoft's Xbox Live service, and is now under criminal investigation.
Sometimes a joke between friends can be a good thing, other times they may be inappropriate and hurtful. In a working environment, an ill-injected joke can bring on legal issues. But when jokes hit the public and involve innocent children, the perpetrators behind the seemingly-innocent crime deserve a legal foot where the sun don't shine, especially when the subjected child can barely talk.
This morning, Florida's Charlotte Sun and Weekly Herald reported that an unnamed party posted a faulty ad on Microsoft's Xbox Live service, claiming that a 2-year-old girl was for sale, shipping paid in full. The child's mother, 23-year-old Christa Manos of Punta Gorda, Florida, was clueless of the advertisement until her phone started ringing off the hook this past Saturday evening. Manos recalled the first telephone call that night, with the caller sounding furious and scolding her for putting a price tag on the child.
After the initial call, Manos believed it to be a prank. However, more calls came in, and continued to steadily ring throughout the night. They came from across the United States, giving her a piece of their mind, cursing at her, calling her a bad mother. Manos remained confused until she received the 19th call. By then, she had a gut feeling that something was going on. "I knew something wasn't right," she said.
After contacting the police, she was lead to the Xbox Live message displaying her 2-year-old daughter's face, the home telephone number, and a brief message. "When I saw it, I wanted to hurt someone," Manos told the Charlotte Sun. What makes matters worse, Manos said that she had an idea who posted the ad.
At this point, it doesn't matter if the ad was a joke or posted on purpose. The Charlotte County Sherriff's office, still conducting the investigation, said that the perpetrator could face charges regarding criminal use of information. Still, it would be poetic justice to catch and arrest this fool, and then post a screenshot of this person living the good life bent over in a jail cell Shawshank-style on Xbox Live.
Did this XBL subscriber go too far, or are the authorities and the child's mother overreacting?
-
Previous News Article
New iPod Shuffle Gets Really... -
Next News Article
Two New Gaming Rigs Feature NV...
I would have found it to be a harmless joke if the ad didn't obviously contain her telephone number or private info. I honestly can't believe the fools that actually called her believed to it be a real however. If I saw it I would have taken it as a joke and just assumed the number was a random one they picked from a phone book. The random number may not be the case here but it just as easily could have been and imagine getting phone calls from these idiots.
he did go to far.
Everyone is overreacting. You can't sell children- it's obviously a joke. I think people who fell for this prank should get their heads out of their arses.
As a father… if this happened to me… the person who posted better hope the Police get them before I did.
Wow this is just ridiculous, some people are just F’d…
As a father… if this happened to me… the person who posted better hope the Police get them before I did.Wow this is just ridiculous, some people are just F’d…
no kidding
Making a joke prively is one thing,,, making this kind of joke in public/on an open public internet place is way too much. Just like posting or texting somebody else' naked picture to everyone... it is not a joke... it is a "crime".
By the way, one comment to Kevin Parrish... "Still, it would be poetic justice to catch and arrest this fool, and then post a screenshot of this person living the good life bent over in a jail cell Shawshank-style on Xbox Live."... saying that kind of joke on a news report makes you sound less professional.
yea its too good to be true with free shipping
Speaking about jokes, it would be funny and harmless if it didnt contain the phone number or any real contact info.
This reminds me of that fake ad where somebody posted a grab anything you want at somebody's house and that person's place got ransacked.
Everyone is overreacting. You can't sell children- it's obviously a joke. I think people who fell for this prank should get their heads out of their arses.
I don't know man. There is more and more of this stuff going on, especially on e-bay. From the guy trying to sell his "entire life", and a family trying to sell themselves to someone else... this very well could have been a real ad.
I would probably never call the number though, even typing the previous paragraph I too would think it a prank / joke.
However... posted an ad on the Xbox Live service...? You can't post ads on the Xbox Live service. Maybe the message boards over at xbox.com.
haha! everybody fooled!
1) the person posted this ad, cause now the police is on his/her tail!
2) the mother of the child, because of letting her friends/enemies do something like this [ she could prevent others from acting so friendly or roughly ]
3) the ones who called! two reasons, one is, if anyone wants to sell their child, they will never put a ad on Xbox Live, and two, just why anybody wants to sell their child in xbox live? I don't get their logics in calling this poor pranked mother!
the fact that he knew how to put an ad, just makes me believe he went too far.
Posting it on a blog, or as a joke on a forum could still go through; but an ad means he gets money for someone else's child.
What if it's your child that's on the internet!
Xbox is also not a very unvisited site...
Police do not have time to sort out whether an intent was criminal or "just a joke", nor does the legal system want to add a way out for criminals by saying 'it was just a joke' after the fact.
Even without a phone number, it is not 'just a joke'.
However, to those people who called and harassed the mother directly, they were also in the wrong. They should have notified the police or FBI in case this was a genuine attempt to sell a baby. Name calling was not only useless, it was immature of the callers. They behaved as poorly as the people who looted the house because craig's list had an ad that said 'everything must go, just come in and take it' - common sense says that you should ALWAYS talk to an owner about taking something (even from their curb).
I would be afraid for my children, if I was her. For someone to take a picture of my child and post our telephone number out to the public would have to be someone close. I would suspect a babysitter, neighbor, close friend, or relative. Not to go way out there, but someone so close to do that to you and your child, sounds like the beginning of some if not most child molestation case in the US. There needs to be action taken. I'm a gamer and not entrepreneur of baby sales. Who needs a babysitter when you have Xbox Live, craig's list style, where you can sell your children and pick up a escort for the night.
Yeah, that went too far.
As for the callers, if they are really concerned, they should have investigated more. How much more? Well, let's start with: "Hello, I saw an ad in the ..blah-blah-blah.. Is this real?". What they did was barely helpfull at all, and it is that kind of mentality that's dragging the society down (yeah, I know, the "prank" is a lot worse).
Ironically as i read this im watching idiocracy, it seems as though mike judge is prophetic. Where is Beef Supreme when you need him?
I hope that Microsoft could at least do some kind of tracing to help find whoever did this just like how they could know who modified their consoles and brick them.
XBox Live has account info...put it to use....
Don't the prankster know Craigslist is the prefer place by human traffickers?
This is not a joke and is very serious on many counts. A joke is where the person making the joke and the person receiving it agree that it's funny. It's not someone posting you and your childs personal information someplace.
We need less of the reactionary knee-jerk responses I see here and more actual thought. Everytime anything involves "an innocent little child" people get all stupid and throw reality out the door. More evil is done in this world "to protect the children" than any other BS cause I can think of.
Did the poster call the lady? No. Did he harm anyone? No. Did he break a law? Not that I can tell. Being a jerk is not illegal.
At most it was against MS terms of service EULA, which is not a legal issue, and at most could get your contract with Microsoft canceled.
Before we know it some idiot is going to be "outraged" and "call for new legislation" to "combat this threat" and what it will really end up doing is curtailing our personal freedoms and civil liberties and not have any effect on protecting the "children" that were never in any real danger anyway.
More thought, less emotional antics and poorly constructed moral superiority.
I'm glad the author specified the it as a "woman's daughter", as opposed to girls who are not a woman's child (maybe they grew from a seed)?
"bent over in a jail cell Shawshank-style"?
You must have seen a different movie than I did...
I would have found it to be a harmless joke if the ad didn't obviously contain her telephone number or private info. I honestly can't believe the fools that actually called her believed to it be a real however. If I saw it I would have taken it as a joke and just assumed the number was a random one they picked from a phone book. The random number may not be the case here but it just as easily could have been and imagine getting phone calls from these idiots.
I'd like to add that in this case, whoever put the ad in with the Mother's name and contact info, knew it would draw attention from the Police. To me, it appears as if it was a deliberate attempt to get the Mother in trouble.
We need less of the reactionary knee-jerk responses I see here and more actual thought. Everytime anything involves "an innocent little child" people get all stupid and throw reality out the door. More evil is done in this world "to protect the children" than any other BS cause I can think of.Did the poster call the lady? No. Did he harm anyone? No. Did he break a law? Not that I can tell. Being a jerk is not illegal.At most it was against MS terms of service EULA, which is not a legal issue, and at most could get your contract with Microsoft canceled. Before we know it some idiot is going to be "outraged" and "call for new legislation" to "combat this threat" and what it will really end up doing is curtailing our personal freedoms and civil liberties and not have any effect on protecting the "children" that were never in any real danger anyway.More thought, less emotional antics and poorly constructed moral superiority.
Not illegal? It's called child laundering. Whether the person said it was a "joke" or not is irrelevant.
I thought this was kind of funny too: "Manos remained confused until she received the 19th call. By then, she had a gut feeling that something was going on. "I knew something wasn't right," she said."
Really? it took 19 calls to realize something wasn't right?
I thought this was kind of funny too: "Manos remained confused until she received the 19th call. By then, she had a gut feeling that something was going on. "I knew something wasn't right," she said."Really? it took 19 calls to realize something wasn't right?
LOL, yeah on most nights she only gets 18 calls about the for-sale ad for her baby.
Everyone is overreacting. You can't sell children- it's obviously a joke. I think people who fell for this prank should get their heads out of their arses.
I watched a 20/20 or Frontline episode about a "black market" where wealthy individuals purchase babies, usually because they can’t have a child of their own.
Private sales of Children do occur, I think you are naive to think differently.
I'd like to add that in this case, whoever put the ad in with the Mother's name and contact info, knew it would draw attention from the Police. To me, it appears as if it was a deliberate attempt to get the Mother in trouble.
Indeed, a stalker perhaps, or maybe just an angry/twisted X ?!
Wow. First E-Bay, then Craigslist, and now XBL. I don't know what's worse the very fact that someone would post such an ad, joke or not, or that even if a joke, its been done over and over already. Find a new one.
I think its funny. No harm done, just some over-reacting. I don't understand how people can be mad about something like this.
I love a good prank/joke as well as next the next fellow and I am far from wanting to be politically correct, infact the whole PC issue bothers me.IMO people should not take what others say so serious and worry about more important issues, but this guy carried it just a wee bit too far..names, phone numbers and such should have been left out...but that is just what it is....my opinion.