this tangent is really diverging from the point:
my comments were about the DT system becoming increasingly useless because of all the recent emphasis on tagging people for harmless and petty shit.
but okay, let's see what the dictionary says.
scams involve fraud or deceit. both
fraud and
deceit require the existence of another person---the victim who is "defrauded" or "deceived." if fraud or deception doesn't occur, then all a potential scammer did was think some thoughts. this is why legally
fraud torts can't exist without a victim.
This is a forum, not a court of law, and we are not talking about legal liability. Fraud is about
intent.
Nice try with the dictionary but your links to scam/fraud definitions don't indicate that a victim must exist in order for something to be called scam or fraud.
Example IRL: if I get one of those "you won a cruise" letters I can call it a scam with a high degree of certainty without bothering to find out if there are any victims.