09 Jul scam and selling products online

There is the aggravating circumstance of the 'impaired defense' in the hypothesis of fraud committed through the sale of products online; in this case, the distance between the victim's location, who usually pays the price of the goods sold in advance, and what in which, instead, the agent is found determines a position of strength and greater favor than the latter, allowing him to shield his identity, not to subject the sold product to any effective preventive control by the buyer and to easily escape the consequences of their conduct; advantages that it could not exploit in its favor, with equal ease, where the sale took place de visu. And indeed, the distance connected to the particular sales methods with the use of the computer or telematic system, what the agent consciously takes advantage of and to which is usually added the use of contractual clauses that provide for the advance payment of the goods sold, configures the aggravating circumstance of the impaired defense, that connotes, in such cases, the agent's conduct as an additional element, peculiar and merely possible with respect to the tricks and deceptions typical of the simple scam (Cass. 18252/22).