If I didn't in fact advertise on telephone poles, then I would say that wasn't my sign.
If I didn't advertise on telephone poles but somebody else was trying to frame me, and then I proceeded to act as though those signs were my own, then why would I not deserve punishment? If those signs advertised my business and I neglected to disown the signs because I was greedy, I think I'd deserve to be fined by the city. If I admitted on a recorded telephone call with a detective that the signs were mine, even if they weren't, then I've screwed myself with my own greed, which is fitting and just.
It feels like you're skipping through a few steps to create a specific conclusion in order to then refute it?
If a detective merely asks you "do you post signs with your name and number with an offer to buy houses", a lot more steps have to take place before reaching the point where you, personally and individually would see a fine for what is in more cases than not going to be a civil infraction that I would imagine, one can take photos of, go to your municipality and contest and say "those signs are illegal but are not mine, these signs are legal and belong to me".
> If a detective merely asks you "do you post signs with your name and number with an offer to buy houses",
You're missing the point were the detective specifically asks you if you placed signs on telephone poles and got a voice recording of you admitting you did place illegal signs. The real reason this doesn't happen is simply because detectives can't be bothered, not because it's an impossible case to make in court.
The real reason this doesn't happen is simply because detectives can't be bothered
And because it's highly improbable that "yes, those are my signs" over the phone is enough to result in an infraction if they did.
Chances are, you're not even going to get the phone call in the hypothetical you're propping up, even from a clerk's office. If your name and phone number is on it, you'll likely just end up getting it in the mail without even the courtesy of a phone call to ask how your morning is going.
Chances are these scam realestate business do not have "clerks offices." The numbers on them are almost always local numbers and probably go to the personal cellphone of the jackass who hung the sign nine times out of ten. Legitimate realestate businesses usually don't need to scrap the bottom of the barrel like this.
The possibility of a false negative does exist, but the possibility of a false positive seems greatly overstated and I do not believe aversion to false positives motivates the lack of enforcement as was suggested above.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/psychologist-explain...