Once you get outside the first world brides seem to be the norm -- every person I know who does international work has a story about having to bride somebody, especially if you need to get something through customs quickly, or at all. It's funny, you just make a bare effort to make it seem official and they'll get you right through.
One guy would keep cash in a hidden pocket in his suitcase and if customs gave him trouble he'd politely inform them about the pocket they didn't check and everything would get resolved.
Another guy would be bringing in parts for his company and when things got held up he'd talk to the person of the appropriate rank and offer to pay the "expedited" fee to get things through, as these were very important pieces of equipment. There was no expedited fee.
Somebody else would literally just sneak them cash as they shook the custom officer's hand, but they had a working relationship and knew each other on a first name basis.
One person got pissed off and refused to pay a bride and literally just waited until they changed shifts and his stuff was released.
Forgot to add, there was one customs officer in $SMALLCOUNTRY who used to take bribes from somebody I knew, but was transferred to the taxation department. The person I knew died, but I found out through one of his coworkers that the former customs officer resolved a SNAFU with some tax paperwork that was about to turn into a very expensive disaster. He didn't even expect payment, he just wanted to do right by the person who had seriously bolstered his income for years, he was even asking about the guy's family how they were doing after his passing.
This got flagged, not sure exactly why, but I'm just trying to keep things transparent and keep the site running. Wasn't trying to spam anything, just sharing the updates as they came. Requesting the mod to look into it.
It’s a cool site and you don’t seem to be spamming. But your account is new and has only posted links to your site (4 times) which probably caught the automated spam detection system. I’d gently encourage you to engage with the community and share some things that aren’t your own work as well. From the guidelines:
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
I think some people didn't like the contents of the website. I had no idea corruption and bribery was this common India and I guess some people didn't like to advertise it which honestly doesn't really matter as expectation is quite low already
With HN, often times things have to be submitted multiple times before they get noticed and "stick" and generate interesting discussions. It's very dependent on luck, and there are no rules against it AFAIK (aside from what the spam detector flags).
Rules generally come around due to bad behavior, which I would suggest submitting the same thing every other day for a week constitutes. It's also a very niche topic, even for this site, and not particularly useful or interesting.
What happens to you in India when you are charged builty of bribery? What are the punishments, if any? (for the person receiving the bribe, not the person bribing, obviously)
Honestly, haven't looked into the legal side in detail. I'm mostly just providing the data (what happened, where), not the legal outcomes. That part's outside what I've built so far.
Would love to, honestly, but realistically can't take that on right now — money- and time-wise, keeping this one country's version running is already stretching things. Good idea though.
What do you think lend itself to this culture and how will it change? Is it considered normal / unsurprising / accepted? Like, “just cost of doing business”?
tracking and publicizing them is a great start, bribes are easy to ask for in a fractured bureaucracy where the people taking them aren't closely monitored and the people paying them are generally uninformed
Where do you live? Because “this culture” now exists at the top level of the US government, for example. And in fact, even before the current administration, it was an accepted and legal aspect of government, for example “lobbyists” who handed out checks to the representatives whose influence they were controlling.
In the US, it’s only at much lower levels that this is at all frowned on, especially in government. In private business you’ll still find e.g. apartment managers asking for bribes to do their job properly.
Former foodservice worker (in the US) for several years here. Servers do not spit in customers' food; that would be psychopathic behavior that no manager would tolerate and grounds for immediate termination, and the type of person who would actually do that is the type of antisocial person who is going to struggle in any job. If a known bad tipper ends up in a server's section, she'll roll her eyes in private, perhaps grumble to her co-workers, then go put on the customer service smile and serve them as normal.
That said, please tip. Note that (where legal) servers are generally paid below minimum wage because it's expected their income will be supplemented with tips. Consider the tip not a bribe but as a payment for a service you were provided which, at least in the current cultural climate, is not being tacked on to the actual bill; you may not like that and want that cultural norm to change, but it hasn't changed yet and is unlikely to in the near future. If tipping really offends you, then order pick-up instead of dining in, or just cook at home.
Yes, some of them reported refusal reports. You can find them just on the right side of the Transparency map, State Registry Ledger; then you can filter out them by most refusals, or you can also just browse the reports.
Ha, fair, actually did think about making /bribes redirect straight to /support, missed opportunity not shipping it(had second thoughts). And yeah, that line's staying non-negotiable, sorry to disappoint. xD
Once you get outside the first world brides seem to be the norm -- every person I know who does international work has a story about having to bride somebody, especially if you need to get something through customs quickly, or at all. It's funny, you just make a bare effort to make it seem official and they'll get you right through.
One guy would keep cash in a hidden pocket in his suitcase and if customs gave him trouble he'd politely inform them about the pocket they didn't check and everything would get resolved.
Another guy would be bringing in parts for his company and when things got held up he'd talk to the person of the appropriate rank and offer to pay the "expedited" fee to get things through, as these were very important pieces of equipment. There was no expedited fee.
Somebody else would literally just sneak them cash as they shook the custom officer's hand, but they had a working relationship and knew each other on a first name basis.
One person got pissed off and refused to pay a bride and literally just waited until they changed shifts and his stuff was released.
Forgot to add, there was one customs officer in $SMALLCOUNTRY who used to take bribes from somebody I knew, but was transferred to the taxation department. The person I knew died, but I found out through one of his coworkers that the former customs officer resolved a SNAFU with some tax paperwork that was about to turn into a very expensive disaster. He didn't even expect payment, he just wanted to do right by the person who had seriously bolstered his income for years, he was even asking about the guy's family how they were doing after his passing.
Good lord, that this is necessary is so depressing.
Yeah, man, depressing yet the truth.
This got flagged, not sure exactly why, but I'm just trying to keep things transparent and keep the site running. Wasn't trying to spam anything, just sharing the updates as they came. Requesting the mod to look into it.
It’s a cool site and you don’t seem to be spamming. But your account is new and has only posted links to your site (4 times) which probably caught the automated spam detection system. I’d gently encourage you to engage with the community and share some things that aren’t your own work as well. From the guidelines:
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
I think some people didn't like the contents of the website. I had no idea corruption and bribery was this common India and I guess some people didn't like to advertise it which honestly doesn't really matter as expectation is quite low already
Why do you feel the need to submit this 4 times over 1 week?
It's a cool site. I like the concept a lot.
With HN, often times things have to be submitted multiple times before they get noticed and "stick" and generate interesting discussions. It's very dependent on luck, and there are no rules against it AFAIK (aside from what the spam detector flags).
Rules generally come around due to bad behavior, which I would suggest submitting the same thing every other day for a week constitutes. It's also a very niche topic, even for this site, and not particularly useful or interesting.
You are not the arbiter of what is useful or interesting. India is a massive country and this site has a lot of Indian users.
Reposting is officially allowed:
> Are reposts ok?
> If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
While we're on the subject of following site guidelines:
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
this is just crowd sourced data? Looks vibe coded. And immediately asking for donations for a short Claude job, pretty sus?
Thanks for unflagging the post. Replying to everyone now; there are a lot of comments, so it might take a bit to get through them all.
Just curious, but did any specific anti-corruption campaigns from history in other nations inspire the design here at all?
Direct homepage - https://bribes.fyi/
Just wanted to let you know Twitter, GH, and RSS icons fall behind the nav bar at least on mobile.
Yeah, I'm aware of that. I'm just thinking about what to do with those.
I'm glad that bribery only exists in India and not in the United State. /s because Poe.
Ha, no such exclusivity claimed here, just built for the country I actually know the system for.
What happens to you in India when you are charged builty of bribery? What are the punishments, if any? (for the person receiving the bribe, not the person bribing, obviously)
Honestly, haven't looked into the legal side in detail. I'm mostly just providing the data (what happened, where), not the legal outcomes. That part's outside what I've built so far.
Are you not worried that your site might lead to those people being executed (either legally, no idea if that's a thing in India, or illegaly)?
What are the differences between a bribe and a tip, given X cultural milieu?
Public servants should neither ask for nor expect either?
What is the cultural context for this assertion?
aka Baksheesh in the Middle East
Another discussion about corruption in India from 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20088870
I will look into it, thanks.
Bribe is a symptom not cause of low trust society.
need one for southeast asian countries and eastern europe
Would love to, honestly, but realistically can't take that on right now — money- and time-wise, keeping this one country's version running is already stretching things. Good idea though.
If it is satire, bravo.
If sincere, congratulations.
It is sincere, btw, thanks.
What do you think lend itself to this culture and how will it change? Is it considered normal / unsurprising / accepted? Like, “just cost of doing business”?
tracking and publicizing them is a great start, bribes are easy to ask for in a fractured bureaucracy where the people taking them aren't closely monitored and the people paying them are generally uninformed
Where do you live? Because “this culture” now exists at the top level of the US government, for example. And in fact, even before the current administration, it was an accepted and legal aspect of government, for example “lobbyists” who handed out checks to the representatives whose influence they were controlling.
In the US, it’s only at much lower levels that this is at all frowned on, especially in government. In private business you’ll still find e.g. apartment managers asking for bribes to do their job properly.
And if you squint a bit and stretch some definitions... then tipping culture isn't a million miles away from bribing culture.
What is a tip if it's not a bribe to not spit in your food?
Former foodservice worker (in the US) for several years here. Servers do not spit in customers' food; that would be psychopathic behavior that no manager would tolerate and grounds for immediate termination, and the type of person who would actually do that is the type of antisocial person who is going to struggle in any job. If a known bad tipper ends up in a server's section, she'll roll her eyes in private, perhaps grumble to her co-workers, then go put on the customer service smile and serve them as normal.
That said, please tip. Note that (where legal) servers are generally paid below minimum wage because it's expected their income will be supplemented with tips. Consider the tip not a bribe but as a payment for a service you were provided which, at least in the current cultural climate, is not being tacked on to the actual bill; you may not like that and want that cultural norm to change, but it hasn't changed yet and is unlikely to in the near future. If tipping really offends you, then order pick-up instead of dining in, or just cook at home.
> how will it change
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-corruption_campaign_under... is a potential example
A cultural revolution.
Just trying my best.
Has anybody reported a refusal and managing to complete their task? I just see 0% whatever I input.
Yes, some of them reported refusal reports. You can find them just on the right side of the Transparency map, State Registry Ledger; then you can filter out them by most refusals, or you can also just browse the reports.
Also set up a support link for anyone else who'd like to help keep it running: https://bribes.fyi/support
I'm a little disappointed that https://bribes.fyi/bribes doesn't redirect to that support page to be honest.
When I saw the name/tag line I thought this would be a travel advice site, but I like this so much more. Great work.
> Donations don’t influence the data. Supporting the platform buys no special treatment.
How disappointing.
Hahaha, yeah, figured "pay us and we'll bump your bribe report" probably isn't a great look. Sticking with boring and honest.
Ha, fair, actually did think about making /bribes redirect straight to /support, missed opportunity not shipping it(had second thoughts). And yeah, that line's staying non-negotiable, sorry to disappoint. xD