Slashdot Mirror
Bad eBay Experience Spurs Internet Manhunt
An anonymous reader submitted an entertaining story running on the
Chicago Trib that discusses a fraudulent eBay dealer, and the
tale of his victims
tracking him down. Nothing super technical, just amusing to read
and remember that while sometimes the crooks get away, sometimes they
become the hunted. My favorite part is when they call his mom. Man
I'd love to do that to people who DoS us :)
Recently I was defrauded on Ebay myself. It was only $6.00, but I really wanted the diapers I was buying. Well, he used an Earthlink account, and I called Earthlink, and was able to get his phone number. I recieved my diapers the next day. :)
These frauds ought to be hunted down! Credit cards companies don't help, police don't help, banks don't help, ebay certainly doesn't help, so these people did the right thing and took it into their own hands. Congratulations to them!
Derek Greene
One of the things I love about the Internet and almost all of the communities that arise are the "commando" types that they engender.
Slashdot certainly has a very deoted commando group, but I'm a little surprised to see eBay having one that is so aggressive. Good for them, I guess. Typically these sorts of people are just annoying.
This guy does seem to be pretty scummy. I've done a _lot_ of stuff on eBay and have never been burned. Is that unusual? I haven't really heard of many people getting screwed by sellers. Typically buyers not sending money, which isn't such a big deal.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
How exactly did they get so much information about a guy just from an Ebay transaction?
They probably knew:
- His email address
- First and Last Name
- Phone Number (if legit)
His Meatworld address was fake. But if the phone number was real, you maybe can get a real address. But even so, how did they randomly break into his email? Password spoofers? and get his SSN and credit card info?
Was the guy sloppy maybe?
------------- I didn't know she was your sister I swear!
If he had their check and hadn't cashed it yet, couldn't they have called the bank and told them that the check should be cancelled/declared void or something?
- Nothing is true, everything is permitted
I think it is generally possible to track down anyone you're dealing with if you put in a bit of effort. The problem is, when I had a fraud issue, I tracked the person down in Romania! Ok, so now what the hell do I do? Grumble and move on...
Well of course it is better to contact law enforcement agencies! They really know how to get the job done!
Of course that's all bullshit. I wish the article had elaborated on legal action the AZ DA might take against the vigilantes. That will probably pan out to a prosecution. Ever notice how law enforcement will frequently go after people for criminal charges when they were victimized, but not really make an effort towards the original perpetrators?
Look at this situation. These people were told to fill out some forms, and wait 30 days to complain to eBay and maybe get about 200$ (a fraction of what all of them were scammed). Law enforcement agents simply do not know how to handle cybercrime. They would have sat on their asses, wondering how they were going to find this guy who committed fraud... and after a short while of not making any progress, move it off to the back burner.
Now of course, they have a big, huge, easy to nail target in the form of this group of people demanding justice. It's nonsense.
I think it's silly that provisions aren't in place that allow people to non-violently pursue people who screw them over. This was not always something that made sense in the "real world" because people address people face to face. They make deals with handshakes, and if someone is screwed over IRL, they probably had some physical interaction.
The Internet however, a place where a great deal of anonyminity may be gained, where law enforcement is apathetic towards real criminals, people should be allowed to take a few steps over the line. So long as there is a clear motive as to why they're digging on the wire that multiple people can attest to. Why shouldn't this group's behavior be legal?
Why bother.
I don't think they are under any obligation to pay you for a bad sale, no more than the newspaper classifieds are. Their fraud protection program is clearly identified, and they are there to facilitate sales. I think buyer beware is implicit in any sort of auction site.
I have only been burned once, for a moderately small amount, but I learned quickly to avoid money order transactions and be aware of a buyer's online rating. A buyer's feedback is the best way to protect yourself, and paying with a credit card is even better (if the buyer allows it).
I like PayPal, but I don't think you get the credit card protection because you were not ripped off by the merchant who made the charge (PayPal), so I don't see how you could have very good cause for stopping payment. Has anyone ever gotten their money back from a bad PayPal transaction?
I've used ebay to both buy and sell... everything I've sold has sold for much higher than I anticipated- some of it sold for more than I could be purchased NEW!
On one hand, there is the concept of WINNING- that people lose sight of how much they are spending on an item. Next people forget about shipping- which can cost as much as the item itself.
People are also cost conscious, and usually do not want to pay extra for escrow or shipping insurance... which makes little sense if you consider many people packing merchandise are far from shipping pros.
Also, there is usually no return policy at ebay... one person's "like new" condition is another person's, "almost trash," and some sellers don't even know what they are selling (ie. a photo of a Slot 1 CPU listed as a socket chip), blah, blah, blah.
Bottom line, the mantra at ebay true is "buyer beware." I think it is great these people are going after this seller, but the fact remains, if they were truly safety conscious buyers, they could have taken additional steps to protect their purchase. I wouldn't blame ebay for only reimbursing $200. If they guaranteed every purchase, it would actually encourage fraud!
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
Speaking as one of the people having been ripped off by this seller, I just want to note that this "seller" was a complete asshole. A few weeks after not sending any of us merchandise, he claimed his mother passed away, a claim later proven false when we spoke to her. What a jerk.
While I'm sure the people involved were justified in their efforts, when you start playing games with credit cards, you're getting into some pretty murky legal waters yourself.
I personally feel that ebay should be insuring for the full value of the auction, and should charge a percentage on the sale for insurance costs. Of course, seller (or buyer) could choose to not purchase insurance, but at least it would put some pressure on ebay to handle huge cases of fraud if they happened.
Pay with credit cards if you can. Granted, there's a fee involved but the credit card companies in most cases will reimburse you if you're defrauded.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I can't help but strongly agree with this post. As a proponent of reason and "not being stupid" this make the most sense of any post here. I've used Ebay for years, I will testify that I have never been burned. I've always used escrow, paypal, or before that COD or Check only.
Now, as for the vigelante justice dished out by the poor saps who got screwed. If you put that time into working at your most likely professional jobs, you'd make the money back quickly, but I understand the logic behind this. So for that, I'd say hell yes, get the guy. They screwed up by paying him, but I think they acted properly to right their mistakes. This is a wrong vs wrong debate, but the people who got screwed should at least be allowed to have a little fun. Loved the calling his mommy, that must have REALLY freaked him out! (I used to call efnet kiddie's parents to stop channel take overs, it really works)
ok.. ob story.
me: Hi, my name is , are you currently aware of what your son is doing on tyhe Internet right now?
mom: Uh, no, he's upstairs playing games I think.
me: Well, you may be a bit shocked to know that he's actually trying to be a "hacker". I feel he is just misguided, but he's causing a great deal of stress for me and my collegues.
mom: (off the phone) "!! JAMES YOU GET DOWN HERE.. NOW!!!!!" (you know those Demonic voices in movies...like that)
Kid: Hello?
me: ownt
2 minutes later we have our channel back.
ok, anyways that's my 2.9
Q. What's it take to get a story posted on
I've only used Paypal as a buyer, and so long as you never spend over $1000 total, not much to worry about. However if you want to spend more than that, you need to either start a new account or become "confirmed" by giving them a checking or savings account number -- which means they can then ACCESS your account, and in the event of a security breach (which HAS happened) your bank account could be drained by persons unknown. So I'd strongly recommend opening a junk account (any kind you can get for free) with whatever your bank allows as a minimum deposit, and giving THAT account number to paypal.
/. regularly who has a siglink to a "paypal sucks" type site which has horror stories from the seller's perspective. Seems occasionally an account gets locked up and the seller can't extract their money from it, and it's very hard to get a live human to respond from paypal. So the recommendation I've heard (and I think is very wise) is to always transfer money out of your paypal account and into your real bank ASAP.
There's a guy who posts on
On the plus side, paypal lets you use your credit card online without having to give the number to merchants who may be of questionable integrity, or who may have an (even more) insecure setup. (Paypal and ebay aren't 100% secure either, per some site I lately read that tests for browser exploits, but don't use IE with javascript active, and you're reasonably safe.)
So -- Paypal (and Billpoint, which I've also used as a buyer) is generally a Good Thing, but it can go seriously wrong. Be careful, take elementary precautions, and you should do all right with it.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I had a guy threaten me several months ago because I wouldn't forward a post he wrote to a mailing I moderate (on a software topic: Adobe GoLive) in part because it was belligerant. Eventually, I banned him. He then threatened that he'd "get me."
Well, this was pre-Sept. 11, but I thought, I don't know where he lives, I don't know how crazy he is. I had his name and his email address. I sent a note to the system administrator of the address noting that threatening email had been sent from that location. (Turned out to be his work address.) I also used Switchboard.com to get his phone number.
I called. I got what I thought was his mom (I assumed he was about 18 up to that point), but turned out to be his wife. I said, if I received any additional communication or anything happened to me or my systems, I would be reporting him to his local police and FBI. She said she's pass the message on.
A few days later I get email begging me to never get in touch with him again. I felt slightly bad: did I want him to lose his job? No. But I didn't want to worry about about a random crazy (who turned out to live about 1,000 miles away) who might hack my systems or my body up.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others