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When Good Ebay'ers Go Bad
An anonymous submitter sent in: "This guy "Stewart Richardson" had over 6000 positive feedbacks on eBay, held a fake estate sale, and scammed around $250,000 out of people before disappearing. 'There seems to be little doubt among his would-be customers that Stewart Richardson pulled off one of the most remarkable con jobs in the almost seven-year history of eBay, and U.S. federal investigators agree.' Some other links: a messageboard and ebay itself. I was scammed on eBay for $3600 a while back. I was able to get my money back because I had a bank issued cashier's check. I had written "For Deposit Only" on the back, and that was crossed out by the recipient. The bank teller should have been suspicious, but was not, and cashed the check. The idiot who had it cashed wrote his bank account number on the back of the cashier's check, and also wrote his Dad's business bank account number on the back and stamped it with his Dad's signature. In the end, the bank reversed the payment, and took the money out of his Dad's account. When his Dad found out, the idiot was in some serious trouble, but I got my money back. There were a few other's scammed in the same transaction, and they recieved about half of the money back after the police started to put the pressure on these guys. The story is much more involved, so I won't go into the rest of it."
Rather humorous, this feedback entry. I'll obscure the email just to limit spamharvesting on it, but you can see it at the EBay link.
:)
-------@aol.com (25)
Jan-22-02 12:48:53 PST
1055398606
S
Praise : Complete Fraud! Took all our money and never received any product
So evidently AOLers WANT to be defrauded?
when you pay someone $700 for some porcelain mice, you're pretty much getting ripped off whether or not you actually get the goods.
Oh wait, checking email... .. WHAT? I paid $1000 for a figurine and didn't get it? DAMN!
-- Dan
I used to leave positive feedback for strangers as a joke - "Cuba makes the best! thanks!!!" for a cigar seller, "you're right! your bowling pin trophy looks great on my headboard - thanks!" for a stylish furniture seller, "hang in there! FUNNY poster! poor kitten!" for a guy selling skulls and such, etc., etc.
Around that time, other people were too busy for such fun and nonsense, creating networks of accounts, all of which were leaving each other positive feedback. It was possible to have an account with a lengthy history of perfect feedback, even though a transaction had never been completed.
Many of these accounts were weeded out, some because they were used for fraud, others because people spotted ones with all the feedback happening in a couple days' time and asked questions.
But the requirement for an auction existing to match positive feedback left was only added about two years ago. I'm betting hundreds more bogus positive accounts exist and are sitting idle, waiting to be used...
#define USEPAYPAL 0x01
#define USEESCROW 0x02
#define GOINPERSON 0x04
int whattodo(long price);
int whattodo(long price) {
if (price <= 60) return USEPAYPAL;
else if (price <= 10000) return USEESCROW;
else if (price > 10000) return GOINPERSON;
}
/* Code is protected free speech! Don't think otherwise */
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
James Brents
It's a classic scam. Build up a rep for being honest, upright, soforth. Once everyone trusts you, you can strike it big with little difficulty.
Right, there's a name for that scam. I can't remember. Hang on... thinking about it... oh ya!
Enron!
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
At the bottom of the article, his wife mentions that she found evidence that he had been gambling over the Internet, and may have gone into debt as a result.
What's funny is that when I closed the window to the story, there was one of those ubiquitous popup-adds for an on-line casino.
I find it amusing is that people shell out good money for those tacky little figurines. I find it not so amusing that some people may have lost upwards of $20,000.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Pay 700 bucks for four glass mice, kill me now and spare the gene pool.
You know what?
Misspelling, or clever pun? You be the judge.
"I am a cipher, a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce" -Jimmy James
I can attest to that. Porcelain mice are heavy slippery and easy to break. They tend to aggrivate RSI problems. One of the worst things about them is that if you don't have a mouse pad, they make a screeching sound like fingernails on a chalkboard when you move them. I would never bid on one.
For As an analogy, look at slashdot, at all the high-karma, low-uid users who turn into useless trolls.
Could this be foreshadowing from user # 204?
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
"It's easy to get scammed on ebay. This happened to a friend of mine."
You don't need to involve eBay to be STUPID enough to give out your credit card number like that! That boy needs to be smacked upside the head with a clue-by-four and smacked HARD!
Will this friend of yours be in the running for a Darwin award in the next few years? I hope so! I'm not sure I want to be sharing the same precious atmosphere with this waste of perfectly good brain cells!
Hell, I don't think the credit card issuer should be held accountable for the charges the seller put on the card. The poor bank had no idea your friend was so dense. And he didn't begin to suspect at least a little bit when he got the invoice for the camera?
I sincerely hope that you were telling a joke...
You should use Winning Bid Pro [umklaydet.com] to do the last minute bidding for you. I use it all the time. Just set up the bid you are willing to make and have it send it in 10 seconds before the auction ends. That way you don't drive the price up ahead of time. Sometimes someone has a max bid higher than yours, or is using a bidding program the same as you and you get beat.
Thanks for the tip! Nine seconds it is!
"And like that