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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."
Pretty much what happened. Here is a little of the THE WALL STREET JOURNAL version:
WHITE LAKE, Mich. -- Stewart Richardson seemed to be the model of a successful eBay entrepreneur, and January promised to be one of his best months yet. For five years he had built up a business on eBay as an online dealer in collectible figurines. In some cases, he was able to auction off whimsical ceramic creatures from the Wee Forest Folk line for hundreds of dollars apiece.
On the feedback bulletin board on eBay Inc.'s auction Web site, customers posted rave reviews of their experiences with Mr. Richardson and his business. A few days into the new year, he completed his biggest series of online auctions ever, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars within a matter of weeks.
Then, on Jan. 17, Mr. Richardson told the handful of employees at his figurine shop here in this blue-collar Detroit suburb that he was going out to lunch.
He hasn't been heard from since.
Thursday, Mr. Richardson's store was locked and appeared to be in disarray. A woman inside refused a reporter's request to unlock the door, and a sign told UPS delivery personnel to go away.
Scores of online bidders who bought the little porcelain mice, moles, angels and other figures in Mr. Richardson's last auctions say they never received the items they paid for. The Oakland County, Mich., Sheriff's Department says it has handed the case over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A person familiar with the investigation says authorities don't know where Mr. Richardson is but that the FBI is treating the case as a fraud investigation.
Mr. Clark's Conclusion
There seems to be little doubt among his would-be customers that Mr. Richardson pulled off one of the most remarkable con jobs in the almost seven-year history of the eBay auction site, the Internet's most successful commercial outpost. "The guy ran off with the money," says Gene Clark, a computer consultant in East Brunswick, N.J., who says he paid Mr. Richardson $700 for four porcelain mice that never arrived.
A person familiar with the law-enforcement investigation estimates that Mr. Richardson reaped about $225,000 from the recent series of auctions, which ended Jan. 4, but some of the bidders say that figure is too low. According to his wife, Mr. Richardson withdrew a total of $220,000 from various business bank accounts in the days before his disappearance.
EBay says it shut down Mr. Richardson's account with the company on Jan. 23 after it received a flurry of complaints from users and concluded that his recent auctions amounted to a major case of fraud. "This is a pretty extraordinary situation," says Rob Chestnut, the ex-federal prosecutor who leads eBay's fraud-prevention team.
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