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FBI States Online Auction Fraud Biggest Source of Complaints
dipfan writes "The FBI says internet auction fraud was the biggest source of complaints last year, according to the annual report by the Internet Fraud Complaint Centre. The Nigerian bank scam still remains popular, even after all these years. Quote: "During 2001, Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising 42.8% of referred complaints .... Non-deliverable merchandise and payment comprise 20.3% of complaints, and credit and debit card fraud make up 9.4% of complaints."
The report is a 27 page PDF file while the Washington Post
wrote up an article about it." Just ask CowboyNeal about some of his fun with dealing with dealers in Hong Kong.
Start messing with 'e,. You've got their name and address. (Generally speaking, most of them give you a valid address, just never send) ... so start ordering magazines to their address, and select "Bill Me Later."
Of course, it's a large amount of money you'll probably want to take legal recourse.
Now, on the other hand, I knew a guy who's business was not sending this that he sold on ebay.
Let me explain: First he'd steal high-tech componenets from the school, put them on ebay, sell them for a couple bucks, and then never send or answer his emails or whatever. He'd wait about a month, if they continues bitching, he'd go ahead and send the item, and claim it was originally sent to the wrong address, or whatever. If they simply stopped complaining, thwen he'd relist the item, and start the process over again....
I thought he was only a voting option :)
Seriously, I'm not surprised about the online fraud that we read once and a while. If you see people paying more on ebay for a used item (i.e. digital camera) than they would pay for a new one, it gives just a small hint on the IQ of some people.
I'm not in sociology, but one thing is for sure, if people are misinformed about the price of the stuff they buy (and it's a lot of them), being naive and not doublechecking someone with 0 feedback or negative complaints sure won't help the cause. It's like leaving your porsche's doors unlocked on a street.
Okay there are also those who got scammed by people with 6000 points like reported on slashdot a few weeks ago, but those are exeptions and you'd get more chances being ripped off with a used car dealer than this if you do everything that ebay recommend you to do.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I have had much better luck online than I did using the old direct-mail/telephone model. I have purchased items, sent some of them back, and have had to resort to asking my credit card company to dispute the charges only once - online. The direct mail/telephone model was fraught with delays and companies who did not answer telephones, shipped wrong items, refuse to correct shipments, etc. I would like to see these figures of online fraud compared to good-old-fashioned mail fraud.
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
No, don't! Plenty of scams are based on selling faithfully and nicelly tens of 1$ items so that everyone belives you when you try to sell a 1000$ item.
I've had some problems like this. I sold a 9GB SCSI hard drive that way a couple of years ago. The auction listed it clearly as "9GB ST410800N full-height narrow SCSI hard drive" and stated "This hard drive requires a SCSI controller card and two drive bays; please know what you are buying!"
Some lady wins the auction, I get paid, send the drive immediately and packed well. Later that week she e-mails me asking for my phone number so we can discuss some "problems" she is having. Wanting to provide good customer service, I give it to her.
When she calls, I get an earful from some completely incompetent lady who wants her money back. Why? Because "Maybe you packed it well, but this thing looks like it was pulled out of some proprietary server 20 years ago! It's as big as a tank, no way it'll fit in my tower, and the connecter is wierd, it's like a centimeter too long and won't work in a PC!" I tell her that I clearly stated that it was a full-height SCSI hard drive and that it will work in any properly equipped PC. She responds with "I'm a licensed computer technician, bud, so don't try to scam me!"
Next week I get a chargeback and a fraud investigation by my bank. She didn't bother to return the drive to me after getting her money back. Nice lady.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
In the US internet purchases are taxed, so is mail order.
The fact that you don't report it just makes you a violater of tax code, and people like you will probably force some kind of immediate taxation which will raise the base cost of goods.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'd be laughing if it weren't for a creepy conversation I just had with my mother.
A while ago I mentioned to her that I planned to contact my congress critters about the CBDTPA and I explained some of the issues. She thought I was going off the deep end. Today I explained how the congressional committee got flooded with responses, 100% opposing it, and that the bill was dead. She said ok, I was right. But then she commented about the "bad porn" on the internet and we need to "regulate the internet". When I tried to compare that to blaming telephones or cars for crimes commited with them she just looked at me like I was evil or something. Her response was "the internet makes access to it easy". Well DUH, the internet makes access to *everything* easy. Kind of like telephones and cars make access to people and places easy.
Your post was a joke, the problem is that the offline-world doesn't get it. Pardon me while I bang my head against the wall - maybe the pain will go away.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You best bet for domestic purchases that are large is to involve the post office, send money orders via mail, and have all items sent via the same. In this case everything comes under the juridiction of the PostMaster General and Federal law. So you don't have to worry about prosecution over state lines and such cause the case is at the federal level. One the other hand if you use PayPal and UPS (or the equiv) you are stuck within the boundies of that, and with interstate commerce laws (which make prosecution much harder).