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MacAddict Tracks Down eBay Scam Artist
OS24Ever writes "A future high school history teacher, Jason Eric Smith, sold an 867MHz PowerBook G4 on eBay right before finals. He found out the hard way that people are out there to rip you off, and he went to great lengths to catch this guy with the help of Mac heads everywhere. A great read and agreat way for us little guys to get back at these scammers."
there's a lot of rotten apples on ebay.
...how about, when shipping something, trying to hide a GPS transponder somewhere in the object. Make it well-hidden, but also give it a limited-lifetime battery so that it won't be traceable after about a week.
.45.
.45 but be ready to inflict physical violence, since the feds are rarely helpful.
If you get ripped, just follow the signal or keep track of where it last vanished (perhaps it went into a basement where it couldn't be tracked any further). Meet the crook at his/her door with a
Well, okay, maybe not a
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
"That night I dreamed of Mr. Christmas and a baseball bat, some duct tape, and roofing nails."
neurostarWould a windows user go through all that trouble? I bet not... a windows pc is a dime a dozen. A Mac is somthing on a whole different level. Also the "new" mac users who are attracted to OSX seem to be more geeky then previous macaddicts and there more ready to do this kind of stuff.
Everyday You see me is the worst day of my life -Office Space
I think this is interesting for the sole fact that a whole lot of people who owe no direct kinship to each other elected to cooperate for a common cause.
:-)
I was listening to a presentation about different pagan holidays, and one component of one of the rituals was to honor / remember your ancestors. What made me remember this was that the presenter said that the ancestors didn't have to be biological, instead could be cultural, intellectual, or spiritual ancestors.
In this case, it seems that these 'artificial' families are willing to stick together and cooperate on a common goal, even if they themselves will not directly benefit. I suppose this is just a regular community, with enough people in it that a few would be motivated to assist. Then again, I could just be amazed by my own insight, marvelling at a fact that others have known for ages, and so think that I am smarter than I actually am.
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
Finally
I sell things on Ebay as well (usually old games that I'm done with) - and I don't do COD. Paypal - sure. Checks and money orders, but I wait until they clear before they ship.
I know we should be more trusting of people, but I've become convinced that 20% of the population is made of Assholes that can be trusted only as far as they can be shot.
Still, I have to admire his spirit tracking the guy down - if nothing else, that's one less asshole to worry about. Only 1 billion to go!
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
this guy is going to wind up with his beer budget slashdotted.
Worst. Sig. Ever.
If he was a spammer and not a scammer, he could have just posted it here and had the guy in hours.
Never confuse volume with power.
Hi,
The guy was SELLING the Mac, not BUYING it.
You are a morron.
Good day.
I thought that there were like money orders in that once you paid for it, there isn't any way to get your money back without a long, drawn-out process. Did the guy pay for the cashier's check with a bad check or something?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
openDK() was used to takedown this scammer.
Although myself I have never had trouble on eBay - 15 positive feedbacks, and never been burned.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
...if this guy had just waited to ship the item until the payment had cleared. If the buyer wasn't interested in that, then wait for another buyer who *is* willing.
Would've saved him a lot more trouble and money in the long run.
"It's hard to sleep comfortably knowing some asshole has your Mac and is doing god knows what with it."
Are we sure this guy sold a computer and not his pet or maybe his girlfriend? And what perverts (macphiliacs?) do with Macs?
He was selling it because Macs suck.
Doesn't FedEX have some responsibility in this case? After all, if you ship something COD and they accept a counterfit check, why is that completely your fault?
... where do you draw the line? Any ideas?
I'm not saying that it isn't legally your problem, just that in an ideal world it shouldn't be. After all, presumably it would be FedEX's fault if they accepted something written in crayon on a brown paper sack
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Jesus, are people still bitching about that?
Did microsoft give people free upgrades from 98 to ME? Has there been some sort of "free upgrades until the end of time" precedent set by any other commercial operating system vendor?
If you want a free operating system, you know where to get it.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
how this guy bashed PC users quite abit?
Dear lord....If you're going to karma whore, at least take 5 or 10 minutes to put some paragraph breaks in. That's painful to even begin to read.
try catching him by his mac address
Surely you're not trying to say that there is only one asshole in every 7 people.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
I hate to break it to you, but you're a moron.
Form keys are teh suck!
"It's hard to sleep comfortably knowing some asshole has your Mac and is doing god knows what with it."
If he's a normal user, he's probably filling the various ports and orafices with various..uh..plug-like devices.
Don't fuck with the Mac Heads.
this reminds me of an episode of South Park where a kid sold Cartman some pubic hair, and cartman got the kid back by tricking the kid into eating the kid's parents.
It's sad that, even to all the great lengths he went to, all PC users to him are bad guys. Congrats on getting the guy who stole your Mac, but maybe you will find time to realize it's the community your in and it has nothing to do the type of computer you use.
Didn't he know where he sent the laptop to?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
This is a "just in case" post. No down moderations are necessary. If the site remains up, leave this post at 2. Otherwise (as I suspect), please mod this up just so that others can read his story.
Seriously, since you're the THIRD person posting this, *and* the site is performing fine, I assure you, down moderations are *extremely* necessary for your karma-whoring ass. Please mod this up just so that others can read his story my ass. I'll put my +2 up here so I can get modded down right along with you.
If you're really posting this so that other people (people who are not YOU, or YOUR KARMA) can benefit, please post AC. You contributed nothing, and don't deserve to be modded up.
Cheers!
"My girlfriend and I decided we would use the extra money to donate to some charities for Christmas"
"but I'm not someone you want to have that happen to. I will get you. I will hunt you down, and I will bring a baseball bat with me."
Surely you're not trying to say that there is only one asshole in every 7 people
Everyone is an asshole in at least one person's mind. Think back - surely there's someone you have had an interaction with that thinks you are an asshole. I'm sure you have a few people you think are assholes. So, everyone is an asshole.
There's a difference between an asshole and a criminal, though.
he went through all of that cause he's a mac user and therefore a complete dumbass
Ok, so it sounds like from this article the guy listed his system on eBay, but then sold it to a guy who "saw his ad" on eBay, but didn't actually bid on the item. This is 1. Against eBay rules for selling, and 2. Stupid. There's no way to get any kind of verification on who it was he was talking with (as he found out), no way to check out the guy's prior habits (via feedback), and no way to get back at the guy without a lot of effort. Every sale on eBay is insured up to a certain amount, with fraud protection offered through PayPal and through credit cards, COD is also the worst way to go.
I tell everyone who contacts me in this manner to bid on my auctions. Period. There's a reason eBay has these rules, and this is one of them.
But, no one ever said Mac users were the shiniest apples in the barrel.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
I think Diego had him killed for banging Frida and just set Johnson up to look like a sov agent.
You don't write comments containing the full text of an article...
THE FULL TEXT OF THE ARTICLE WRITES COMMENTS CONTAINING YOU!
Wait...that didn't make any sense whatsoever...
Confessions of a scam artist
$5,000 running auction scams on Yahoo and eBay. It was child's play,
www.msnbc.com/news/790212.asp - 75k - Cached - Similar pages
Fool.com: Fools Team to Fight eBay Scam [News] May 2, 2001
... This way, every time a scam artist tries to take advantage of a seller ... eBay's response ...
eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove says this particular scam pops up from
www.fool.com/news/2001/ebay010502.htm - 30k - Cached - Similar pages
TechTV | Source of EBay Scam Found
... Ebay wants to protect its trademark, but says it's tough to find ...
criminals like the email scam artist. It's very hard to track
www.techtv.com/news/security/story/ 0,24195,3408892,00.html - 38k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages
Possible Ebay Scam - www.ezboard.com
... It looks like the scam artist is targeting bigger sellers-not small fry-so if ...
any of you get an email asking for information-contact ebay about it first.
pub131.ezboard.com/ fbliss51092frm48.showMessage?topicID=27.topic - 14k - Cached - Similar pages
Ebay scam artists
... to conferm the info. Scam Artist email, Name, Ebay ID, Offence. mtracker@iland.net,
Mark Campbell, tracker44, sells broken items as new.
www.ctlinx.org/ebay/ - 7k - Cached - Similar pages
A New eBay Bidding Scam?
... Then at the last minute, he writes, the scam-artist could withdraw his high bid ... But ...
/ s05 - 19k - Cached - Similar pages
with the eBay system and other Internet bidding systems, that might not be
www.auctionbytes.com/pages/abu/y200/m03/abu0009
Scam artist meets fraud hunter
www.brockmoore.com/Scams/SkylineMovies.html - 7k - Cached - Similar pages
PayPal - Internet Info for Real People
... a correction had to be added as MSNBC incorrectly reported the scam artist could ...
access credit card and bank account information. The eBay community quickly
www.thebee.com/bweb/iinfo217.htm - 18k - Cached - Similar pages
The idea here is that, by ignoring small crimes, the police miss chances to prevent big crimes. The funny thing is that the people wanted for "small" (I don't think of $3000 as small, but that's just me) crimes are often pulling the same scam again and again - but no one ever turns them in. These "small" scams can add up to really large amounts of money and become big ones.
A few years ago, we had a homeless man who we gave a household job to steal a check out of my wife's checkbook. We only found out when we got a call from the grocery store, asking if we had actually written the check. Of course we hadn't -- the reason the grocery store had called us was that the guy had pulled the same stunt, at the same grocery store, seven times before. No one ever pressed charges. Well, we pressed charges, and it turned out the guy was also wanted for 10 counts of car theft, forging, fraud, etc. etc. ad nauseam. The really nauseating part? The police never followed through on our theft and forgery complaints, even though this guy had dozens of similar complaints against him.
So, the bottom line in my not so humble opinion is that, if you want to prevent crime, you don't need to outlaw guns or anything: just start enforcing the laws you already have.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Hate to say "RTFA", but RTFA.
Get a grip, pal. It's only an operating system.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
This story should be fowarded to everyone at the Chicago police. It should be an embarassment for them.
The ho hum attitude of law inforcement regarding things done on the Internet is sad, and scary. If the young man hadn't finally been able to contact an agency that actually wanted to do their job (stop crime), who knows where it would have gone.
Being a vigilante is never a good idea, but when the police don't do anything, it leaves the average person little choice.
I suspect we'll start seeing this more and more in the future, as long as law enforcement refuses to act on these things. Why should a person have to spend their own time and money in order to stop criminals? Are we going to reach a point where the only way someone can get an investigation is if they pay somebody to do it? I thought that's what our taxes which paid for police departments were supposed to do.
Just wait.. Withen a few years somebodys going to get killed because the police sat on their hands and a frustrated victim did their footwork and blows the person who scammed them away.
The Internet is generally stupid
Ok let's assume everytime someone sells something it means it sucks. :
Search for Macs on ebay:
Then searching for PC
Using your very intelligent reasoning, come back when windows xp works on mac.
I don't even use macs by the way, I just think you're acting really stupid.
Surely you're not trying to say that 20% comes out to 1 in 7 as a fraction.
That the entire story has been reposted here eight times. Just in case. G.--
Nice job :)
nuff said
Yeah, I mean, good for him catching the guy and all, but let's be real for a moment--that's what you get when you ship a $3000 laptop COD.
What a wimp, I would have definitely kicked the guy's ass and then blackmailed him for big cash.
The American way!
I'm glad he busted the guy, however the multiple comments like,
"he didn't even know what e-mail was. Definitely a PC user"
made the whole article pretty stupid.
I mean, most of the mac addicts around here think OS X was developed from scratch by Apple and get confused when you present them with options on how to do something on a computer.
I'm sure there are plently of intelligent mac users out there, this guy just doesn't seem like one of them.
Passing bad checks is illegal. Passing it across state lines has to worse. Possilby even mail fraud.
I would just like to say THANK YOU to those of you who are considerate of those of US who do not stare at this window religiously and refresh every two seconds. Because of c0dedude's consideration, I was able to read the article (despite his lack of formatting. =P ), even though it had already been slashdotted within minutes of being posted.
This is hardly insightful. It was a COD order, dipshit.
Well, you definitely converted me! :D
neurostarI think he means that each and every person has one asshole.
"Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user.
If PC users are so dumb, why are you writing a story about you shipping a $3000 laptop COD.
Moron.
--
|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
Mac Addicts to the Rescue
or
How I Caught a Counterfeiter with a Little Help from my Friends
a true story by Jason Eric Smith
Check out the Forum
in the interest of getting this out, no fancy layout, just hand coding. maybe i'll spruce it up later.
the names of the innocent have been changed, the names of the guilty though...
I am a college student (my second time around). Specifically, I'm studying to become a high school history teacher. I am a student with a lifelong habit though, Macintosh. I got my first Mac in 1986, a used Mac Plus with 1 megabyte of RAM a massive 40 megabyte external hardrive. Since then, I've always had to keep up, first it was the SE, then the IIsi, the Powerbook 140, and from there on, more Macs than you can shake a stick at (I missed the Mac TV). I usually keep my Mac for about 6 months, and then resell it and move up. I almost always buy used, so don't get any ideas about me being rich.
Since I went back to being a student again, I've been selling Macs more regularly, picking up good deals on used Macs locally and then reselling on eBay. I've been doing this for about two years now, its relatively easy, takes about an extra hour of my day, and usually pays the rent. In November when the new Powerbooks came out I decided I was going to buy one for myself, to keep, an early Christmas present that would come in handy for taking notes in class and finishing up a presentation I needed to do on the New Orleans school system. The day they were announced I ordered a nice new Powerbook G4 867 and found it on my doorstep only a few days later.
It was a beautiful machine, if you've never played with one in person, you won't believe it. I played with it for a couple of days, took it to school to take notes and do research on. The more I used it, the more I loved it. But, it was just too much to be carrying around, $2300 in my backpack had a tendency to make me a little nervous. I decided maybe I should turn it around and pick up an iBook. My girlfriend and I decided we would use the extra money to donate to some charities for Christmas. So on November 19th, up on eBay it went, along with an Airport Basestation and a bunch of other knickknacks. I set a buy-it-now price on a whim for $2950.
The next morning I checked my auction, a couple of bids placed, and so the buy-it-now option was gone. Checking my email I got a couple of questions about the computer and much to my surprise, an offer to buy it for $2900 from Steve Matthews, a dad with a lucky son in college who was going to be getting a Powerbook for his birthday. Steve wanted to pay for it COD, no problem, its actually how I usually sell things. I called him on the phone number he gave me to ask a couple of questions and make sure everything was on the up and up.
He reiterated that he was buying it as a last minute present for his son and since it was already setup as a package, he thought it was a good deal. Not to mention the Chicago Apple stores were still out of stock. I got home from school, packed up my Powerbook and accessories, and off they went Fedex overnight to Chicago, never to be seen again.
At 10:21AM on November 21st, a man going by the name of Paul Smith signed for my two packages and gave the driver an official cashier's check from LaSalle Bank for $3052.78 in return. The check made it back to my doorstep the next morning. I went to the bank, deposited the check and withdrew enough to go ahead and pay my rent and pick up a couple of household items. I sent an email to Steve to make sure he got everything ok and to check that nothing had been damaged in shipping. No reply. As the old saying goes, no news is good news, right?
My girlfriend and I went away for Thanksgiving, and when we got back on Friday, I had a message from my bank. The branch manager had called to let me know she had a returned item for $3052.78 and that my account was now in the negative. Seriously in the negative. No problem I thought, I'll just call Steve and see what's up.
So I dialed the number I had. In the back of my mind I expected a "this number has been disconnected message". Instead I got an answer, the voice sounded identical to Steve, so I asked if Steve was there.
"Oh, Steve, yeah, that's my cousin, he's out of town for Thanksgiving you know. He'll be back Tuesday"
"Can I leave a message for him?"
So I left my information and asked that he give me a call. That little voice in the back of my mind let out a sigh and an uh-oh. The voices were the same right? Was I being scammed? Well, if I was, I certainly wasn't going to let the weekend go by without doing a little investigating.
I started off with the information I had. His AOL email address, his phone number, and the address I shipped the computer to. The AOL address didn't yield anything. Doing a reverse lookup on the address (thanks to Whitepages.com) I got three names and phone numbers, none of which matched anything I had. The phone number didn't give me anything. I finally found a way to lookup the exchange on the number to see if it was a cell phone or a landline (Fone Finder). It came back as Nextel and I wanted to scream.
There really isn't anything you can do with a cell phone number. There are no directory services. The cell phone companies won't give out any information. And that's that. I called Nextel and pleaded with them. The customer service rep I spoke with seemed more confused than anything. He kept asking me what my Nextel phone number was and why I suspected someone was fraudulently billing to my account. I calmly explained at least three times that I was not a Nextel customer, that I was just trying to get an address for another customer I suspect has defrauded me, etc, etc. I finally gave up on Chris from Nextel, I've had customer service reps who don't even speak English who were more helpful.
I was at a dead end. I'd just sent my $2300 laptop, my Airport basestation, and a load of stuff to somebody I didn't know and all I had to show for it was a bill from Fedex for overnight shipping and a returned cashier's check. It's hard to sleep comfortably knowing some asshole has your Mac and is doing god knows what with it.
Sunday the first of December, I sprang into action full force. I called for help. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with this on my own, so I figured I might be able to get some help from some bulletin boards. I posted my tale of woe and call for assistance on every Mac bulletin board I could think of. I hoped that somebody who worked for Nextel, some fellow Mac addict like myself, might be willing to bend the rules a little. I wanted this guy's address and I wanted it bad. I was already pricing flights to Chicago and putting my professors on notice that I might have to miss a little class. I may have made an error in trusting this person, but I'm not someone you want to have that happen to. I will get you. I will hunt you down, and I will bring a baseball bat with me.
I got more replies than I could keep up with. Everyone wanted to know what they could do to help or at least offer support. Well, everyone except one guy who just wanted to let me know how incredibly stupid he thought I was and that he would never have accepted a counterfeit anything. I think a 102:1 great person to asshole ratio is pretty good. Several people living in Chicago offered their assistance, be it in gathering information or even forming a tough guy squad if necessary.
The most important reply I got was a pointer to an online PI service that does reverse lookups on cell phones. I was already beyond broke, but I figured $85.00 more wouldn't kill me. Twelve hours and $85.00 later, I had a name, an address, and a landline phone number for this guy. The name and his AOL email were eerily close, actually with a last name like Christmas, it would be pretty weird if it didn't match up. I couldn't believe it. A Chicago resident named Melvin Christmas had just ruined my Christmas. I was expecting William Faulkner to come popping out of the pantry at any moment and laugh at me.
I was now ready to call the police. I called the Chicago police department and filed a report. I gave the operator all of my information, including the real name and address I had managed to get. "A detective will contact you within one to two weeks, thank you." One to two weeks?!? I had this guy, I'd done all the work already, all you had to do was go pick him up. I'd even gone ahead and called Fedex and spoken to the Chicago station manager and was assured that the driver would cooperate in identifying the guy if necessary. All they had to do was pick him up. In one to two weeks he could be gone. And all the while my precious Powerbook is sitting god knows where being used by somebody completely undeserving of a Mac. I know in my heart that Mr. Christmas is really a PC guy.
I was furious. Chicago PD weren't going to do anything about this. If they were anything like the New Orleans PD, one to two weeks was likely to turn in to never. I figured I'd call Mr. Christmas myself. Let him know I was going to give him a chance to fix this, and I thought, maybe at least scare him. Let him know he was dealing with someone who would track him down no matter what, even if I had to make a deal with the Prince of Darkness to do it. Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user.
I kept checking the message boards. Maybe someone would have a better idea. I called the local FBI field office. Agent Jones was very understanding, but let me know that even though this crossed state lines, the field office didn't take anything involving less than $5000. "Try the Chicago PD".
I kept everyone on the Mac boards updated as best I could. On Tuesday I got a useful reply, try the Secret Service, counterfeiting is their jurisdiction. I made my way to the under-renovation Federal Building here in New Orleans. After walking many a dark, scary hallway, found myself at the door of Agent Keith Lopola. Keith came out and heard my case. I had brought copies of all the emails between myself and Steve Matthews/Paul Smith/Mr. Christmas, a copy of the check, and the call journal I had started keeping. Agent Lopola told me the same thing the FBI did, "It falls under our jurisdiction, but we can't take the case." He wanted to let me know that he really felt for me. Thanks. I left the office determined to call and bother him and the Chicago PD everyday for the rest of my life or at least until Mr. Christmas was behind bars.
Finals were fast approaching. It's not very easy to concentrate on school when all you can think about all day is the fact that all of your student loans for the next semester are going to cover this counterfeit check. That and some grubby criminal has your Powerbook. It's enough to drive someone to the drink.
Tuesday night I got an email from someone who had seen my story posted on O'Grady's Powerpage, a Powerbook enthusiast site. George Dunbar had seen the story and thought it sounded eerily similar to his. I called him, we compared notes, and turns out it was the same guy. George forwarded me all of his emails. Everything was the same, word for word, it was like Mr. Christmas just copied and pasted and magically made money. George was in it worse than I was though and had completely given up. He was out $6000 and two computers. He also let me know that there were more victims. He'd talked to at least three other people who had been taken by the same guy, all of whom had just given up. I was not going to give up. That night I dreamed of Mr. Christmas and a baseball bat, some duct tape, and roofing nails.
Wednesday morning I decided I was going to Chicago. I set up another eBay auction under my girlfriend's account, this time for same computer, different city. Three hours later, lo and behold I received an email from eBay user videopro55 (the same one) asking me if I'd like to sell the computer right now for $2500. Oh yes, I'd love to sell the computer, I'll even be there when it gets delivered to make sure it gets "setup properly".
He emailed me a new address and phone number, the phone number again traced back to the same address for Mr. Christmas. I called the Secret Service and the Chicago PD, pleading, all they had to do was be there when Fedex dropped off the package. It was a guaranteed hit, he'd have another counterfeit cashier's check, all you'd have to do is arrest him. Like shooting fish in a barrel. "Sorry, Detective McDonaugh will be out until next Wednesday, can I take a message?" Fine, if the cops won't do it, I decided I'd just Priceline a ticket and be waiting next door when it got dropped off. So I'd know what kind of neighborhood I was looking at, I asked for help again in the Mac boards. Two Chicago residents replied, and the next morning, courtesy of Tim, I had 23 pictures of the house, the cars in the driveway (with license plate numbers) and the neighborhood. I'd like to see a Dell user do something like that at 4:30 in the morning for a complete stranger a thousand miles away. I started planning my trip. I decided I'd leave on Saturday, have the package delivered on Monday, and make it back just in time to screw up on all my finals.
On Friday in preparation for flying up I mapped the new address from the one for Mr. Christmas to see how close it was. As I looked at the map, it hit me. The new address wasn't in Chicago. It was in a suburb, Markham. I googled for the Markham police and 5 minutes later was talking to a very enthusiastic Sargeant Knapp. I had hit the jackpot, the new drop was outside of Chicago jurisdiction and therefore outside of their inattentiveness as well. Sargeant Knapp informed me he loved this kind of thing, even had a UPS and Fedex uniform ready. He'd call Fedex and they would set it up for Tuesday. I was certain I was dreaming. After talking to two detectives in Chicago, an FBI field agent, an agent in the New Orleans field office of the Secret Service, an agent with the L.A. Secret Service and having a conference call with a large group of agents from the Chicago Secret Service, I finally was getting somewhere. And I didn't even have to stand on someone's doorstep with a baseball bat to do it.
I spent the entire weekend on pins and needles. What if Mr. Christmas figured something out between now and Tuesday? All would be lost. I wouldn't even get the chance to confront him on my own. On Monday I spoke with Sgt. Knapp to make sure everything was ready to go. I had sent him a package with all of my documentation (he didn't have email), and I tried to explain what all the email stuff meant as best I could. He had worked everything out with Fedex and they were set for the delivery on Tuesday.
I called my brother in Nashville and had him send the package. I had set everything up to be coming from there so that Mr. Christmas wouldn't get suspicious. I could barely sleep Monday night. All I could think about was something going wrong and my only chance at getting this guy being missed. I wanted to update everyone on the Mac boards, but I had to keep it quiet until I knew something was going to happen.
Tuesday afternoon Sgt. Knapp called. They had tried the delivery but no one was home. I just wanted to scream. The board users kept posting how the suspense was driving them nuts. Well, it was going to give me an aneurism. A million possibilities went through my head. Maybe he had somebody working at Fedex who tipped him off, maybe I worded something in one of my email a little off. Sgt. Knapp called me back to let me know they would try the delivery again tomorrow. He also wanted to let me know that they had intercepted another package that was being sent to the same address. Looks like he'd already struck again, thankfully the lady from New York will get her computer back. He also told me that he was definitely going to keep pursuing this, and that oddly enough, the address I'd given him was also related to another fraud case, but this one much bigger (hundreds of thousands) involving a certain Chicago franchise I won't mention. So maybe I had led them to something bigger than just some asshole counterfeiting cashier's checks.
Today I had finals all day. I'm a 4.0 honors student. I've had a 4.0 all semester. I'm not sure if I'll keep that after today. I just couldn't sleep last night. All I could think about was Mr. Christmas and the delivery. I couldn't study either. So I winged it, I'll get my grades tomorrow. I called Sgt. Knapp at 2:45. He told me he was on his way back to the house. They'd already made the delivery and arrested the guy. He had more than $10,000 in counterfeit cashier's checks waiting for deliveries.
*I* got him.
I'm right now waiting on Sgt. Knapp to fax me a copy of his mug shot for posterity. Then I'm going to go celebrate. Sgt. Knapp said the guy was cooperating and he was going to try to recover my laptop. I'm hopeful, but I don't expect it. I might not ever get my computer back, but at least there is one less asshole on the street. When will criminals learn? You just shouldn't mess with Mac people.
For everyone on all the boards who offered their help and encouragement, I thank you. This would have been a lot harder without you. If you're ever in New Orleans, look me up and I'll buy you a beer. I've still got to figure out how I'm paying to college next semester, but I'll keep some beer money set aside for ya'll.
Oh yeah, and if there are any lawyers in the Chicago area who can file a civil suit against this guy for damages (yeah I know I'm not going to collect) please contact me, misterye a t yahoo d o t com
Windows 2000/XP actually already DOES work on Macs. Do you really think Microsoft would release it, though?
Better to use an escrow service. Let them worry about counterfeit checks. Wouldn't have cost much more than the $85 to perform the reverse phone # lookup.
You hired a homeless man to steal checks from your wife? No wonder you got screwed.
(Hint: Next time, try using decent setence structure to not confuse your point.)
Still didn't stop me pissing myself. God knows why the Soviet Russia posts are always modded down, admittedtly the jokes can be shite but some of them are great. I'm not the original poster, I don't do the '...' thing that makes me MAD.
Idiot mods. Again.
(-1) Troll awaits. Watch.
Never thought I'd see an Insightful AC.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
please refer to the FAQ.
"Karma used to be a number, now it is a word, this sucks!
People like to treat their Slashdot Karma like some sort of video game, with a numeric integer representing their score in the game. People who do this simply are missing the point. The text label is one way we've decided to emphasize the point that karma doesn't matter."
See that-- "karma doesn't matter".
God I fucking love these meta-posts about karma whores that get modded up!
...please post AC
Ahhahahahahahaha.
"Sorry, I can't do local pickup, I'm helping my parents move in down here in Texas. And no, I don't have access to a phone to set up a voice call to talk about it, but if you'd like the laptop, can you transfer the money into my friend's swedish bank account? Thanks"
I know in the article, the guy got screwed the other way, but some p2p e-commerce seems to be getting worse.
Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user.
I think the more telling fact is that he used AOL..
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
Wasn't it punishment enough just to give someone a 867MHz PowerBook G4?
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
Another example of eBay scammer fodder. But with a happy ending.
The way this geek went after this guy one may assume he had bullied one_too_many times. We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more! This scammer is lucky to be alive.
And now, after his last update:
Update 12/12/02 13:30 CST: For those of you wanting to donate to my cause, I urge you to choose a local charity. There are a lot of needy people and organizations out there this season, if you can't think of anything local, I'm a big fan of Doctor's Without Borders and Lambda International. If you really must, you can send money to my girlfriend's Paypal account, cranberry_coyote@hotmail.com. She's the one who's covering this check for me right now, so I guess she should get this. I'm still not entirely sure about this, but you've insisted. Thanks again.
Good for him!
How I Caught a Counterfeiter with a Little Help from my Friends
a true story by Jason Eric Smith
Check out the Forum
in the interest of getting this out, no fancy layout, just hand coding. maybe i'll spruce it up later.
the names of the innocent have been changed, the names of the guilty though...
I am a college student (my second time around). Specifically, I'm studying to become a high school history teacher. I am a student with a lifelong habit though, Macintosh. I got my first Mac in 1986, a used Mac Plus with 1 megabyte of RAM a massive 40 megabyte external hardrive. Since then, I've always had to keep up, first it was the SE, then the IIsi, the Powerbook 140, and from there on, more Macs than you can shake a stick at (I missed the Mac TV). I usually keep my Mac for about 6 months, and then resell it and move up. I almost always buy used, so don't get any ideas about me being rich.
Since I went back to being a student again, I've been selling Macs more regularly, picking up good deals on used Macs locally and then reselling on eBay. I've been doing this for about two years now, its relatively easy, takes about an extra hour of my day, and usually pays the rent. In November when the new Powerbooks came out I decided I was going to buy one for myself, to keep, an early Christmas present that would come in handy for taking notes in class and finishing up a presentation I needed to do on the New Orleans school system. The day they were announced I ordered a nice new Powerbook G4 867 and found it on my doorstep only a few days later.
It was a beautiful machine, if you've never played with one in person, you won't believe it. I played with it for a couple of days, took it to school to take notes and do research on. The more I used it, the more I loved it. But, it was just too much to be carrying around, $2300 in my backpack had a tendency to make me a little nervous. I decided maybe I should turn it around and pick up an iBook. My girlfriend and I decided we would use the extra money to donate to some charities for Christmas. So on November 19th, up on eBay it went, along with an Airport Basestation and a bunch of other knickknacks. I set a buy-it-now price on a whim for $2950.
The next morning I checked my auction, a couple of bids placed, and so the buy-it-now option was gone. Checking my email I got a couple of questions about the computer and much to my surprise, an offer to buy it for $2900 from Steve Matthews, a dad with a lucky son in college who was going to be getting a Powerbook for his birthday. Steve wanted to pay for it COD, no problem, its actually how I usually sell things. I called him on the phone number he gave me to ask a couple of questions and make sure everything was on the up and up.
He reiterated that he was buying it as a last minute present for his son and since it was already setup as a package, he thought it was a good deal. Not to mention the Chicago Apple stores were still out of stock. I got home from school, packed up my Powerbook and accessories, and off they went Fedex overnight to Chicago, never to be seen again.
At 10:21AM on November 21st, a man going by the name of Paul Smith signed for my two packages and gave the driver an official cashier's check from LaSalle Bank for $3052.78 in return. The check made it back to my doorstep the next morning. I went to the bank, deposited the check and withdrew enough to go ahead and pay my rent and pick up a couple of household items. I sent an email to Steve to make sure he got everything ok and to check that nothing had been damaged in shipping. No reply. As the old saying goes, no news is good news, right?
My girlfriend and I went away for Thanksgiving, and when we got back on Friday, I had a message from my bank. The branch manager had called to let me know she had a returned item for $3052.78 and that my account was now in the negative. Seriously in the negative. No problem I thought, I'll just call Steve and see what's up.
So I dialed the number I had. In the back of my mind I expected a "this number has been disconnected message". Instead I got an answer, the voice sounded identical to Steve, so I asked if Steve was there.
"Oh, Steve, yeah, that's my cousin, he's out of town for Thanksgiving you know. He'll be back Tuesday"
"Can I leave a message for him?"
So I left my information and asked that he give me a call. That little voice in the back of my mind let out a sigh and an uh-oh. The voices were the same right? Was I being scammed? Well, if I was, I certainly wasn't going to let the weekend go by without doing a little investigating.
I started off with the information I had. His AOL email address, his phone number, and the address I shipped the computer to. The AOL address didn't yield anything. Doing a reverse lookup on the address (thanks to Whitepages.com) I got three names and phone numbers, none of which matched anything I had. The phone number didn't give me anything. I finally found a way to lookup the exchange on the number to see if it was a cell phone or a landline (Fone Finder). It came back as Nextel and I wanted to scream.
There really isn't anything you can do with a cell phone number. There are no directory services. The cell phone companies won't give out any information. And that's that. I called Nextel and pleaded with them. The customer service rep I spoke with seemed more confused than anything. He kept asking me what my Nextel phone number was and why I suspected someone was fraudulently billing to my account. I calmly explained at least three times that I was not a Nextel customer, that I was just trying to get an address for another customer I suspect has defrauded me, etc, etc. I finally gave up on Chris from Nextel, I've had customer service reps who don't even speak English who were more helpful.
I was at a dead end. I'd just sent my $2300 laptop, my Airport basestation, and a load of stuff to somebody I didn't know and all I had to show for it was a bill from Fedex for overnight shipping and a returned cashier's check. It's hard to sleep comfortably knowing some asshole has your Mac and is doing god knows what with it.
Sunday the first of December, I sprang into action full force. I called for help. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with this on my own, so I figured I might be able to get some help from some bulletin boards. I posted my tale of woe and call for assistance on every Mac bulletin board I could think of. I hoped that somebody who worked for Nextel, some fellow Mac addict like myself, might be willing to bend the rules a little. I wanted this guy's address and I wanted it bad. I was already pricing flights to Chicago and putting my professors on notice that I might have to miss a little class. I may have made an error in trusting this person, but I'm not someone you want to have that happen to. I will get you. I will hunt you down, and I will bring a baseball bat with me.
I got more replies than I could keep up with. Everyone wanted to know what they could do to help or at least offer support. Well, everyone except one guy who just wanted to let me know how incredibly stupid he thought I was and that he would never have accepted a counterfeit anything. I think a 102:1 great person to asshole ratio is pretty good. Several people living in Chicago offered their assistance, be it in gathering information or even forming a tough guy squad if necessary.
The most important reply I got was a pointer to an online PI service that does reverse lookups on cell phones. I was already beyond broke, but I figured $85.00 more wouldn't kill me. Twelve hours and $85.00 later, I had a name, an address, and a landline phone number for this guy. The name and his AOL email were eerily close, actually with a last name like Christmas, it would be pretty weird if it didn't match up. I couldn't believe it. A Chicago resident named Melvin Christmas had just ruined my Christmas. I was expecting William Faulkner to come popping out of the pantry at any moment and laugh at me.
I was now ready to call the police. I called the Chicago police department and filed a report. I gave the operator all of my information, including the real name and address I had managed to get. "A detective will contact you within one to two weeks, thank you." One to two weeks?!? I had this guy, I'd done all the work already, all you had to do was go pick him up. I'd even gone ahead and called Fedex and spoken to the Chicago station manager and was assured that the driver would cooperate in identifying the guy if necessary. All they had to do was pick him up. In one to two weeks he could be gone. And all the while my precious Powerbook is sitting god knows where being used by somebody completely undeserving of a Mac. I know in my heart that Mr. Christmas is really a PC guy.
I was furious. Chicago PD weren't going to do anything about this. If they were anything like the New Orleans PD, one to two weeks was likely to turn in to never. I figured I'd call Mr. Christmas myself. Let him know I was going to give him a chance to fix this, and I thought, maybe at least scare him. Let him know he was dealing with someone who would track him down no matter what, even if I had to make a deal with the Prince of Darkness to do it. Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user.
I kept checking the message boards. Maybe someone would have a better idea. I called the local FBI field office. Agent Jones was very understanding, but let me know that even though this crossed state lines, the field office didn't take anything involving less than $5000. "Try the Chicago PD".
I kept everyone on the Mac boards updated as best I could. On Tuesday I got a useful reply, try the Secret Service, counterfeiting is their jurisdiction. I made my way to the under-renovation Federal Building here in New Orleans. After walking many a dark, scary hallway, found myself at the door of Agent Keith Lopola. Keith came out and heard my case. I had brought copies of all the emails between myself and Steve Matthews/Paul Smith/Mr. Christmas, a copy of the check, and the call journal I had started keeping. Agent Lopola told me the same thing the FBI did, "It falls under our jurisdiction, but we can't take the case." He wanted to let me know that he really felt for me. Thanks. I left the office determined to call and bother him and the Chicago PD everyday for the rest of my life or at least until Mr. Christmas was behind bars.
Finals were fast approaching. It's not very easy to concentrate on school when all you can think about all day is the fact that all of your student loans for the next semester are going to cover this counterfeit check. That and some grubby criminal has your Powerbook. It's enough to drive someone to the drink.
Tuesday night I got an email from someone who had seen my story posted on O'Grady's Powerpage, a Powerbook enthusiast site. George Dunbar had seen the story and thought it sounded eerily similar to his. I called him, we compared notes, and turns out it was the same guy. George forwarded me all of his emails. Everything was the same, word for word, it was like Mr. Christmas just copied and pasted and magically made money. George was in it worse than I was though and had completely given up. He was out $6000 and two computers. He also let me know that there were more victims. He'd talked to at least three other people who had been taken by the same guy, all of whom had just given up. I was not going to give up. That night I dreamed of Mr. Christmas and a baseball bat, some duct tape, and roofing nails.
Wednesday morning I decided I was going to Chicago. I set up another eBay auction under my girlfriend's account, this time for same computer, different city. Three hours later, lo and behold I received an email from eBay user videopro55 (the same one) asking me if I'd like to sell the computer right now for $2500. Oh yes, I'd love to sell the computer, I'll even be there when it gets delivered to make sure it gets "setup properly".
He emailed me a new address and phone number, the phone number again traced back to the same address for Mr. Christmas. I called the Secret Service and the Chicago PD, pleading, all they had to do was be there when Fedex dropped off the package. It was a guaranteed hit, he'd have another counterfeit cashier's check, all you'd have to do is arrest him. Like shooting fish in a barrel. "Sorry, Detective McDonaugh will be out until next Wednesday, can I take a message?" Fine, if the cops won't do it, I decided I'd just Priceline a ticket and be waiting next door when it got dropped off. So I'd know what kind of neighborhood I was looking at, I asked for help again in the Mac boards. Two Chicago residents replied, and the next morning, courtesy of Tim, I had 23 pictures of the house, the cars in the driveway (with license plate numbers) and the neighborhood. I'd like to see a Dell user do something like that at 4:30 in the morning for a complete stranger a thousand miles away. I started planning my trip. I decided I'd leave on Saturday, have the package delivered on Monday, and make it back just in time to screw up on all my finals.
On Friday in preparation for flying up I mapped the new address from the one for Mr. Christmas to see how close it was. As I looked at the map, it hit me. The new address wasn't in Chicago. It was in a suburb, Markham. I googled for the Markham police and 5 minutes later was talking to a very enthusiastic Sargeant Knapp. I had hit the jackpot, the new drop was outside of Chicago jurisdiction and therefore outside of their inattentiveness as well. Sargeant Knapp informed me he loved this kind of thing, even had a UPS and Fedex uniform ready. He'd call Fedex and they would set it up for Tuesday. I was certain I was dreaming. After talking to two detectives in Chicago, an FBI field agent, an agent in the New Orleans field office of the Secret Service, an agent with the L.A. Secret Service and having a conference call with a large group of agents from the Chicago Secret Service, I finally was getting somewhere. And I didn't even have to stand on someone's doorstep with a baseball bat to do it.
I spent the entire weekend on pins and needles. What if Mr. Christmas figured something out between now and Tuesday? All would be lost. I wouldn't even get the chance to confront him on my own. On Monday I spoke with Sgt. Knapp to make sure everything was ready to go. I had sent him a package with all of my documentation (he didn't have email), and I tried to explain what all the email stuff meant as best I could. He had worked everything out with Fedex and they were set for the delivery on Tuesday.
I called my brother in Nashville and had him send the package. I had set everything up to be coming from there so that Mr. Christmas wouldn't get suspicious. I could barely sleep Monday night. All I could think about was something going wrong and my only chance at getting this guy being missed. I wanted to update everyone on the Mac boards, but I had to keep it quiet until I knew something was going to happen.
Tuesday afternoon Sgt. Knapp called. They had tried the delivery but no one was home. I just wanted to scream. The board users kept posting how the suspense was driving them nuts. Well, it was going to give me an aneurism. A million possibilities went through my head. Maybe he had somebody working at Fedex who tipped him off, maybe I worded something in one of my email a little off. Sgt. Knapp called me back to let me know they would try the delivery again tomorrow. He also wanted to let me know that they had intercepted another package that was being sent to the same address. Looks like he'd already struck again, thankfully the lady from New York will get her computer back. He also told me that he was definitely going to keep pursuing this, and that oddly enough, the address I'd given him was also related to another fraud case, but this one much bigger (hundreds of thousands) involving a certain Chicago franchise I won't mention. So maybe I had led them to something bigger than just some asshole counterfeiting cashier's checks.
Today I had finals all day. I'm a 4.0 honors student. I've had a 4.0 all semester. I'm not sure if I'll keep that after today. I just couldn't sleep last night. All I could think about was Mr. Christmas and the delivery. I couldn't study either. So I winged it, I'll get my grades tomorrow. I called Sgt. Knapp at 2:45. He told me he was on his way back to the house. They'd already made the delivery and arrested the guy. He had more than $10,000 in counterfeit cashier's checks waiting for deliveries.
*I* got him.
I'm right now waiting on Sgt. Knapp to fax me a copy of his mug shot for posterity. Then I'm going to go celebrate. Sgt. Knapp said the guy was cooperating and he was going to try to recover my laptop. I'm hopeful, but I don't expect it. I might not ever get my computer back, but at least there is one less asshole on the street. When will criminals learn? You just shouldn't mess with Mac people.
For everyone on all the boards who offered their help and encouragement, I thank you. This would have been a lot harder without you. If you're ever in New Orleans, look me up and I'll buy you a beer. I've still got to figure out how I'm paying to college next semester, but I'll keep some beer money set aside for ya'll.
Oh yeah, and if there are any lawyers in the Chicago area who can file a civil suit against this guy for damages (yeah I know I'm not going to collect) please contact me, misterye a t yahoo d o t com
The sites with great users that helped out (you can sign up for the forums and read all about this as it was going on):
MacRumors.com
MacNN
ThinkSecret
O'Grady's PowerPage
Update 12/11/02 18:58 CST: Sgt. Knapp is sending me a copy of Mr. Christmas's mug shot. I'll post it as soon as I get it.
Update 12/11/02 21:39 CST: For those interesting in getting in contact with me, my email address is misterye at yahoo dot com, if you think you were also a victim, please call me at 504-894-1243 and I'll put you in touch with the appropriate people.
Update 12/11/02 23:36 CST: I've gone back through and added links where appropriate. I'll try to reformat this tomorrow.
Update 12/12/02 10:36 CST: Ok, so how's this for small world: Apparently this thing is getting posted everywhere. I just got a call from Matt of the Real World Season 9 (the New Orleans Real World). So anyway, the cast of the New Orleans Real World used to all work at 735 Nightclub. I moved down here to actually take-over their marketing right after the show ended. So I never met Matt or any of them until speaking to him today. Small, weird world.
Update 12/12/02 12:03 CST: I've added a forum where everyone can talk about this. Here it is.
Update 12/12/02 13:30 CST: For those of you wanting to donate to my cause, I urge you to choose a local charity. There are a lot of needy people and organizations out there this season, if you can't think of anything local, I'm a big fan of Doctor's Without Borders and Lambda International. If you really must, you can send money to my girlfriend's Paypal account, cranberry_coyote@hotmail.com. She's the one who's covering this check for me right now, so I guess she should get this. I'm still not entirely sure about this, but you've insisted. Thanks again.
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase
It is always cool to catch a theif, and particularly someone who preys on people who don't have much money to pursue these things. And while I sympathize with those who say he shouldn't have sent it COD to begin with, we all make mistakes sometimes, and at least he did what he could to correct it. And if he had protected himself, this guy wouldn't have gotten caught. There's a couple of simple things he missed, though: 1) As someone else pointed out, he did have the delivery address. While that could have been a drop, it wasn't, and even if it was, someone lived there and could have been used to trace him. 2) As soon as the second person turned up with a $3,000 item, the total value was over the $5,000 minimum the FBI and Secret Service needed to go after it, so they could have been immediately contacted. Also, when they know there's a pattern, they're more likely to get involved.
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
This guy probably took the computer (or at least some of the computers from other people he'd ripped off) and sold it for half the price he "bought" it for, maybe less, so even if he hasn't poured the money up his nose, he'd only have $1200, not 2500. Maybe he's got a car, though....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
They would if people would buy it. But mac user won't buy it. Hell they can't even get all the PC users to buy it.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
... take your pick. ;-)
1 2 3 4
Alternatively, don't check the comments already posted and post another incredibly long post containing the entire website Slashdotted.
As I put on my high school locker (briefly), "'Asshole' is in the eye of the beholder."
Personally, I know several Mac users, and I'm surprised that a few of them are even intelligent enough to tie their shoes. My own experience tells me that the ratio of stupid people to intelligent people seems to be much smaller for PC users. Does that make a PC better than a Mac? Probably not, but it certainly doesn't make a Mac user better than a PC user.
Dunno why I bother. This is Slashdot!
...just my 2 gil.
Well, I really did expect to be modded down. If you can demonstrate why I give a shit about my karma, after being at the cap for over a year, keep laughing. Otherwise, please, kill yourself immediatly. You're too witty to live.
I think its funny that
1) He no longer has his mac
2) He is out $3000
3) He failed his finals
4) He spent a bunch of extra money tracking the guy down (plane ticket, PI, etc)
5) He is still happy about it
I'd guess he is a "Glass is half full" kind of guy.
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
then this guy would get modded -1 flamebait.
Powerbook is sitting god knows where being used by somebody completely undeserving of a Mac. I know in my heart that Mr. Christmas is really a PC guy.
Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user.
That is what I thought when I first read the article. But it was a forged cashier's check. Cashier's checks are usually as good as cash. I won't do COD either, but you can't really blame him for accepting a cashier's check. When I Ebay, if I get a cashier's check, I ship without waiting for the cashier's check to clear because, if legit, it is guaranteed to clear. (Of course, I normally don't sell things worth $2900.)
Seriously, I'm somewhat jealous of the cult-like fraternity of Mac users mentioned in the story. I've always used a PC, and he's right - there's no way PC users would help a complete stranger like that for no reason other than he uses a similar system to your own.
I guess that's part of the reason I run Linux - a desire to feel part of a 'small' community. Kinda like in the old days when I was part of the C-64 crowd. =)
Sometimes I wonder if I really want Linux to "make it" as some might define it (ie. become as ubiquitous as Winblows). I don't think I'd like to lose that outsider feeling. I remember converstations I'd have in the old days of Linux (say, 4-5 years ago)..
Winblows PC user: (looking at my Linux box) "What kinda system is that?!?"
Me: "It's Linux."
Win: "What's that?"
Me: "It's basically a Unix for x86 systems. All the OS is open source, you can download and compile all of it yourself."
Win: "Why would you want to do that? You must be some kind of anti-establishment geek!"
Me: "Yep. I like it that way."
"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1801
"My girlfriend and I decided we would use the extra money to donate to some charities for Christmas"
Clearly he was talking about the guy that stole his Mac.... Melvin Christmas.
"And like that
Surely you're not trying to say that there is only one asshole in every 7 people.
I can't believe nobody got this joke! "Insightful"? oyenstikker is saying that everybody _has_ an asshole!
... unless you try to screw a Mac addict. Then you'll be hunted down in meatspace like a, like a, like a something-or-other.
Serves the thief right for messing with a Mac type. Everybody knows they're unstable to begin with, and all it takes is a just a little push for them to go postal.
(So, +1 Funny for the first paragraph, -1 Flamebait for the second? Worth the risk.)
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
If you ever need help online then pose as a Mac User. Be sure to put down PC Users, because they just don't ever get it!!
Also I would hope Mr. Christmas is stretching his ass using the goatse.cx method in preperation for his jail time.
Seriously, that's a great idea. I'm sure... that... well, there must have been a reason why I didn't moderate it...
Oh wait. Perhaps I didn't have mod points? God, I'm bitchy today!
That was hardly helpful. The server is down, dipshit.
we had a homeless man who we gave a household job to steal a check out of my wife's checkbook.
You got some homeless guy to steal a check from your wife? That's pretty low!
"And like that
He had the address, but he needed a name. You can't really call the PD and say something like "Hi, I need you to arrest some guy living at this address because he ripped me off." Any number of people could be living there, there were three name matches when he did a reverse lookup on the address.
If a and b in c, and a can create b, and a can create a, and b can create b, and b cannot create a, then a created c.
so then out of every 7 people there are 8 assholes...
in the absence of a police force we'd have about 60 days of chaos, a fair amount of frontier justice and then things would settle down with community organizations that really got some work done. by the way, the fact that a small police force actually helped in his case once again illustrates the fact that the larger an organization becomes, the less likely it is to serve the interests of its 'customers'.
rant over.
the real evil is not what people think - its how people think
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While trying to retrieve the URL: http://www.remodern.com/caught.html
The following error was encountered:
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The remote host or network may be down. Please try the request again.
Your cache administrator is root.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
As I seem to recall (and people from New York feel free to correct me on this), one of the things that Rudy Guiliani [sic] did was have the police start ticketing people who jaywalked.
The result? Overall reduction in crime - since if you were going to be caught for the little things, odds are you were going to be caught for doing a big thing (selling drugs, etc). And it made the police highly visible - and the one thing I remembered from my old criminal law classes (before I ditched law) - the likelyhood of getting caught for a crime is a far greater deterance than the punishment of a crime.
I have to agree - if we have a system that busted people for crimes - regardless of the "level" (no, I'm not suggesting death penalties for jaywalking, calm down, or a police state - just if a crime is obviously committed, like a bike theft **cough**like I went through once**cough**), go after it. Odds are, it would do more good in the long run by nipping these "small time" crooks in the bud before they ever become "big time".
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I don't want your asshole anywhere *near* my eyes.
Connect failed
Your request for http://www.remodern.com/caught.html could not be fulfilled, because the connection to www.remodern.com (63.111.83.1) could not be established.
This is often a temporary failure, so you might just try again.
So this cached post, which only drew my attention because of your highly moderated post, is the only way I was able to read the story. Granted, people should check to see if someone else has mirrored it first, but it still is useful.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Don't send the power supply for the laptop.
That way, "Battery not included".
There's a difference between an asshole and a criminal, though.
Yes, a criminal is someone who shares music, or watches DVDs on a non-microsoft system
I'd hit it! Mmmm, Salma.
Actually, I think only about 5% of the people are Assholes, 93% are just morons that don't know any better. It makes it tough on the remaining 2%, but we lose all hope if we stoop to their level.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Well, I really did expect to be modded down
So did he, as you ever-so-cleverly pointed out.
If you can demonstrate why I give a shit about my karma, after being at the cap for over a year
Like the fact that you're bragging about being at the cap? Get a clue. Everyone who isn't a complete knuckle-dragger is at the cap.
The stupid one is YOU!
You're one of those people who think the glass is half full, arn't you?
KFG
I've become convinced that 20% of the population is made of Assholes that can be trusted only as far as they can be shot.
The 20% Rule: Any individual who proclaims that 20% or more of the population are a**holes immediately qualifies as...an a**hole.
....if we legalized drug use we'd have a lot more users/addicts who would eventually become desperate enough to commit those very crimes so they could afford their new habits.
So as result we'd have a rise in those types of crimes you think are currently being ignored.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
See, now there's a statement that's just begging for a goatse.cx link, but nooooooo...
Always use Delivery Confirmation (preferably FedEx, the USPS is too vague since they only track to city/state/zip) so if a credit card Chargeback is issued on a PayPal/Billpoint payment you should be covered by Paypal/Billpoint.
If you can't prove that it was delivered to the billing address of the credit card, you're out money.
./ Enhancement request:
Anything with certain kewords (ex: "in soviet russia") gets automatic -1 karma.
Yes I realize that includes this post right here.
And I'm willing to take the bullet for my country!
In slashdot we flame our own posts!!!
What a beautiful menu of choice you have provided us. Thanks!
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB
Quit calling me Shirley!
Oh, almost forgot...
Cheers! :)
You're new here, aren't you?
Reminds me of the saying:
Read the story, or just use common sense. If you are going to be passing fake checks you are probably NOT going to be shipping to your home address!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He made an ad on Ebay for another mac, and sent it to the same guy. Then the police got involved, pretended to be a fedex guy and delivered it to his house. IANAL, but as soon as the police got involved, doesn't that become entrapment?
Is there a reason you couldn't have used the two cache links posted before this??
Come on!
No kidding!
(Actually, this is a test)
that's one less asshole to worry about. Only 1 billion to go!
The world population is 6.3 billion. If 1 billion was 20% of the world population, then the world population should have been 5 billion. Inconsistency, in the original post.
Imagine the butthead sitting with his buddy drinkin beeeer outside on the porch (assuming its out in the middle of nowhere) watching black cars and vw minis go by with strange white folk staring out through tinted glasses with cameras in hand snapping pics like crazy :) ..
Had to laugh..
Rapid Nirvana
Not quite what you're referring to, but an example of what happens when 'authorities' don't do their jobs is here.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
You'll love this then. Except of course being a Linux guy you'll have read it years ago.
90% of the people in the world are complete idiots, and everybody thinks they are part of the other 10%.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I think possibly my biggest pet peeve is when people cite the negative effects of prohibition as a reason to keep drugs illegal.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
The first rule of GPS-based loss recovery retribution fight club is:
You don't talk about GPS-based loss recovery retribution fight club!
I hoped that somebody who worked for Nextel, some fellow Mac addict like myself, might be willing to bend the rules a little
In other words, he was counting on Mac users working at Nextel to be amoral and reveal customer information based on this guy's story. (How would the "Mac Users at Nextel" know that this guy wasn't trying to hunt the buyer down for some other reason?)I printed this out, highlighted this with a yellow highlighter, and dropped it into the mail to Nextel HQ. (Nobody reads email, so all serious complaints I send US mail or FED-EX). I'm hoping that Nextel will fire all the Mac user employees who got involved in this.
So back to my point--if he's going to be dishonest anyway, like asking Nextel employees to give him sensitive information, I'm surprised he didn't just lie to the FBI--like saying that this guy emailed kiddie porn to his daughter--just to get him picked up. After all, to these dishonest "Mac Users", nothing matters except the promotion of Macintoshes.
"Thank God for those PAGANS"
Why is he an artist? Did he express himself in a new way?
And if you catch an artist whose art is generally annoying to me, i would probably want to hit him with a bat as well.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble but any decent group of people would have helped this guy out. And the Mac BBS people really didn't do much anyways, take a few pictures, big deal. Dell zealots would have certainly done the same thing.
Why do Mac users think they are so special? What is it about these Macs that makes people so disallusioned?
What. Ever.
Then why did you post +1?
Your whole statement was trying to get more karma or avoid losing it. Seems like you give something about it. Looking at your posts and the age of your account, it seems that you are a semi-troll.
You have been at the cap for only a year or so on an account that is over 3 years old?
Okay, I think we've hammered this guy for making a few minor mistakes, but what if anything did the criminal do wrong (in his MO -- not his legality)?
...
I would suggest the following:
a) PO BOX, physical address is a dead giveaway.
b) Throw-away hotmail/yahoo account.
c) Complete arsenal of fake documents.
d) Reverse the scam, don't buy stuff sell it and just have to launder the money.
I guess there's probably something I've missed
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
Scam artists track down you!
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
This could all be a hoax, meanwhile people are reading the article and sending money to his girlfriend's Paypal account. Some of the things that struck me:
We are set up to empathize with him:
I almost always buy used, so don't get any ideas about me being rich.
In case you didn't feel bad enough yet:
I was already beyond broke, but I figured $85.00 more wouldn't kill me.
Are you heartless???:
all of your student loans for the next semester are going to cover this counterfeit check.
He'd give to charity if he had money:
I urge you to choose a local charity
Make the check payable to:
If you really must, you can send money to my girlfriend's Paypal account, cranberry_coyote@hotmail.com
So now who's the sucker?
What if we are all being scammed right now?
Scam alerts:
1. Playing on emotions
2. Focused towards a specific audience (Mac users,^H^H^H^H^H^H obsessive mac users)
3. Makes you feel sorry but doesn't ask for anything.
4. Used the word 'charity' in his message (BIG RED FLAG!!!)
5. Undergoing hardship (school, tuition, numerous refferences to that, off topic if you ask me...)
6. Undeniable plausability, common places (ebay), direct evidence (photos of 'someones' house).
You now assume that you could give this truely deserving person $3,000 and he would use it all to pay for school and give the rest to 'charity'.
Nah I truely dont belive its a scam, but it would be funny, and I wouldn't send any money his way though. That dell remark made sure of that!
just because it has windows in the subject doesn't mean it can't be modded up.
The check *appeared* to clear. Many people figure that once the deposited funds are made available in their account - typically one or two business days, that the money is theirs...
:-(
The problem is that a deposited check, etc can be canceled or not honored for upwards of 10 business days. So for one to be virtually sure that a check, etc is "good", they need to wait at least 10 business days (2+ weeks)...most folks don't wait that long, but they should or they run the risk of being scammed.
Also, even if the check itself is real (lets not even get into forged cashier checks, etc - even a well seasoned banker would have difficulty detecting some forgeries), the account it's associated with may not be and/or lacking any funds.
Bottom line is that waiting for clearing is critical...below is my understanding/experience with these things...not the gospel...
Common payment methods and clearing/dispute time frames:
Wire: Same day and very safe...they're not without risk though, but problems are rare. Some places that accept wires for payment impose a two day waiting period.
Check: 10 business days for personal/business checks. Cashier checks, etc have much shorter clearing times - BUT that assumes they're real...if unsure/concerned, then one should wait 10 business days as with personal checks.
Money Order: At least 10 business days if forged. It's best to wait, then be sorry if unsure.
Direct deposit (ACH): 2 business days. Can be reversed/disputed for upwards of 60 days.
Credit Card: Varies on circumstances and issurer, but can be reversed for upwards of six months later.
The law and procedures are very complicated and full of exceptions, etc...the bank, acting an agent, must make deposited funds available within a short period time as dictated by law/banking procedures...but the point is one should NOT assume just because their bank says funds are available that the funds are truly theirs...because they may not be
Ron Bennett
Mac Addicts to the Rescue
s PowerPage
or
How I Caught a Counterfeiter with a Little Help from my Friends
a true story by Jason Eric Smith
in the interest of getting this out, no fancy layout, just hand coding. maybe i'll spruce it up later.
the names of the innocent have been changed, the names of the guilty though...
I am a college student (my second time around). Specifically, I'm studying to become a high school history teacher. I am a student with a lifelong habit though, Macintosh. I got my first Mac in 1986, a used Mac Plus with 1 megabyte of RAM a massive 40 megabyte external hardrive. Since then, I've always had to keep up, first it was the SE, then the IIsi, the Powerbook 140, and from there on, more Macs than you can shake a stick at (I missed the Mac TV). I usually keep my Mac for about 6 months, and then resell it and move up. I almost always buy used, so don't get any ideas about me being rich.
Since I went back to being a student again, I've been selling Macs more regularly, picking up good deals on used Macs locally and then reselling on eBay. I've been doing this for about two years now, its relatively easy, takes about an extra hour of my day, and usually pays the rent. In November when the new Powerbooks came out I decided I was going to buy one for myself, to keep, an early Christmas present that would come in handy for taking notes in class and finishing up a presentation I needed to do on the New Orleans school system. The day they were announced I ordered a nice new Powerbook G4 867 and found it on my doorstep only a few days later.
It was a beautiful machine, if you've never played with one in person, you won't believe it. I played with it for a couple of days, took it to school to take notes and do research on. The more I used it, the more I loved it. But, it was just too much to be carrying around, $2300 in my backpack had a tendency to make me a little nervous. I decided maybe I should turn it around and pick up an iBook. My girlfriend and I decided we would use the extra money to donate to some charities for Christmas. So on November 19th, up on eBay it went, along with an Airport Basestation and a bunch of other knickknacks. I set a buy-it-now price on a whim for $2950.
The next morning I checked my auction, a couple of bids placed, and so the buy-it-now option was gone. Checking my email I got a couple of questions about the computer and much to my surprise, an offer to buy it for $2900 from Steve Matthews, a dad with a lucky son in college who was going to be getting a Powerbook for his birthday. Steve wanted to pay for it COD, no problem, its actually how I usually sell things. I called him on the phone number he gave me to ask a couple of questions and make sure everything was on the up and up.
He reiterated that he was buying it as a last minute present for his son and since it was already setup as a package, he thought it was a good deal. Not to mention the Chicago Apple stores were still out of stock. I got home from school, packed up my Powerbook and accessories, and off they went Fedex overnight to Chicago, never to be seen again.
At 10:21AM on November 21st, a man going by the name of Paul Smith signed for my two packages and gave the driver an official cashier's check from LaSalle Bank for $3052.78 in return. The check made it back to my doorstep the next morning. I went to the bank, deposited the check and withdrew enough to go ahead and pay my rent and pick up a couple of household items. I sent an email to Steve to make sure he got everything ok and to check that nothing had been damaged in shipping. No reply. As the old saying goes, no news is good news, right?
My girlfriend and I went away for Thanksgiving, and when we got back on Friday, I had a message from my bank. The branch manager had called to let me know she had a returned item for $3052.78 and that my account was now in the negative. Seriously in the negative. No problem I thought, I'll just call Steve and see what's up.
So I dialed the number I had. In the back of my mind I expected a "this number has been disconnected message". Instead I got an answer, the voice sounded identical to Steve, so I asked if Steve was there.
"Oh, Steve, yeah, that's my cousin, he's out of town for Thanksgiving you know. He'll be back Tuesday"
"Can I leave a message for him?"
So I left my information and asked that he give me a call. That little voice in the back of my mind let out a sigh and an uh-oh. The voices were the same right? Was I being scammed? Well, if I was, I certainly wasn't going to let the weekend go by without doing a little investigating.
I started off with the information I had. His AOL email address, his phone number, and the address I shipped the computer to. The AOL address didn't yield anything. Doing a reverse lookup on the address (thanks to Whitepages.com) I got three names and phone numbers, none of which matched anything I had. The phone number didn't give me anything. I finally found a way to lookup the exchange on the number to see if it was a cell phone or a landline (Fone Finder). It came back as Nextel and I wanted to scream.
There really isn't anything you can do with a cell phone number. There are no directory services. The cell phone companies won't give out any information. And that's that. I called Nextel and pleaded with them. The customer service rep I spoke with seemed more confused than anything. He kept asking me what my Nextel phone number was and why I suspected someone was fraudulently billing to my account. I calmly explained at least three times that I was not a Nextel customer, that I was just trying to get an address for another customer I suspect has defrauded me, etc, etc. I finally gave up on Chris from Nextel, I've had customer service reps who don't even speak English who were more helpful.
I was at a dead end. I'd just sent my $2300 laptop, my Airport basestation, and a load of stuff to somebody I didn't know and all I had to show for it was a bill from Fedex for overnight shipping and a returned cashier's check. It's hard to sleep comfortably knowing some asshole has your Mac and is doing god knows what with it.
Sunday the first of December, I sprang into action full force. I called for help. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with this on my own, so I figured I might be able to get some help from some bulletin boards. I posted my tale of woe and call for assistance on every Mac bulletin board I could think of. I hoped that somebody who worked for Nextel, some fellow Mac addict like myself, might be willing to bend the rules a little. I wanted this guy's address and I wanted it bad. I was already pricing flights to Chicago and putting my professors on notice that I might have to miss a little class. I may have made an error in trusting this person, but I'm not someone you want to have that happen to. I will get you. I will hunt you down, and I will bring a baseball bat with me.
I got more replies than I could keep up with. Everyone wanted to know what they could do to help or at least offer support. Well, everyone except one guy who just wanted to let me know how incredibly stupid he thought I was and that he would never have accepted a counterfeit anything. I think a 102:1 great person to asshole ratio is pretty good. Several people living in Chicago offered their assistance, be it in gathering information or even forming a tough guy squad if necessary.
The most important reply I got was a pointer to an online PI service that does reverse lookups on cell phones. I was already beyond broke, but I figured $85.00 more wouldn't kill me. Twelve hours and $85.00 later, I had a name, an address, and a landline phone number for this guy. The name and his AOL email were eerily close, actually with a last name like Christmas, it would be pretty weird if it didn't match up. I couldn't believe it. A Chicago resident named Melvin Christmas had just ruined my Christmas. I was expecting William Faulkner to come popping out of the pantry at any moment and laugh at me.
I was now ready to call the police. I called the Chicago police department and filed a report. I gave the operator all of my information, including the real name and address I had managed to get. "A detective will contact you within one to two weeks, thank you." One to two weeks?!? I had this guy, I'd done all the work already, all you had to do was go pick him up. I'd even gone ahead and called Fedex and spoken to the Chicago station manager and was assured that the driver would cooperate in identifying the guy if necessary. All they had to do was pick him up. In one to two weeks he could be gone. And all the while my precious Powerbook is sitting god knows where being used by somebody completely undeserving of a Mac. I know in my heart that Mr. Christmas is really a PC guy.
I was furious. Chicago PD weren't going to do anything about this. If they were anything like the New Orleans PD, one to two weeks was likely to turn in to never. I figured I'd call Mr. Christmas myself. Let him know I was going to give him a chance to fix this, and I thought, maybe at least scare him. Let him know he was dealing with someone who would track him down no matter what, even if I had to make a deal with the Prince of Darkness to do it. Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user.
I kept checking the message boards. Maybe someone would have a better idea. I called the local FBI field office. Agent Jones was very understanding, but let me know that even though this crossed state lines, the field office didn't take anything involving less than $5000. "Try the Chicago PD".
I kept everyone on the Mac boards updated as best I could. On Tuesday I got a useful reply, try the Secret Service, counterfeiting is their jurisdiction. I made my way to the under-renovation Federal Building here in New Orleans. After walking many a dark, scary hallway, found myself at the door of Agent Keith Lopola. Keith came out and heard my case. I had brought copies of all the emails between myself and Steve Matthews/Paul Smith/Mr. Christmas, a copy of the check, and the call journal I had started keeping. Agent Lopola told me the same thing the FBI did, "It falls under our jurisdiction, but we can't take the case." He wanted to let me know that he really felt for me. Thanks. I left the office determined to call and bother him and the Chicago PD everyday for the rest of my life or at least until Mr. Christmas was behind bars.
Finals were fast approaching. It's not very easy to concentrate on school when all you can think about all day is the fact that all of your student loans for the next semester are going to cover this counterfeit check. That and some grubby criminal has your Powerbook. It's enough to drive someone to the drink.
Tuesday night I got an email from someone who had seen my story posted on O'Grady's Powerpage, a Powerbook enthusiast site. George Dunbar had seen the story and thought it sounded eerily similar to his. I called him, we compared notes, and turns out it was the same guy. George forwarded me all of his emails. Everything was the same, word for word, it was like Mr. Christmas just copied and pasted and magically made money. George was in it worse than I was though and had completely given up. He was out $6000 and two computers. He also let me know that there were more victims. He'd talked to at least three other people who had been taken by the same guy, all of whom had just given up. I was not going to give up. That night I dreamed of Mr. Christmas and a baseball bat, some duct tape, and roofing nails.
Wednesday morning I decided I was going to Chicago. I set up another eBay auction under my girlfriend's account, this time for same computer, different city. Three hours later, lo and behold I received an email from eBay user videopro55 (the same one) asking me if I'd like to sell the computer right now for $2500. Oh yes, I'd love to sell the computer, I'll even be there when it gets delivered to make sure it gets "setup properly".
He emailed me a new address and phone number, the phone number again traced back to the same address for Mr. Christmas. I called the Secret Service and the Chicago PD, pleading, all they had to do was be there when Fedex dropped off the package. It was a guaranteed hit, he'd have another counterfeit cashier's check, all you'd have to do is arrest him. Like shooting fish in a barrel. "Sorry, Detective McDonaugh will be out until next Wednesday, can I take a message?" Fine, if the cops won't do it, I decided I'd just Priceline a ticket and be waiting next door when it got dropped off. So I'd know what kind of neighborhood I was looking at, I asked for help again in the Mac boards. Two Chicago residents replied, and the next morning, courtesy of Tim, I had 23 pictures of the house, the cars in the driveway (with license plate numbers) and the neighborhood. I'd like to see a Dell user do something like that at 4:30 in the morning for a complete stranger a thousand miles away. I started planning my trip. I decided I'd leave on Saturday, have the package delivered on Monday, and make it back just in time to screw up on all my finals.
On Friday in preparation for flying up I mapped the new address from the one for Mr. Christmas to see how close it was. As I looked at the map, it hit me. The new address wasn't in Chicago. It was in a suburb, Markham. I googled for the Markham police and 5 minutes later was talking to a very enthusiastic Sargeant Knapp. I had hit the jackpot, the new drop was outside of Chicago jurisdiction and therefore outside of their inattentiveness as well. Sargeant Knapp informed me he loved this kind of thing, even had a UPS and Fedex uniform ready. He'd call Fedex and they would set it up for Tuesday. I was certain I was dreaming. After talking to two detectives in Chicago, an FBI field agent, an agent in the New Orleans field office of the Secret Service, an agent with the L.A. Secret Service and having a conference call with a large group of agents from the Chicago Secret Service, I finally was getting somewhere. And I didn't even have to stand on someone's doorstep with a baseball bat to do it.
I spent the entire weekend on pins and needles. What if Mr. Christmas figured something out between now and Tuesday? All would be lost. I wouldn't even get the chance to confront him on my own. On Monday I spoke with Sgt. Knapp to make sure everything was ready to go. I had sent him a package with all of my documentation (he didn't have email), and I tried to explain what all the email stuff meant as best I could. He had worked everything out with Fedex and they were set for the delivery on Tuesday.
I called my brother in Nashville and had him send the package. I had set everything up to be coming from there so that Mr. Christmas wouldn't get suspicious. I could barely sleep Monday night. All I could think about was something going wrong and my only chance at getting this guy being missed. I wanted to update everyone on the Mac boards, but I had to keep it quiet until I knew something was going to happen.
Tuesday afternoon Sgt. Knapp called. They had tried the delivery but no one was home. I just wanted to scream. The board users kept posting how the suspense was driving them nuts. Well, it was going to give me an aneurism. A million possibilities went through my head. Maybe he had somebody working at Fedex who tipped him off, maybe I worded something in one of my email a little off. Sgt. Knapp called me back to let me know they would try the delivery again tomorrow. He also wanted to let me know that they had intercepted another package that was being sent to the same address. Looks like he'd already struck again, thankfully the lady from New York will get her computer back. He also told me that he was definitely going to keep pursuing this, and that oddly enough, the address I'd given him was also related to another fraud case, but this one much bigger (hundreds of thousands) involving a certain Chicago franchise I won't mention. So maybe I had led them to something bigger than just some asshole counterfeiting cashier's checks.
Today I had finals all day. I'm a 4.0 honors student. I've had a 4.0 all semester. I'm not sure if I'll keep that after today. I just couldn't sleep last night. All I could think about was Mr. Christmas and the delivery. I couldn't study either. So I winged it, I'll get my grades tomorrow. I called Sgt. Knapp at 2:45. He told me he was on his way back to the house. They'd already made the delivery and arrested the guy. He had more than $10,000 in counterfeit cashier's checks waiting for deliveries.
*I* got him.
I'm right now waiting on Sgt. Knapp to fax me a copy of his mug shot for posterity. Then I'm going to go celebrate. Sgt. Knapp said the guy was cooperating and he was going to try to recover my laptop. I'm hopeful, but I don't expect it. I might not ever get my computer back, but at least there is one less asshole on the street. When will criminals learn? You just shouldn't mess with Mac people.
For everyone on all the boards who offered their help and encouragement, I thank you. This would have been a lot harder without you. If you're ever in New Orleans, look me up and I'll buy you a beer. I've still got to figure out how I'm paying to college next semester, but I'll keep some beer money set aside for ya'll.
Oh yeah, and if there are any lawyers in the Chicago area who can file a civil suit against this guy for damages (yeah I know I'm not going to collect) please contact me, misterye a t yahoo d o t com
The sites with great users that helped out (you can sign up for the forums and read all about this as it was going on):
MacRumors.com
MacNN
ThinkSecret
O'Grady'
Update 12/11/02 18:58 CST: Sgt. Knapp is sending me a copy of Mr. Christmas's mug shot. I'll post it as soon as I get it.
Update 12/11/02 21:39 CST: For those interesting in getting in contact with me, my email address is misterye at yahoo dot com, if you think you were also a victim, please call me at 504-894-1243 and I'll put you in touch with the appropriate people.
Update 12/11/02 23:36 CST: I've gone back through and added links where appropriate. I'll try to reformat this tomorrow.
Update 12/12/02 10:36 CST: Ok, so how's this for small world: Apparently this thing is getting posted everywhere. I just got a call from Matt of the Real World Season 9 (the New Orleans Real World). So anyway, the cast of the New Orleans Real World used to all work at 735 Nightclub. I moved down here to actually take-over their marketing right after the show ended. So I never met Matt or any of them until speaking to him today. Small, weird world.
Update 12/12/02 12:03 CST: I've added a forum where everyone can talk about this. Here it is.
Update 12/12/02 13:30 CST: For those of you wanting to donate to my cause, I urge you to choose a local charity. There are a lot of needy people and organizations out there this season, if you can't think of anything local, I'm a big fan of Doctor's Without Borders and Lambda International. If you really must, you can send money to my girlfriend's Paypal account, cranberry_coyote@hotmail.com. She's the one who's covering this check for me right now, so I guess she should get this. I'm still not entirely sure about this, but you've insisted. Thanks again.
Last update Thursday, December 12th 13:49 PM CST
Copyright 2002 Jason Eric Smith
I dont know how this guy can even get through school. 1) who in their right mind would cod a purchase of 3k
2) counterfeiting is counterfitting. im not sure he made that clear to the police.
3) i think he should be the one who goes to jail yea he got fraded but this guy is really stalker material.
4) him and his ilk really give mac users a bad name
5) i really really really hope that he flunks out of school, this is the last person i want my kids exposed to without me and a gun as protection.
come on this guy is creepy. mail fraud is ilegal. what about ups and other things. this guy probably scred the authorities to the point of them probably wanting to investigate him.
mac users are not like this. this guy isnt a mac user this guy is a phsycopath.
to his girlfreind, run run far awway run as fast as possible. what do you think will happen when you piss him off. ever see the cell, this guy sounds like the real life thing.
it will be you in a creepy room with macs , strange sexual devises a white dog. and you get the point
Just like "Opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one".
Apologies to the cholostomy persons out there.
And if you live in Canada, you can neither send nor receive merchandise, and be covered by PayPal's seller protection, because Canadapost is not recognized as a shipper by PayPal.
www.paypalsucks.com and if you use it for anything more than playmoney on the internet, you are a bafoon. PayPal is only for buyers with credit cards, not for sellers who are dumb enough to use it.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
"I couldn't believe it. A Chicago resident named Melvin Christmas had just ruined my Christmas. I was expecting William Faulkner to come popping out of the pantry at any moment and laugh at me."
"Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user."
Fuck it
Sounds a lot like this guy's story.
/. back in January.
Basically, stolen iBook has dynamic DNS and Timbuktu (VNC-like app) installed on it. Owner notes when stolen computer is logged into the net, runs Applescript to help track it, recovers it.
I think I read about this on
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
I like totally disagree on the sharing assholes principle. I want my own asshole!!!
... any more of a loser to get this upset about a repost? NO, the site is NOT working fine (5:43 EST). Go waste your bile somewhere else.
Here's why there are 20% assholes on this planet. Thanks a lot.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
I checked out your sig site. Lots 'o spelling errors (examples: stengthen and resepctively ).
You contributed nothing, and don't deserve to be modded up.
Cheers!
What's with the cheers? That's like saying "Eat horseshit, dumbass. Have a nice day."
Okay, sure I'll just ship ya that 3,000$ piece of equipment before your check clears, no problem.
And he thinks PC users are stupid.
you're a tool... he made a point and made it clear... stop being a stupid fag
I don't know why everyone here thinks this is SO COOL.
This guy buys and sells laptops...ok.
He buys ~$3000 laptop for himself, and then decides he doesn't want it. He sells it, C.O.D. for crying out loud, to someone with zero completed auctions.
Oh wait, he sold it to this guy yet this guy still has no completed auctions? Yes folks, in the article, our Mac boy states that he sold the laptop to videopro55, who contacted him with an offer for $2900. That's outside of the eBay auction, and directly in violation of eBay policy to sell outside of auction. It's not fair to the people who placed bids (he said there were bids on it already) on the laptop...one of them won it, right? Where's their laptop they rightfully won?
So in summary, we have a story of a guy doing triage work, because he went around eBay policy and essentially defrauded his own legitamate bidders. Remember, the auction is legally binding, and you agree to this when you sign up for an eBay account.
I don't feel sorry for him. And notice how the Paypal donation fund is conveniently mentioned, along with how broke he is after the mean scammer guy took his laptop.
...
I didn't use eBay. I used the Anandtech Forums. Kinda like a classified ad. Some guy swindled me out of the equivalent of $450 of PDA goodness and the authorities (Peoria, IL Police, FBI, etc) couldn't care less. Soon after I realized I was taken I found out that this guy had taken other people on other forums in the same way. Car stereos, computer parts, etc.
There was much discussion and nothing happened for about 5 months. Then, out of the blue, I got a call from the scammer himself. It seemed that (Lucky for me!) someone convinced the Attorney General to take on the case and once he got the heat on this guy (we had his real address, obviously) the 23 year old kid made good on all his scams. I got my money and I read about other people getting theirs.
I'm now of the opinion that the *only* way to catch people is if you can find others that they've ripped off and get a group effort rolling. The authorities simply do not care about single indiviuals.
No, he's saying that one fifth of the population is nothing but pure, distilled asshole. This could very well be evenly distributed so that 20% of each person is asshole, but judging by a quick (1 sample) survey, I'd say that's not the case.
The whole story seems fishy. The guy claims he was selling to laptop to buy a cheaper one and dontate the extra money to charity. Then he goes on to say how he had to use to cashier check money to pay his rent. And goes on and on about how broke he now was and how being so far in debt made him do poorly on his finals.
Now if he was selling the laptop to get a smaller one and to donate the rest of the money to charity, then why was he relying on the selling of the laptop to pay his rent? How did it make him broke that he was scammed? Yes out a laptop, but how did that make him so broke he suffered in school.
A laptop is a nice thing to have in college, but it is not neccessary. Yes it would suck to be scammed, but it shouldnt have made him miss meals etc.
Either he was out of cash and needed to sell the laptop to pay other bills, or there is no way that this scam made him broke. And WTF did he have to even tell us about how he ws going to give money to charity? The whole story reeks.
I had an experience similar to this with a Sony Clie PDA. I found out he scammed others as well for a variety of different things like computer parts, car stereos, etc. We got the guy too...through a group effort. I also had a contact in the guy's local area who checked out the house for me and stuff like that.
It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with "Mac fanatics" or whatever you want to call them. People generally WANT to help catch these crooks, because no one likes being ripped off!
That would be *illegal*, don't do it !
Go to the trouble of doing it right, first !
Rather, take out a perfectly legal Bounty Hunter's license, then bring charges against the guy (as a citizen) and get the police to raid him and catch him red-handed. If it's in another state, you get to watch the feds do it. Make sure the guy takes out bail and doesn't show up.
Then, and only then, take out the baton, mace, '45, electric stunner, trained attack dog / cat / gerbil... You get the idea.
Legally !
Be a citizen !
I think it's this thing called sarcasm.
>> Every sale on eBay is insured up to a certain amount ..
I believe eBay's fraud insurance coverage is limited to $200, plus another $200 from PayPal if you pay a verified PayPal user through that service. If you pay with a credit card you may have recourse through the card vendor (but PayPal takes it out of your bank acct by default). For a high-value item, eBay suggests you use an escrow service.
As others said, it was a cashier's check. Normally there's no reason to wait for a cashier's check to clear.
From the article:
Free unix account: freeshell.org
For that matter if Mr. Christmas had done this a lot, why didn't the seller look at the buyer's feedback? Certainly if Mr. Christmas has been ripping people off the sellers would leave negative feedback.
Well, it turns out that videopro55 has no feedback!
Looking on ebay for the transaction turned up nothing either.
From a more careful reading of the story, I infer that the seller took it off of ebay and sold it privately. This was a bad idea. Yeah, you have to pay ebay a commission, but that's their business, and you wouldn't have sold it without them. It's also against ebay's seller policies to do this.
So while I'm really very sympathetic about this guy getting ripped off, I think he could have been a little smarter about it.
Lesson to all of us: Don't circumvent ebay's safeguards.
How can you Fedex something somewhere and not have the address already?
Is this a true story, or an inventive one gone ballistic.
Although I've never assumed this with personal checks, I've usually assumed it to be true with a cashier's check. In this case, the issuing institution has already checked the availability of funds and deducted them from the account. In fact, my own bank treats the checks as though they are guaranteed. When I deposit a personal check, the money doesn't show up in my account until it clears. When I deposit a cashier's check, it always shows up pretty much immediately.
Obviously, we are dealing with forgeries here, so all bets are off. But I would have thought that outside of forgeries, cashier's checks should always be good. Please tell me that I'm not wrong or I won't be able to sleep at night anymore. :-)
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Like the fact that you're bragging about being at the cap? Get a clue. Everyone who isn't a complete knuckle-dragger is at the cap.
i can attest to that. I only drag the knuckles on one hand, and I am still at the cap.
Why not fork?
I don't know what is more sickening:
- That people think they need to apologize for doing the Right Thing
- That people who do the Right Thing intend to make up for it by sinning in the future
- That assholes try to rip people off
Jason, FWIW in case you haven't already guessed, I like your page the way it is.Soviet Russia jokes insert you!
A bunch of computer guys forming a tough guy squad? Does anybody else see the humour in this?
Here is a link to one of his messages to the boards asking for help
DVD Ripping, Divx, VCD, SVCD under Linux
Well.. you stupid fuck (thats the insulting part)
IVE never used ebay.. so how aim i supposed to know that this is obvious?
Thank you for posting
and have a Great Day
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
We've got pictures of guy's homes as well.
r ea did=91447
http://www.s2ki.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&th
Congrats on nabbing the guy!
I had a roommate who had a simliar experience - being a creduluous guy, he bought on eBay, for something like $650, a video tape copy of a Japanese Twin Peaks laser disc that doesn't really exist. Said seller pocketed the cash and abandoned the email addresses. The roommate, driven by a "very agressive" girlfriend made a several hundred mile detour on a road trip, showed up at the seller's house (googled it - the scammer used his real name) and browbeat him into returning the money.
Of course, good for them. When scammed, getting the scammer back is a virtue. But the real virtue is not putting yourself in that position. Don't sell expensive items COD. Don't spend $650 for a tape of a laser disc which the fan community says doesn't exist. I'm happy the Mac guy got his satisfaction but a "4.0 Honor Student" (aside : my father always said - don't trust people who are always the heroes of their stories) should have enough brains to realize that COD is a dumb way to sell computers and he also should've realized that when you deposit a $3000 check from someone you don't know, you wait for it to clear before using the cash.
Man, dumbshits like you are getting really old. Outside of the stupid FirstPost!, beowulf blahblah, posts regarding grammatical and spelling errors are just INANE. Get a life (and a girlfriend), and maybe you'll stop caring that someone isn't as perfect as you.
USPS money order - you just receive cash in post office immediately. And they are not easily forged..
Well - if somebody forge USPS money order - it is, I believe, treated as federal felony..
The sergeant you worked with may be able to tell you if there's a CrimeStoppers or other program that might cover you - particularly if you're just hoping to cover what it cost you track everything down.
fencepost
just a little off
There's also competition on the supply side, which forces the price back down. Assuming we don't get a single corporate cartel to replace the various drug 'cartels'.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
This is the third "cache" post though so it's f**king redundant as hell. STFU.
Awww, somebody needs a hug. Poor widdle anonymussy cowardiddy.
There there, trogre will make all the nasty repeating posts go away.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Good people are getting stepped on. It is just like the gun control article on slashdot a couple days ago...people being argumentive and preaching to eachother the scenarios that dis-prove eachothers ideas.
A friend of mine does business on eBay and ever since September 11, 2001, he lacks sufficient identification to convert checks and money orders into cash. What does he do to get by, since he is morally apposed to identification marks? You would call him a moron for how he accomplishes his pocket change... He sends the bidder their package FIRST and asks them to send cash through the mail after they receive! He only does this with people with extremly positive feedback and so far only 1% of people have scammed him. The end result is there are people who are greatful and that are thankful for his kindness and trustworthy.
It's this disease known as immorality that has ruined the free-market. I have always said, open the prison doors and let the captives free; they'll do their worsed no matter where they are. Vigilante justice has its fair share of accomplishments, yet when it comes to vigilante justice, there is no more Constitution of the united States of America to apply to the fool who scammed you: it's ballsack crushing time.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
What about PayPal - is THAT safe?
There's a story in today's Times of India on a newly uncovered scheme involving this fake ebay site.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Does a future history teacher teach the present?
Jeremy
because they don't know enough about graphics to make a counterfit check. Everybody knows the best counterfit checks are made on Macs....
Is there a "cache" of this report... Unfortinaately, the /. effect has hosed the server.
Fedex/UPS/other similar freight co's are known for being technology leaders; their drivers all have fancy wireless gizmos that purport to capture the consignee's "signature" at the time of delivery.
But they don't check ID nor do they look to see whether the proffered "signature" is even legible. You can get your packages using penmanship that would embarrass your doctor.
Surely it would be cost-effective, as well as competitively advantageous, to install digital cameras in the gizmos and take the consignees' photos. I would prefer to use a shipping company that offered such a service!
This is a "just in case" post in case the cached version posted on /. gets /.ed. No down moderations are necessary. If the site remains up, leave this post at 2. Otherwise (as I suspect), please mod this up just so that others can read his story.
---------------
This is a "just in case" post. No down moderations are necessary. If the site remains up, leave this post at 2. Otherwise (as I suspect), please mod this up just so that others can read his story.
Mac Addicts to the Rescue or
How I Caught a Counterfeiter with a Little Help from my Friends
a true story by Jason Eric Smith
Check out the Forum
in the interest of getting this out, no fancy layout, just hand coding. maybe i'll spruce it up later. the names of the innocent have been changed, the names of the guilty though...
I am a college student (my second time around). Specifically, I'm studying to become a high school history teacher. I am a student with a lifelong habit though, Macintosh. I got my first Mac in 1986, a used Mac Plus with 1 megabyte of RAM a massive 40 megabyte external hardrive. Since then, I've always had to keep up, first it was the SE, then the IIsi, the Powerbook 140, and from there on, more Macs than you can shake a stick at (I missed the Mac TV). I usually keep my Mac for about 6 months, and then resell it and move up. I almost always buy used, so don't get any ideas about me being rich.
Since I went back to being a student again, I've been selling Macs more regularly, picking up good deals on used Macs locally and then reselling on eBay. I've been doing this for about two years now, its relatively easy, takes about an extra hour of my day, and usually pays the rent. In November when the new Powerbooks came out I decided I was going to buy one for myself, to keep, an early Christmas present that would come in handy for taking notes in class and finishing up a presentation I needed to do on the New Orleans school system. The day they were announced I ordered a nice new Powerbook G4 867 and found it on my doorstep only a few days later.
It was a beautiful machine, if you've never played with one in person, you won't believe it. I played with it for a couple of days, took it to school to take notes and do research on. The more I used it, the more I loved it. But, it was just too much to be carrying around, $2300 in my backpack had a tendency to make me a little nervous. I decided maybe I should turn it around and pick up an iBook. My girlfriend and I decided we would use the extra money to donate to some charities for Christmas. So on November 19th, up on eBay it went, along with an Airport Basestation and a bunch of other knickknacks. I set a buy-it-now price on a whim for $2950.
The next morning I checked my auction, a couple of bids placed, and so the buy-it-now option was gone. Checking my email I got a couple of questions about the computer and much to my surprise, an offer to buy it for $2900 from Steve Matthews, a dad with a lucky son in college who was going to be getting a Powerbook for his birthday. Steve wanted to pay for it COD, no problem, its actually how I usually sell things. I called him on the phone number he gave me to ask a couple of questions and make sure everything was on the up and up.
He reiterated that he was buying it as a last minute present for his son and since it was already setup as a package, he thought it was a good deal. Not to mention the Chicago Apple stores were still out of stock. I got home from school, packed up my Powerbook and accessories, and off they went Fedex overnight to Chicago, never to be seen again.
At 10:21AM on November 21st, a man going by the name of Paul Smith signed for my two packages and gave the driver an official cashier's check from LaSalle Bank for $3052.78 in return. The check made it back to my doorstep the next morning. I went to the bank, deposited the check and withdrew enough to go ahead and pay my rent and pick up a couple of household items. I sent an email to Steve to make sure he got everything ok and to check that nothing had been damaged in shipping. No reply. As the old saying goes, no news is good news, right?
My girlfriend and I went away for Thanksgiving, and when we got back on Friday, I had a message from my bank. The branch manager had called to let me know she had a returned item for $3052.78 and that my account was now in the negative. Seriously in the negative. No problem I thought, I'll just call Steve and see what's up.
So I dialed the number I had. In the back of my mind I expected a "this number has been disconnected message". Instead I got an answer, the voice sounded identical to Steve, so I asked if Steve was there.
"Oh, Steve, yeah, that's my cousin, he's out of town for Thanksgiving you know. He'll be back Tuesday"
"Can I leave a message for him?"
So I left my information and asked that he give me a call. That little voice in the back of my mind let out a sigh and an uh-oh. The voices were the same right? Was I being scammed? Well, if I was, I certainly wasn't going to let the weekend go by without doing a little investigating.
I started off with the information I had. His AOL email address, his phone number, and the address I shipped the computer to. The AOL address didn't yield anything. Doing a reverse lookup on the address (thanks to Whitepages.com) I got three names and phone numbers, none of which matched anything I had. The phone number didn't give me anything. I finally found a way to lookup the exchange on the number to see if it was a cell phone or a landline (Fone Finder). It came back as Nextel and I wanted to scream.
There really isn't anything you can do with a cell phone number. There are no directory services. The cell phone companies won't give out any information. And that's that. I called Nextel and pleaded with them. The customer service rep I spoke with seemed more confused than anything. He kept asking me what my Nextel phone number was and why I suspected someone was fraudulently billing to my account. I calmly explained at least three times that I was not a Nextel customer, that I was just trying to get an address for another customer I suspect has defrauded me, etc, etc. I finally gave up on Chris from Nextel, I've had customer service reps who don't even speak English who were more helpful.
I was at a dead end. I'd just sent my $2300 laptop, my Airport basestation, and a load of stuff to somebody I didn't know and all I had to show for it was a bill from Fedex for overnight shipping and a returned cashier's check. It's hard to sleep comfortably knowing some asshole has your Mac and is doing god knows what with it.
Sunday the first of December, I sprang into action full force. I called for help. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with this on my own, so I figured I might be able to get some help from some bulletin boards. I posted my tale of woe and call for assistance on every Mac bulletin board I could think of. I hoped that somebody who worked for Nextel, some fellow Mac addict like myself, might be willing to bend the rules a little. I wanted this guy's address and I wanted it bad. I was already pricing flights to Chicago and putting my professors on notice that I might have to miss a little class. I may have made an error in trusting this person, but I'm not someone you want to have that happen to. I will get you. I will hunt you down, and I will bring a baseball bat with me.
I got more replies than I could keep up with. Everyone wanted to know what they could do to help or at least offer support. Well, everyone except one guy who just wanted to let me know how incredibly stupid he thought I was and that he would never have accepted a counterfeit anything. I think a 102:1 great person to asshole ratio is pretty good. Several people living in Chicago offered their assistance, be it in gathering information or even forming a tough guy squad if necessary.
The most important reply I got was a pointer to an online PI service that does reverse lookups on cell phones. I was already beyond broke, but I figured $85.00 more wouldn't kill me. Twelve hours and $85.00 later, I had a name, an address, and a landline phone number for this guy. The name and his AOL email were eerily close, actually with a last name like Christmas, it would be pretty weird if it didn't match up. I couldn't believe it. A Chicago resident named Melvin Christmas had just ruined my Christmas. I was expecting William Faulkner to come popping out of the pantry at any moment and laugh at me.
I was now ready to call the police. I called the Chicago police department and filed a report. I gave the operator all of my information, including the real name and address I had managed to get. "A detective will contact you within one to two weeks, thank you." One to two weeks?!? I had this guy, I'd done all the work already, all you had to do was go pick him up. I'd even gone ahead and called Fedex and spoken to the Chicago station manager and was assured that the driver would cooperate in identifying the guy if necessary. All they had to do was pick him up. In one to two weeks he could be gone. And all the while my precious Powerbook is sitting god knows where being used by somebody completely undeserving of a Mac. I know in my heart that Mr. Christmas is really a PC guy.
I was furious. Chicago PD weren't going to do anything about this. If they were anything like the New Orleans PD, one to two weeks was likely to turn in to never. I figured I'd call Mr. Christmas myself. Let him know I was going to give him a chance to fix this, and I thought, maybe at least scare him. Let him know he was dealing with someone who would track him down no matter what, even if I had to make a deal with the Prince of Darkness to do it. Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user.
I kept checking the message boards. Maybe someone would have a better idea. I called the local FBI field office. Agent Jones was very understanding, but let me know that even though this crossed state lines, the field office didn't take anything involving less than $5000. "Try the Chicago PD".
I kept everyone on the Mac boards updated as best I could. On Tuesday I got a useful reply, try the Secret Service, counterfeiting is their jurisdiction. I made my way to the under-renovation Federal Building here in New Orleans. After walking many a dark, scary hallway, found myself at the door of Agent Keith Lopola. Keith came out and heard my case. I had brought copies of all the emails between myself and Steve Matthews/Paul Smith/Mr. Christmas, a copy of the check, and the call journal I had started keeping. Agent Lopola told me the same thing the FBI did, "It falls under our jurisdiction, but we can't take the case." He wanted to let me know that he really felt for me. Thanks. I left the office determined to call and bother him and the Chicago PD everyday for the rest of my life or at least until Mr. Christmas was behind bars.
Finals were fast approaching. It's not very easy to concentrate on school when all you can think about all day is the fact that all of your student loans for the next semester are going to cover this counterfeit check. That and some grubby criminal has your Powerbook. It's enough to drive someone to the drink.
Tuesday night I got an email from someone who had seen my story posted on O'Grady's Powerpage, a Powerbook enthusiast site. George Dunbar had seen the story and thought it sounded eerily similar to his. I called him, we compared notes, and turns out it was the same guy. George forwarded me all of his emails. Everything was the same, word for word, it was like Mr. Christmas just copied and pasted and magically made money. George was in it worse than I was though and had completely given up. He was out $6000 and two computers. He also let me know that there were more victims. He'd talked to at least three other people who had been taken by the same guy, all of whom had just given up. I was not going to give up. That night I dreamed of Mr. Christmas and a baseball bat, some duct tape, and roofing nails.
Wednesday morning I decided I was going to Chicago. I set up another eBay auction under my girlfriend's account, this time for same computer, different city. Three hours later, lo and behold I received an email from eBay user videopro55 (the same one) asking me if I'd like to sell the computer right now for $2500. Oh yes, I'd love to sell the computer, I'll even be there when it gets delivered to make sure it gets "setup properly".
He emailed me a new address and phone number, the phone number again traced back to the same address for Mr. Christmas. I called the Secret Service and the Chicago PD, pleading, all they had to do was be there when Fedex dropped off the package. It was a guaranteed hit, he'd have another counterfeit cashier's check, all you'd have to do is arrest him. Like shooting fish in a barrel. "Sorry, Detective McDonaugh will be out until next Wednesday, can I take a message?" Fine, if the cops won't do it, I decided I'd just Priceline a ticket and be waiting next door when it got dropped off. So I'd know what kind of neighborhood I was looking at, I asked for help again in the Mac boards. Two Chicago residents replied, and the next morning, courtesy of Tim, I had 23 pictures of the house, the cars in the driveway (with license plate numbers) and the neighborhood. I'd like to see a Dell user do something like that at 4:30 in the morning for a complete stranger a thousand miles away. I started planning my trip. I decided I'd leave on Saturday, have the package delivered on Monday, and make it back just in time to screw up on all my finals.
On Friday in preparation for flying up I mapped the new address from the one for Mr. Christmas to see how close it was. As I looked at the map, it hit me. The new address wasn't in Chicago. It was in a suburb, Markham. I googled for the Markham police and 5 minutes later was talking to a very enthusiastic Sargeant Knapp. I had hit the jackpot, the new drop was outside of Chicago jurisdiction and therefore outside of their inattentiveness as well. Sargeant Knapp informed me he loved this kind of thing, even had a UPS and Fedex uniform ready. He'd call Fedex and they would set it up for Tuesday. I was certain I was dreaming. After talking to two detectives in Chicago, an FBI field agent, an agent in the New Orleans field office of the Secret Service, an agent with the L.A. Secret Service and having a conference call with a large group of agents from the Chicago Secret Service, I finally was getting somewhere. And I didn't even have to stand on someone's doorstep with a baseball bat to do it.
I spent the entire weekend on pins and needles. What if Mr. Christmas figured something out between now and Tuesday? All would be lost. I wouldn't even get the chance to confront him on my own. On Monday I spoke with Sgt. Knapp to make sure everything was ready to go. I had sent him a package with all of my documentation (he didn't have email), and I tried to explain what all the email stuff meant as best I could. He had worked everything out with Fedex and they were set for the delivery on Tuesday.
I called my brother in Nashville and had him send the package. I had set everything up to be coming from there so that Mr. Christmas wouldn't get suspicious. I could barely sleep Monday night. All I could think about was something going wrong and my only chance at getting this guy being missed. I wanted to update everyone on the Mac boards, but I had to keep it quiet until I knew something was going to happen.
Tuesday afternoon Sgt. Knapp called. They had tried the delivery but no one was home. I just wanted to scream. The board users kept posting how the suspense was driving them nuts. Well, it was going to give me an aneurism. A million possibilities went through my head. Maybe he had somebody working at Fedex who tipped him off, maybe I worded something in one of my email a little off. Sgt. Knapp called me back to let me know they would try the delivery again tomorrow. He also wanted to let me know that they had intercepted another package that was being sent to the same address. Looks like he'd already struck again, thankfully the lady from New York will get her computer back. He also told me that he was definitely going to keep pursuing this, and that oddly enough, the address I'd given him was also related to another fraud case, but this one much bigger (hundreds of thousands) involving a certain Chicago franchise I won't mention. So maybe I had led them to something bigger than just some asshole counterfeiting cashier's checks.
Today I had finals all day. I'm a 4.0 honors student. I've had a 4.0 all semester. I'm not sure if I'll keep that after today. I just couldn't sleep last night. All I could think about was Mr. Christmas and the delivery. I couldn't study either. So I winged it, I'll get my grades tomorrow. I called Sgt. Knapp at 2:45. He told me he was on his way back to the house. They'd already made the delivery and arrested the guy. He had more than $10,000 in counterfeit cashier's checks waiting for deliveries.
*I* got him.
I'm right now waiting on Sgt. Knapp to fax me a copy of his mug shot for posterity. Then I'm going to go celebrate. Sgt. Knapp said the guy was cooperating and he was going to try to recover my laptop. I'm hopeful, but I don't expect it. I might not ever get my computer back, but at least there is one less asshole on the street. When will criminals learn? You just shouldn't mess with Mac people.
For everyone on all the boards who offered their help and encouragement, I thank you. This would have been a lot harder without you. If you're ever in New Orleans, look me up and I'll buy you a beer. I've still got to figure out how I'm paying to college next semester, but I'll keep some beer money set aside for ya'll.
Oh yeah, and if there are any lawyers in the Chicago area who can file a civil suit against this guy for damages (yeah I know I'm not going to collect) please contact me, misterye a t yahoo d o t com
The sites with great users that helped out (you can sign up for the forums and read all about this as it was going on):
MacRumors.com
MacNN
ThinkSecret
O'Grady's PowerPage
Update 12/11/02 18:58 CST: Sgt. Knapp is sending me a copy of Mr. Christmas's mug shot. I'll post it as soon as I get it.
Update 12/11/02 21:39 CST: For those interesting in getting in contact with me, my email address is misterye at yahoo dot com, if you think you were also a victim, please call me at 504-894-1243 and I'll put you in touch with the appropriate people.
Update 12/11/02 23:36 CST: I've gone back through and added links where appropriate. I'll try to reformat this tomorrow.
Update 12/12/02 10:36 CST: Ok, so how's this for small world: Apparently this thing is getting posted everywhere. I just got a call from Matt of the Real World Season 9 (the New Orleans Real World). So anyway, the cast of the New Orleans Real World used to all work at 735 Nightclub. I moved down here to actually take-over their marketing right after the show ended. So I never met Matt or any of them until speaking to him today. Small, weird world.
Update 12/12/02 12:03 CST: I've added a forum where everyone can talk about this. Here it is.
Update 12/12/02 13:30 CST: For those of you wanting to donate to my cause, I urge you to choose a local charity. There are a lot of needy people and organizations out there this season, if you can't think of anything local, I'm a big fan of Doctor's Without Borders and Lambda International. If you really must, you can send money to my girlfriend's Paypal account, cranberry_coyote@hotmail.com. She's the one who's covering this check for me right now, so I guess she should get this. I'm still not entirely sure about this, but you've insisted. Thanks again.
Last update Wednesday, December 12th 13:49 PM CST
Copyright 2002 Jason Eric Smith
-- I you prefer *nix/BSD, befriend me [slashdot.org] (503 fans)!
"The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
For many things, it sucks to live in Canada. Thanks for bringing that up. Of course FEDEX still ships to Canada...
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
If there are 1 billion assholes in the world, then about 1 in 7 people are an asshole, world-wide. This is obviously less than 20%. What this _acutally_ implies is that Ebay users are more likely than non-Ebay users to be assholes.
Silly me, I was wondering why I had to sell my car to buy a pack of cigarettes this afternoon... Look at alcohol prices before, during, and after Prohibition. Take inflation into account. Realize that you are wrong.
The formkeys troll YOU!
Since we'll be decriminalizing pot possession (up to 30 grams) after Christmas up here (in Canada).
Pot penalties out of whack, MPs say
The clearing process involves more than just making the funds available to the depositor...the actual fund transfer and reconcilation process between financial institutions often takes longer than one or two business days; in essance the bank is making the deposits available on a provisional basis in many instances (as required by law) until the complete clearing process has run its course - banks should educate folks on this instead of burying it deep in fineprint.
:-(
In regards to depositing a cashier check...if it's "legit", then very likely the financial institution its drawn on will have funds to cover it...the primary concern one should have when accepting cashier checks isn't fund availability, but rather is it real...some forgeries are very difficult to catch before-hand.
On a related topic, even if your bank calls the other financial institution, that doesn't protect you because there are instances where a bank will be told the cashier check is valid or whatnot, but then later turns out it's not - yes, this really happens
If you are dealing with another financial institution or long-time customer who hands you a cashier check, then most likely it's going to be real and the funds are truly yours.
Ultimately, it all comes down to trust of the parties involved in a financial transaction, not the physical check or whatnot.
Ron
Of each and every person who said 'we won't take this case' such that if they fall under *MY* congressmen, I can write a letter explaining my position on them taking my tax dollars to 'protect' me, then not actually protecting me.
I was not going to give up. That night I dreamed of Mr. Christmas and a baseball bat, some duct tape, and roofing nails.
Look, if you're going to have him retar up there, at least give him a hammer instead of the bat. He'll be up there all week! Jiminy!
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
Black cars?
;)
You must have forgotten that these are Mac users. Remeber? These types drive Minis and New Beatles. I'll bet you that no matter what type of car it was, its colour was Aqua. (maybe teal)
HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
Well, if someone says 20%, they surely don't mean 1 in 7! Everyone in this thread is correct!
Yay!
It's hard to sleep comfortably knowing some Mac has your asshole and is doing god knows what with it.
I have to agree. A $2500+ sale and he accepts COD? Those annoying infomercial companies don't accept COD for $29.95, let alone 2 grand!
That aside, it was nice to hear about so many people coming together to help this one person in need.
when "Sgt. Knapp" turns out to be Mr. Christmas's brother!
I thought COD meant cash on delivery?
Federal felony. Had I the points I'd mod you redundant.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Hint: Try not splittig your infinitives, you sound like a moron. He didn't split an infinitive. The sentence can be cleared up by changingin "who" to "whom" and adding a couple commas.
Well if you consider accepting 3rd party starter checks for payment, then maybe
Seriously, PayPal is NOT a bank and thus provides virtually no protection - there are many well documented instances of PayPal freezing funds, withdrawing funds from people's bank accounts, negative balances, issueing refunds and allowing the buyer to keep the product too, etc.
PayPal is a very useful service, but anyone who trusts it for large amounts of money (of course that's going to be relative to one's financial worth, etc) is asking for trouble. They are not a bank and they basically play fast and loose with their policies - and good luck in contacting anyone there.
PayPalSucks.com and PayPalWarning.com shed more light on the darker side of PayPal.
http://www.paypalsucks.com/
http://www.paypalw
Don't get me wrong, PayPal works great and is very convenient for most folks, including myself...but still one should be aware of the risks they take on when using them to transfer money.
Ron
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=40e4fad22 665478b027629eb71768ab5&threadid=134279&perpage=50 &pagenumber=1
Read as it unfolds.
With regards to certified cheques, anyway...
certified cheques and money orders are widely considered as good as cash.
The best way to deal with these things is NOT to put them in your bank account... but, if you can, to have them cashed on the spot. A postal money order can be cashed at the post office with ID.
A certified cheque (or any cheque. for that matter) can usually be cashed at the bank it was issued from, with proper ID. Some banks will insist they only have to do this if you take it to the branch it was issued from. Some will let you do it at other branches, but will require a small wait for confirmation. This is because, by law, a cheque is simply instructions for a bank to give you money from someone's account. There is no requirement that the receiver must use a bank account.
That is where the 10 business days come from. After 10 business days, the bank can't backpedal and say the funds aren't yours. They have 10 days to complete their clearing process.
They also have to notify you of NSF issues within 48 hours of finding out about it... not that you have any easy way of finding out if they followed this rule or not.
And those who might be part of that 10% are under constant pressure to conform.
...then 30 days is not long enough time to post a negitive on the buyer or seller!
San Francisco is well-known for tolerance of illegal parking. About 25 years ago the SF police wanted higher wages but were forbidden to strike. One day the police protested by ticketing all illegally parked cars, especially those around City Hall and the local newspaper offices. That night the Chief of Police appeared on local TV to apologize for the unprofessional conduct of his men!
By comparison, there were - and are - Los Angeles suburbs in which police will ticket a car parked facing the wrong direction. The police infer that something illegal must have happened to place the car in that position.
This difference broke the Patty Hearst case. While the Symbionese Liberation Army held Patty Hearst in San Francisco, police and FBI had no luck finding her. Then the SLA moved to Los Angeles - unfamiliar territory for them. They parked a van in a red zone, which would have been no big deal in SF. Police arrived to ticket the van, determined that it was stolen, and caught or killed a large part of the SLA.
According to the story, the great person to asshole ratio is more like 102:1.
I think the thing that struck me the most was the fact the whole thing read like an ad for apple computers with the community as the major argument for owning one.
Most of this guy's reasonings for his actions seemed contrived as well as many of the events that occured in his story.
It could also be that he just sees people in black in white. Like this story, either they helped him or they didn't and Mac users are good, PC users are bad.
Please help! I'm stuck inside my virtual reality headset!
I had to take some simple sociology video course at the 11th hour to satisfy my graduation requirements, and the instructor told a very interesting story...
A small-town politician in Oklahoma (or Nebraska, perhaps?) suddenly got all fired up about increasing the penalties for first-time drug offenders. Of course, there was much posturing about family values, protecting children, etc., and the bill was eagerly sped through the state's legislature by other politicians looking to win points with their constituents. One reporter thought the whole thing strange, that this guy should develop an interest in drug policy overnight. He did a bit of research, and it turns out that some other politician's (can't remember who, but someone powerful) son was arrested for posession of marijuana. Knowing that the public would certainly ask questions if attempts were made to reduce first-offense penalties, these guys decided to--in short order (before the trial)--make the penalties so ridiculously severe that no jury would even consider convicting a clean-cut, college-bound 18-year-old from a good family.
Of course, it worked. I don't know what happened after the story came to light, though.
One of the reasons that I became a lawyer was to avoid ever having to hire one. -SPYvSPY
this i-sold-my-mac-and-got-a-counterfeit-cheque story is another cleverly devised sympathy scam.
the hoax is obvious:
1. "mr. christmas"
2. multiple people were scammed, totalling >$5000
3. the sting sale could have been >$5000
4. the police would agree to operate your sting?
not a chance. it has to be done by the book.
5. selling on ebay outside of standard auction
need i go on?
don't send the dude any sympathy money.
it was a nice story to read at christmas,
but it's undeserving of a free windfall.
In both natural and artificial situations people will spend their own resources in order to administer justice to those who "need" it.
This desire contributes strongly to cooperation and the common good. If there's no outlet for it, and these days it seems like there are precious few except vicariously at the movies, cooperation unravels.
This an excellent and easy-to-read story.
Is there more evidence available about this story? I get the feeling it is fabricated, mainly because there are so many stereotypes.
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Not to mention all the legal issues. Do you really think Apple wants Microsoft selling an operating system for Apple's hardware?
Must be some new use of the word "safe" that I've not yet come across...
Matt
I think you'll find the fault in your logic if you try to figure out why we can buy a days supply of food for well under $10, while heroin costs much, much more.
Food is after all even more addictive than heroin!
Then there is the evidence of legal trade in these drugs (for medical purposes), where what costs $100 on the street can cost $1 on the legal side.
Well, everyone except one guy who just wanted to let me know how incredibly stupid he thought I was and that he would never have accepted a counterfeit anything.
Make it two. I think you're an idiot for mailing anything worth more than five bucks before your payment clears.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Yeah, it looks a bit bad out of context. But keep in mind he was writing this as a thanks to all the Mac people all over who went far out of their way to help him with this. Just think of it as a way to say "You guys are the best EVER!!".
The sad thing is that this is a repeat story; it happens every day to countless people. You've probably had some asshole steal from you, and I know I have.
Fact is, I'd be glad if there were a lot more stories like this on Slashdot. It's a well written first-person account.
Nothing personal, but I'm quite tired of all the little ankle biters complaining about repeat stories. Yes, there's been cases in the past where the same story will be posted twice--big fricking deal. Get over it, move on to the next story, make your own message board, start submitting other stories--do something other than whine.
In this case, to call it a repeat is a long stretch to say the least.
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
I bought a modem rack, paid with PayPal, and 3 weeks later I got an IBM 386 and a POS^2 (point of sale *and* piece of fecal matter) printer. The seller never replied, eBay and PayPal were no help. I finally did a Google search on the seller (who has been delisted from eBay). Seems she's got bigger problems than my little fraud charge I filed - she's awaiting trial for running a meth lab. You can't rely on eBay's feedback thing either, she had a 78 with no negatives until after I bought whatever I ended up with.
" Surely you're not trying to say that 20% comes out to 1 in 7 as a fraction."
Are we talking about my boss again?
..that sees how ironic it is to have a soon-to-be History teacher not following the golden rule of "history will repeat itself if not studied".
I'd fire him for incompetence!
But I thought Canada was just a state in the US? Don't you guys have USPS? Wierd.
Yes, and so does UPS. If you want to pay 5 times as much for a brokerage fee, a US courier is better than Canadapost.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I'm pretty sure the asshole-to-people ratio is one-to-one unless there is common kind of birth defect or elective surgery I don't know about.
XML causes global warming.
Gor get the hackers http://www.remodern.com/ has just gone down ... sheeez
If you would like to find out if a cashiers check is real, often you can call a number and punch in the serial number to see if it is valid. I know this is true for American Express cashiers checks.
Also, don't be afraid to call the bank that made the cashiers check to see if it is genuine. All banks keep records of who bought what and for whom.
The above poster is right--something may be "credited" to your account before it has been processed. According to Regulation CC, banks are required to make the funds from cashiers checks available on the next day. That's before they can be processed at the proof department to see if they are valid.
So when you go to the bank, make sure that the check has been posted to your account--don't just ask for your account balance. Your account balance will reflect the check (counterfeit or not), but it will only be posted to your account after it has cleared.
The infomercial audience isn't the most likely group to be certain of having the money on them at any given moment. If you don't have the room on a card, maybe you should put the purchase price toward paying off the card, no? If they don't have the money, the package gets returned- and the seller loses a sale that he thought he had, and has to pay two way shipping to boot.
My company ships UPS a lot, and we'll do COD if you want. We buy things COD if we have to, too. Of course, a company's easier to find than a guy, and less likely to scam on one shipment.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
I think by now it is glaringly obvious that this story is true. Yes, the author seems to embellish thoughts and emotions. This is more the sign of a competent writer than a hoax. Of course the slashdotters expect a whitepaper on the scientific process of catching a thief. No thank you. It was a good read.
This story has proliferated throughout the web now and made its way onto many well-regarded websites, one of them being the register. Judging by their article, it looks as if the information at the core of the story indeed checks out. So what if the guy is emotional? I would be too. I believe we all would be.
I think the editor should have called it MacBigot...
The anti-PC rhetoric in a couple places was pretty tiresome.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
This thing reads like this idiot is some kind of hero, he's a mongoloid. Who in their right mind --especially a 4.0 College educated person-- would mail something worth $3,000 across the country to someone he doesn't even know before getting the cash in hand? (ie: get check first, check clears bank, Fedex the computer version of the gay retarded uncle to the buyer)
And this guy's writing this thing like he's Tony Soprano... "I'll bring my baseball bat, some duct tape and a bucket of roofing nails". He's an old college student. I shudder to think what a badass this guy must be. Aside from the fact the cashiers check was a counterfeit, he shouldn't get diddley squat but a swift kick in his dumb ass. He even has the gall to *hint* at selling the movie rights to this whole thing that was almost entirely his own fault to begin with. I could make up a better story than this tripe. This guy reminds me of Popeye and Wimpy, "May I please have a dozen hamburgers for which I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday?"
"It is essential that justice be done
Most ROTFLMAO thred ever
This brings up an interesting idea. Does anyone know of any good projects that implement this, so that the computer, as soon as connecting to the internet - will dial home (or a home server) and instantiate some type of callback script.
It would be great if there were a copy compatible with both win32 and 'nix. Maybe sourceforge or somewhere already has one?
Scenario:
User connects to internet (high speed or dialup)
Computer detects internet connection, connects to equivilent homebase.com
Homebase.com returns an indicator as to whether the computer should be in "theft mode"
Computer, on entering "theft mode" subsequently tried tricks such as
a) Sends owner/etc info to homebase
b) Establishing a PPP/Dialup connection to a monitored line, providing phone # info
c) Sending IP/username info the homebase
d) Sending info on cookies, checking for variables indicating names - to homebase
e) Checks for new email accounts on PC, sends email from them to homebase
f) Pop up forms with "you won" asking for personal info
Eventually, with enough tricks, homebase should be able to gather enough intel to track said computer. If not, then perhaps homebase can send a type of "timed destruction" sequence to the PC, which will result in erasure and whatever damage is necessary to disable it.
Considering the amount of crap that goes into cookies, I wouldn't be surprised if one of these - or situation (f) - turns up personal info enough to track said machine.
Learn to skim and read at -1.
Then you can ignore the moderations of the janitors, their fans and their enemies.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
If after a few days of the check clearing, the stuff hasn't arrived, most people get suspicious.
/. now only populated by crooks who fence their stuff on ebay and are worried about being scammed).
Example: if some Buffy DVDs do not arrive in Bristol tomorrow then the check for them will be cancelled, as it was taken out of my girlfriends' account on Monday.
I'm sure this is not an uncommon reaction. Certainly you will never get any positive feedback if you wait that long before sending the goods.
All the posts here are from the sellers perspective, come on most of the ppl here buy on ebay too (or is
If you are selling something that expensive you do need to use some escrow service or trusted third party.
What about fed-ex or local post offices (they used to exist in the uk anyway-don't know about USA) having credit/debit card machines so the buyer can pay on delivery, or you send the goods to a shop near the buyer who then collects them and pays there - ok the overheads would make it unfeasible but it was an idea.
-no I haven't read the article (./ed) but good luck to the guy.
Isn't part of the problem also that Canadian accounts are treated as foreign accounts and therefore not covered by some of PayPal's protections? I think a lot of the problem arises from the fact that PayPal isn't willing to set up country-specific bureaus like eBay or Yahoo! but wants to come up with an one-size-fits-all solution for the world. Obviously financial rules are going to be different in Canada compared to Carjackistan...
Hands down?
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=felony
or, from a more legal-sounding website:
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/f021.htm
It is a common fallacy that felony==federal crime.
Never refuse a breath mint.
Because all they have to do is pull the CMOS battery or whatver is powering the BIOS long enough so that the BIOS resets.
Am I the only one who noticed he violated the Ebay rules by completing the transaction outside of Ebay?
It's known as "Fee Avoidance".
Strangely, every time I have sold a Mac, I've gotten several emails the next day asking me to sell it outside of Ebay... but never with any other products.
Obviously a PC user.
...you make me sick...
Suck it you bubble-lovin Mac faggot...
Oh geez... "all Mac users are kind-hearted loving people who would never do anything wrong!"
I can see the sequal to the Mac add "My name is ____ and I saved christmas":
"I'm a PC user and I ruined christmas!!"
Soon we won't have racial steriotypes, but it'll all be based on your operating system! Oooooo!!! BSD user's BEWARE!!! Linux will form a clan and burn penguins on your lawn!
....wait....
So Ron,
What you are saying, is to not keep very much money in my PayPal account, is that right? That's what I thought... I also hear other people complaining about it. I've been following that advice, by keeping small amounts in it, I use for small online purchases. It is HELLA convenient, I DO say that for them.
J
I still think that the story of the guy who tracked down his sisters stolen iMac using timbuktu. here: Mac Thief Caught Thanks To Applescript & Timbuktu [slashdot] and here: Turning Macs on Thievery [wired.com]
Ummm, first of all...
This has NOTHING to do with buying a machine. At least not from a legit seller. This is to put on your machine, in case it gets stolen, etc.
Given the post about the Mac machine which was found using Timbuktu and some creative hacking, this woudld be a cool idea.
And in this case, the thief was too dumb to format. Also worth mentioning is the fact that - being your hardware - you can put whatever you want on it to track it for theft.
It might not protect you from professionals. For that some hardware can get GPS-type devices to assist in tracking - but they're expensive. And if it's an ebay scammer, it may very well be that he/she is too lazy to immediate wipe the OS (instead booting to see if it works first).
Shut the fuck up.
"And then I hired an ugly fat man to service my wife. Oops, I meant service my pool."
'Democracy--that is, the concept of people working together for a common good and a common purpose not decreed by "the wise" or "the noble"--is something whose earliest-continous (and most famous) example is the people of the Untied States of America'
WRONG! The most famous example is the Greeks (more precisely the Athenians) They came up with Democracy over 25 centuries ago.
The US is nothinbg but a LATE ADOPTER who implemented Greeks ideas 23 centuries after their invention.(The US Founding Fathers borrowed a lot from the Greeks and the French Philosophers of XVIIIth century)
Other nations implemented Demoracy MANY CENTURIES BEFORE the US (Switzerland is a well known example)
BTW I am neither Greek nor Swiss.
Are you ignorant, or stupid?
He said: If the site remains up, leave this post at 2. Otherwise (as I suspect), please mod this up just so that others can read his story.
So uh... you've got two choices, according to him - don't mod down, or mod up. So... he expected to be modded down?
I vote for stupid!
Am I the only one who filled in the end of this as "belong to us"?
But doesn't anyone have a problem with the fact that he had to go through ALL THAT to finally convince the authorities about this obvious criminal problem?
He had how much paperwork and proof? He spoke with how many people? And they blew him OFF?
Boy I looooove this countries justice system...
A cashier's check is precleared. That's why this was such a nasty scam. I'm frankly shocked the banks didn't go nuts on a forged cashier's check.
If some asshole was doing who knows what with my Mac, I don't think I'd WANT it back. I'd at least make sure to wipe it off good.
paintball
he sure is pompous with his bigotry towards other-brand-lovers.
Are "petty" shoplifting, fraud, forgery, breaking and entering, theft, robbery...
To pay for the drugs you're addicted to.
Drugs are not bad because they hurt the user. Drugs are bad because the user hurts people to get their drugs. Legalizing drugs won't stop people from committing other crimes to buy them.
paintball
this story is just one more reason to evacuate our nation's cities.
Decent sentence structure confuses you!
Well, maybe not if you know Russian.
paintball
Wrong, sorry. Yes, he was thanking the Mac community, but he did by way of saying that PC users are malicious (they steal, they ruin Christmas) and stupid (they don't know how to use e-mail). This guy did a stupid thing by sending his computer to someone he didn't know without being paid for it first, and then went to great lengths to catch the guy. So he has some guts and went out of his way to catch a thief. He also bashed a lot of intelligent and good people in his account of the events. I think this reflects negatively on his character (though not on the Mac community that helped him). In or out of context, some of his comments were at the very least insulting.
I am always glad to know Nothing comes between a Mac user and his Computer :-D
I dont know what I would do, if I had this happen to me, I would be sad,
---
"That night I dreamed of Mr. Christmas and a baseball bat, some duct tape, and roofing nails."
The detectives of the Chicago PD would actually show up, quickly, for this sort of activity.
I've had a lesser run in with a scammer who decided he was tired of accepting money and sending things, so he stopped sending things. See my journal entries for the story. Over a $30 item they hauled the guy in, in Tseun Wan.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Prior to the last 5 years with the teen shootings the image of geek high schoolers getting back at jocks was seen as funny. These things can change.
More likely he's trying to establish Mac cred and fudging his dates, because that extra year or three matters so much. That, or he's the kind of idjit who would send off a bunch of stuff without getting paid, and can't remember.
Then the other person must be trusting you
:)
to ship the thing once the money clears.
Either way, one is a potential sucker.
Can't we all just get along?
Considered harmful.
use gold, have the buyer send 9oz of gold to fedex to deliver to the laptop dude in exchange, he gets the gold only if he gets the laptop.
Gold was 323$ 2 days ago, now its $332, what a profit.
(www.gold-eagle.com)
Federal Reserve Notes (ie cash) is useless, go go gold.
also check out
www.depresion2.tv
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
"Mr. Christmas said he didn't even know what email was. Obviously a PC user." The idiot really is a dumb Mac fan... 1 PC user probably knows MORE of computers than 2 Mac users ever will... Windows isn't that slick in it's interface as MacOS; you really *NEED* knowledge to use it.
The law would disagree with you in many jurisdictions.
The distinction between "theft" and "grand theft" is typically determined by amount.
Often there is a scale of theft amounts that garner different levels of legal sanction... fourth degree misdemeanor, third degree, second, and so forth, up to felony theft. Then there are fourth degree felonies, third degree, etc.
Most big-city police departments are so overloaded and undermanned that I'm not at all surprised that this guy's case got the back burner. Honestly... would you rather have violent crimes prosecuted, or a few lower-level property crimes?
As much as it offends the sensibilities of the tech population (you mean computers aren't everything??), there are far more-heinous crimes that go unsolved than an ebay scammer.
I agree that it's wrong... but infinite resources and manpower are not on the radar screen of most police departments.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
What are they going to do about it? Macs aren't Playstations. You don't need a licence to make software for it.
I'd be interested to know what Mr Christmas's eBay feedback was like. It doesn't say in the article. If he had been doing this for some time you'd expect some pretty scathing negative feedback, wouldn't you?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
It also goes to show that, if you want to find someone who doesn't want to be found (for stalking / torturing / murdering purposes), you just have to pretend to be a wronged Mac user and a bunch of Mac do-gooders will come and help you track them down. Moral - pray your abusive spouse does not know the URL of any Mac user groups.
Well, that's just on the forums, I think we would all agree that the counterfeiter is also an asshole, so it's at least 102:2 = 51:1.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
It's been as easy and cheap like this here for as long as I can remember. What's the deal in the US that transferring money is so difficult?
actually the BEST thing to do is if you are given a check CASH IT at a bank that is the same as the issuers. I.E. I get a 5/3 bank check I go over to the 5/3 bank and make the cashiere cash it. No they CANNOT charge you a fee, it's funds drawn off of their accounts and they must honor the check if there are funds available. this way you run a lower scam rate. if the check bounces it doesn't hit your accounts.
second... NEVER EVER SEND ANYTHNIG COD. Duh!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
We're not necessarily stupid. But we're evil and dishonest. We buy cheap stuff, then overclock it to "increase" the value/performance ratio.
Muahaha!
PNC Bank in Pennsylvania is now charging THREE DOLLARS to cash a check drawn on their own accounts if you don't have an account with them.
...refuse COD, checks, and Paypal. At least with a money order, I know that they at least are down the amount they paid, and that I've got a decent amount of information; they have to take the extra step of mailing it or somehow revealing some kind of return address.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
i think this is one of the best links posted on slashdot in a long time, nice one.
Sure there is. It's called counterfeiting. It's a hell of a lot easier to counterfeit a check than cash. Largely because banks don't even look at checks anymore when you deposit them. So you lose, until it comes back as returned and you're overdrawn.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Assuming this story isnt just some wild fabrication to ease money from our wallets, this guy was screwed. Fine the COD was a stupid idea, but give him a break. You are an asshole for being so harsh about it.
If you were hard up and then conned for $3000 you would be pretty dammed pissed too!
And remember, people are conned because they are gullible or stupid or too trusting, so when it happens to you, I wonder if you will be so scathing !
Seb
it's not legal for them do to so.
/etc...
simply stand there and pitch a bitch, mention how you are going to badmouth their bank all over town
huntington tried that with me once. snd I said loudly "hunting bank doesnt honor it's own accounts?" the manager came over and quietly gave me the money.
remember EVERY bank is based on scamming as much money out of it's customers as possible.
moral of the story? Banks are ran by nothing but CRIMINALS and scam artists. do not trust banks EVER.
the smaller the credit union the better and more honest they are.
I purchased a "complete" copy of Quark Xpress, that happened to not include the license or installation key. I paid a normal price for it -- about $550 for 4.0 -- and got burned. Fraud was provable in several ways.
(1) Ebay came through on their bargain: They insure for $200 minus a $25 deductable (read $175) which -- after all the paperwork -- is about $150.
(2) Paypal makes victims go through about $50 of paperwork, then doesn't pay on their "insurance". To date as of the time this happened, they had never submitted a SINGLE insurance claim, according to several web sources I read. I don't know if that is true. I do know that although I had several proofs of fraud, some involving their own system which they could check, and found another victim of the same guy, they still said "well, he shipped *something*, so we don't pay nuthin."
This is system run by the guy who, if I remember, wants to start up a space hotel with the money he got from selling Paypal. My advice? Don't trust the windows of that space hotel: they'll be made from sugar, just like in the movies.
Anyhow, your statement isn't quite accurate. It should read, "Do business for more than $175, get burned." That said, one other time since then, I purchased a Mac on Ebay, and got it without a hitch. But it was a PowerBook 190 parts computer, so I kept it cheap and my risk small.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The guy was selling used Macs at a markup to people who didn't know any better. He got taken by a guy who did the same thing - took advantage of someone who didn't know any better. I'd give this creep not a single drop of respect or even a thought of heroism for catching the guy who one-upped him. They're both made of the same stuff.
Plus, who's stupid enough to have their rent riding on a check from an eBay auction?
I'm a 2000 man.
It's "God bless those pagans."
.WAV as my new email sound for a year. Now it's "That's good!"
I used the
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
does the whole 'if you must donate to my girlfriend's paypal account' thing sound like a scam in and of itself?
I do not believe a word of this. At the end he is asking for money to be put in his girlfriends paypal account. Just sounds like a scam based on a scam.
Not much will save you against professionals, unfortunately. But there are an increasing number of amatures out there, people who have figured out that it's easy to scam people... others that simple have light-fingers and snitch somebody's laptop while they're not looking.
The guy in the article was operating on a fairly large basis, but by the sounds it was just one guy who found it's easy to scam people who are foolish (and don't use the ebay internal bidding system properly). A lot of crooks are clever in some ways, dumb in others, so a GPS solution might work.
The software-enabled solution might still work too. , and while it might detect the nuking software it would not necessarily get the call-home. There are a lot of programs that delete files, nuke entries, but don't follow the patterns of virii. Also, if you preinstalled say, Mcafee... then you could probably find ways to make it *not* detect your own virus (is there an ignore list?).
Another thing to think of is that a lot of criminals keep data on PC's so they can sift through. Oh, look, he's his banking info. Oh, he's saved his online banking password. A lot of smart crooks would avoid nukage just to retain this information, which is often worth more than the PC (how about the banking password to somebody's business bank account).
Again, this probably won't work on organized crime, or those smart enough to nuke a hard-drive before ever plugging-it-in or turning it on, but it's better than nothing.
Congrats
Maybe he should have told the FBI/CIA/SS/NSA/etc that the laptop had mp3's on it. At least then he could have gotten some kind of response from them...
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
I'm not from the USA, but "COD" means "cash on delivery", right?
Cash as in "real money"? I thought that this was the way to ensure that you got the money provided that the item gets delivered.
If FedEx doesn't bring you the cash it got for the item, then I'd say that FedEx has a problem. If FedEx is stupid enough to accept bouncable cheques, then that's FedEx's problem.
I have to conclude that FedEx doesn't want to run around with loads of cash, and accepts cheques. But this defeats the whole purpose of COD, so why do this?
Roger.
It almost seems like the entire article was written by someone who seems to have a vendetta against PC users. Almost like a employee someones whos tight with an employee of Macintosh (Apple? Im a bit retarded from school right now) Call me the conspiricy theorist but this article just bashes PCs too damn much to be written by just some hardcore Mac user. Almost like he wants to see all PCs explode...or become stolen...or something...
But I babble...
Note that they classify it as a Mac story.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
He needs to get in touch with a TV studio that can turn this story into a claymation Christmas classic:
Narration by Burle Ives, as 'the Snowman'
Tobey Maguire, as the voice of our plucky Mac-toting sleuth, 'Jason
Eric Smith'
Brad Garrett (Everybody Love Raymond), as the audacious 'Sargeant
Knapp'
Victoria (MacinTalk Pro Voice), as the damsel in distress, 'Powerbook
G4'
and
Jeremy Irons, voicing the malevolent 'Melvin Christmas' [I'll
:D
never get over that name]
If made, this holiday classic will be destined to keep the kiddies glued to the set every Christmas Eve. I know I'll be watching
The author never said 'superior human beings' but according to this study and CNET article, we're smarter and make more money. I don't suggest you read this, however, since it may just make you angrier and hate us more.
Moral: If you must ship C.O.D., set the amount for payment by check to the maximum - $10,000. That way, if it's a bad check, the clerk will remember it (to be a witness to the passing of a bad check), and the crime will be substantially worse if you do get a bad check, making it easier to pursue.
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
(A reply to the anonymous coward)
There was a story on this on slashdot last week:1 9&mode=thread&tid=98
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/13/03382
and the story actually broke about Dec. 6.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Does it shock you that six day old comments sometimes contain old news? Or do you have another point that I'm missing?
Another recent eBay fraud scheme: ebayupdates.com (Score:2, Informative)
by mkweise (629582) on Thursday December 12, @06:26PM
eBay Customers Targetted by Credit Card Scam
Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday December 13, @04:37AM
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
No, I just wasn't paying attention to post dates.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.