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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."
I think the point was that they were counterfeit cashiers checks, which is why the secret service was involved. It was implied in the article, but nevere flat out said.
-Space for rent
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
No.
From FedEx's COD Policy (here)
quote
D. Checks (including cashier's, official, certified, business and personal checks) and money orders for the C.O.D. Amount will be collected at the shipper's sole risk, including, but not limited to, all risk of nonpayment, fraud and forgery. FedEx has no liability with respect to any such instrument.
end quote.
When I think about why I use eBay, I know that if I get ripped off, eBay won't do anything about it. They say they have fraud insurance, but when I filed a claim several years ago, I got no response. The reason eBay is popular, IMHO, is that it's fun. It's exciting to bid on stuff, and sell stuff, and compulsively check 'My Ebay' 20 times a day to see if anyone else bid on your stuff. Anyone else agree?
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
There's a Vonnegut novel, "Slapstick," that involves the plot point of the President of the US giving everyone new randomly-from-amongst-a-certain-set-of-words-and-n umbers-assigned middle names. The idea was exactly what you say -- that now everyone has a new "family". Typically loopy Vonnegut, but ultimately an interesting idea (which is also typical Vonnegut behavior).
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
It's called lojack, and due to the expense of the transponder itself, you wouldn't dare use it on anything less than $10K.
This was best described in "The Princess Bride" with the definition of "To the pain."
The dogcow says "Moof!"
Story is right here dude
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
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
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.
The article's slashdotted, so I'm replying under the assumption the fake certified funds looks legit on first glance.
First, it's a question of reasonably expectations. If the Fedex guy accepted your "Sertifyed Chek," you'd probably have a case of incompetance against the delivery man.
On the other hand, if it looks like certified check, what do you really expect Fedex to do? To verify that it was valid, you'd have to get the funds and then call the issuer before handing over the package. That's going to add several minutes per COD package. In the case of some businesses, Fedex would have to schedule 15 - 45 minutes for delivery.
I worked for a company that was burned by a fake cashier's check once. The check looked real. Our bank accepted the check without problems. It wasn't till several days later that the bank found out it was a fake. In our case, the receiver had called his Fedex station and asked them to hold the package at the station, and he picked it up there. The address he had given us was actually a vacant lot.
Essentially, the carrier acts as your agent when collecting the funds. It'd be the same as if someone walked up to the counter and passed you a bad cashier's check or counterfiet money.
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.
This wouldn't have been entrapment even had the police been the ones offering the item for sale on Ebay to begin with. All that happened was that an opportunity was created for him to use one of his counterfeit checks. Nobody even had to suggest to him that he illegally pay for the item with a counterfeit check, and even if somebody were to suggest it to him, including the police, it would not neccessarily be entrapment. (See the above link) He wasn't even approached asking to legally buy the item. He initiated the transaction himself in response to a publicly posted auction, which although admittedly posted as bait, was nothing even remotely resembling entrapment.
Shawn Asmussen
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?
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 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!
I thought COD meant cash on delivery?
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.
The United States Postal Service is not a governmental or federal organization, and they haven't been since July 1st, 1971. Prior to this date they were a government agency (known as The Post Office Department), but now they're an independent agency.
Operational authority of the USPS rests with a Board of Governors and Postal Service management, instead of Congress. The US President is responsible to appoint nine of those Governors. So, there are still ties to the US Government, but they're independent.
No one's gonna read this, but them's the facts. More information is available at http://www.usps.com/history/his3.htm. Enjoy.
Emmett Plant
Use Vorbis to listen to my music!
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.
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.
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]