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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
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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]