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."

Comments

A smart mob / posse?

[certron]

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. :-)

I'm sorry - but he was an idiot in the first place

[Dark Paladin]

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!

The broken window theory

[Fished]

One of the things he mentions is tha tthe FBI and Secret Service were not interested in anything less than $5000. Chicago police just weren't interested... This brings up something called "the broken window theory." It goes like this: some socioligists whose names escape me observed that, as long as no window was broken in a building, they tended to stay unbroken. However, as soon as one was broken, if it was not repaired every window in the building would be broken in a couple of weeks.

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.

Re:The broken window theory

[psxndc]

This is also know as the tipping point. There is X point in a relationship where going just beyond that point causes a dramatic shift in that relationship. Example: Say crime in CityX is 5%. 6% is the tipping point such that if crime stays at 5% it will remain 5% indefinitely. By inching that percentage up 1% to 6% for some reason the reality is that crime will jump to say 12% the year after it hit 6%. It's just a weird phenomenom that has to do with people's perception of a reality becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. More info can be found here

psxndc

Mod Parent Up.

[Fished]

You know ... you've really got a point there. Maybe if we weren't putting all our law enforcement dollars into trivial, non-violent drug "crimes" (or would be non-violent if they weren't illegal) we would have time, money and energy to pursue things like theft, fraud, forgery, utterance, grand theft auto, etc.

Never thought I'd see an Insightful AC.

Re:Mod Parent Up.

[glesga_kiss]

And Budweiser wouldn't be to pleased with any legalisation. They are a primary contributor to Partnership for a Drug Free America.

Isn't it ironic, don't you think? ;-)

Reminds me of New York

[Dark Paladin]

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".

Re:Reminds me of New York

[lysurgon]

Actually the Guiliani directive to crack down on "quality of life" crime went way further back than jaywaliking. In fact the aggressive prosecution of jaywalkers (and the outlawying of dancing in unlicensed city bars and clubs) is really where he went over the line.

The basis of the quality of life program was to try to move in and bust kids writing graffitti, homeless people loitering and especially low-level drug dealers. Beat cops had previously been instructed to avoid drug deals for fear of corruption.

The numbers largely speak for themselves (though there's a strong case that improved economic conditions do as much to deter crime as incresed police presence), but because of endemic flaws in the police system (e.g. a certain amount of ingranced racism) the whole campaign caused a lot of acrimony.

People (more often than not minorities) were being stopped and shaken down for guns and drugs illegally, but since these shakedowns seemed effective, the department allowed it to go on. The high-profile beatings and killings of minorities around the city was causing a lot of civil unrest. Thankfully, since 9-11 the relationship between the police and the people of the city seems to be back on track. Too bad it took such a tragedy to set things right.

Repeat article, sort of?

[Greedo]

Sounds a lot like this guy's story.

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 /. back in January.

ebay's safeguards MY ARSE..

[matt_wilts]

Here's the response I got from Ebay when I thought I detected shill bidding:

To: Matt {matt_wilts}
Subject: Re: Possible shill bidding on auction 1235911285 (KMM28339167C0KM)
From: eBay UK Investigations {ukinvestigations@ebay.com}
Reply-To: eBay UK Investigations {ukinvestigations@ebay.com}

Hello Matt,

Thank you for writing to us.

I sincerely apologize for the delay of this e-mail and hope that it did not cause you any inconveniences!

I have investigated your report regarding {{ insert user id }}, and can understand how this would be troublesome.

Please be assured, if a violation of eBay policy has occurred, we will take the appropriate action in accordance with our site policies. Such action may include issuing a warning, temporary suspension, indefinite suspension or terminating the membership.

Due to eBay's Privacy policy we are unable to provide information regarding the details of another user's account. We are equally
concerned about violations on the site, and will thoroughly investigate each report we receive. However, the details of our actions cannot be
disclosed with third party members. Please remember that this is for the protection of all eBay users.

We appreciate your assistance in keeping eBay a fun and safe place to trade..

I hope you have a wonderful week!
Regards,
Darcy
eBay UK SafeHarbour
Investigations Team

Must be some new use of the word "safe" that I've not yet come across...

Matt