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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."
"That night I dreamed of Mr. Christmas and a baseball bat, some duct tape, and roofing nails."
neurostarI 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
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
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.
...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.
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!
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.
What a fantastic idea. Instead of losing your money to scams, you can instead use it all buying GPS devices that you ship away and never get again.
I haven't heard such great idea since my meeting with accounting 10 minutes ago.
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.
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
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.
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
Surely you're not trying to say that 20% comes out to 1 in 7 as a fraction.
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.)
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
"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
... 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
" I know in my heart that Mr. Christmas is really a PC guy. "
that line from the article is a pretty big clue. And his other rantings about how stupid pc users are. This from a guy that sent a $2900 computer to someone. And HE is calling people stupid. Wow.
He needs to be hit with a Clue-by-Four.
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
You're one of those people who think the glass is half full, arn't you?
KFG
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
>go to great lengths to ensure that people don't steal them.
Fine, I'm with you, BUT this guy wasn't protective of his computer - he sent it to someone else! He was protective of his money.
OK, the Mac heads helped him out, Mac users are all one big team, wonderful. But some of the lines in the article puzzle me: "It's hard to sleep comfortably knowing some asshole has your Mac and is doing god knows what with it."
Was it easier for him to sleep when he thought the cashier's check was good?
Most crimes committed in the name of drugs are to keep profitable turf and eliminate competition. Make no mistake, drugs are illegal in this country because it keeps wallets fat. Think what the Mafia would be if we never had the 18th Amendment.
Do not touch -Willie
Does a future history teacher teach the present?
Jeremy
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
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.
Must be some new use of the word "safe" that I've not yet come across...
Matt
Better yet, why not just password-protect the bios? Once they pay you, tell them the password.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
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]
Depends on the laptop. IBM laptops are well-known for being notoriously hard to crack. The passwords are stored on a seperate flash RAM chip on the motherboard, which is backed by a CRC checksum. In addition, the password is replicated on the hard drive, and when the BIOS password is set the exact same password is set on the hard drive.
:)
If you simply wiped or tamped with the data on the chip, the CRC check would fail and the laptop would refuse to boot. Even if somebody managed to bypass the BIOS password by obtaining a "virgin" password chip (i.e. one that has no password set and a checksum to reflect that), they would still be unable to access the hard drive because they lack the password. If the hard drive was put into another computer, it would come up with a controller failure without the password.
Note that there is a way to circumvent this. You could buy a third party security chip (several companies sell them) and solder it in place of the original one. Then you simply toss out the original hard drive.
Apparantly a talented man from Australia has figured out exactly how the passwords are stored/encrypted on the chip and built a simple serial circuit and program combination to read it. The schematics and software are freely available on his website, and the idea is that you build the circuit, read the contents of the chip, send him the dump and pay him money to recover the password from inside the binary dump. This allows you to keep the hard drive.
Unfortunately, I don't have the URL of his website off-hand. If anybody has used his services, does it actually work?
- Ed.