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Profile of an eBay Scammer
prostoalex writes "FastCompany is running an article about Jay Nelson, whose primary income source for about 5 years included selling goods on eBay. Considering that he chose to skip the delivery, the profit margins were at an all time high. Under the names of biggerthanu, harddrives4sale, diamondsoft, yoshiinc and susancutey Nelson would collect five-digit PayPal payments from the buyers on eBay and Yahoo Auctions."
I'm not saying this guy didn't steal a tremendous amount of money, but I'm shocked he was able to perpetuate such an series of thefts. Isn't this the purpose of the eBay rating systems, etc.?
"Stumble before you crawl"
law enforcement did what exactly?
If this guy had done the exact same thing for 10 billion dollars, lying about stocks on the exchange as he drove a company into the ground, he would be considered an investment guru would be free.
Let's see who damages the economy more:
Ken Lay, Robert Smith, Carl Icahn, Nassar, or this guy, and which of the above is going to jail?
This is my sig.
Considering all the horror stories I've read on paypalsucks.com, this story somehow isn't as shocking as it should be. How is it that people like this continue to operate, when legitimate merchants are getting screwed out of their cash?
He doesn't sound nearly as weird as the people who bought his used underwear and socks.
-Peter
What's really incredible is that this doesn't happen more often. How many times have I bought things on eBay from "New" mercants? (ie: merchants with no reputation score). Most frequently its for low-dollar items -- so its no big deal anyway. But for all I know its a scammer creating his latest false-ID.
I've yet to be ripped off though.
But even if all buyers diligently checked the reputation of their sellers, how easy is it to have multiple logins and create a "false reputation" for yourself as a seller?
I'm always amazed that eBay works as well as it does...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Over the past few months, I've been trying to clean out my Cupboard of Random Tech to sell some old mobile phones, a couple of laptops, and some miscellaneous techy things.
Usually I have to re-list an item 3 or 4 times before it sells, because people will bid, win, and then simply disappear off the face of the Earth.
Also, the number of e-mails I get asking if I can ship to some obscure country where credit card fraud is thriving is very high.
eBay needs to find some way of beating the scammers to survive.
Ebay should take the credit card number of any user that sell stuff on Ebay and if doesnt deliver the property then they should charge him and give a refund to the buyer.
Dont just mail it - Maileet
It pisses me off too because they know that for $20 or less its not worth my trouble to do anything. Plus they can send negative feedback regarding the transaction if I do the same. I know I've been burned and still ended up with negative feedback against myself as "retaliation." The Feedback system in ebay needs to seriously be reworked. As the article states the seller could buy a hundred stamps for a dollar and have a great rating and then just rip everyone off.
The only way that I can recommend giving yourself a little extra security is to Always pay for the damned insurance. At least then when they say its "lost in the mail" you can say "ok fill out the form and get the money back to me." Then you could take things further up the ladder if you don't get anywhere. I really think that most sellers know this and that is why they use non insured auctions as a way to take extra money.
After watching eBay auctions for a while, I notice that a lot of sellers just plain flat out refuse to ship outside the U.S. Some of them add comments that they do this because of credit card fraud.
SCO to Hell
If they treat law enforcement as a "customer", then law inforcement must have a lot of unreturned emails and automated replies.
I challenge anyone to find a conspicous mention anywhere on the EBay site where you can phone and talk to someone about someone defrauding you money.
I've lost over $200 on EBay and have all the evidence in the world but EBay will not do anything about it or even acknowledge the problem by sending a human-generated response.
Well I'm in the UK, and I do exactly the same. Despite saying in big red letters on my auctions that I will not ship outside the UK, I still get some e-mails, some clearly automated, whether I will ship to fraud-land.
I bought a few DIMMs for one of my SparcStations. A week or so passed with no items. I contacted the seller and he gave me the date that the item was shipped. A few days later I got a sticker on the door saying my item was at the post office. I went there and they said someone filled out the wrong form. They meant to send me a form saying my item could not be located. I went back and forth with the seller with him supposedly going to his post office and complaining. Still not knowing if it was ever going to come. About 2 months later the packaged arrived with the original shipping postmark. Pretty good for "Priority" mail.
Also, the number of e-mails I get asking if I can ship to some obscure country where credit card fraud is thriving is very high.
I heard about someone who counter scammed. He accepted their cheque. Delayed for a while, asked for an extra fee for some made up reason via Western Union, and after the cheque failed to clear, refused shipment until the scammer sent the money.
I like how the Postal inspector (Higgins) is trying to make this out into an epic battle between a criminal mastermind, and himself, a master-sleuth.
Higgins had been on eBay once or twice, but he'd never bought or sold anything on the site. Working the Nelson case was "a fast learning process," he says. "It was like skipping 101 and going right to the master class."
The perps ID lead straight to his home address. No PO box, no nothing.
This is an example of how long some dumb punk can get away with a pretty simple fraud, not an example of investigatory brilliance. Hell, the guy had already been visited once before by a postal inspector.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Hah! Ebay is THRIVING in the current atmosphere... IF they could find a way to beat the scammers, they would just EXPLODE... I bought EBAY stock at $55 against my better judgement a year or so ago..(their p/e was too high for my comfort) and lookie! its over $100 now. I just can't imagine if they could get rid of that albatross of fraud, then they would be bigger than MS.
Chuck
When he applied for a job as a Lotus Notes administrator at Caterpillar, for example, Nelson said that he had a degree in criminal justice and that he was familiar with Notes. "I got a copy of Lotus Notes for Dummies and learned enough of the buzzwords," he says. After three rounds of interviews, "they hired me on the spot," Nelson says. "I'd never even turned on the program." But he was a quick study, and he says that he was soon competent at creating and maintaining Notes databases.
We have a society where people want to do the least amount of work, if any, to get the reward. And when they fail, they blame society and find ways to steal. Perhaps if people felt a sense of responsibility for what they do, we would not have these problems.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Lol! With this algorithm, you'll NEVER get to step 6, so you'll never get profit.
Which sucks.
Pfft
Those idiots spam, spam, spam, and continue to fill the newsgroups with their sales and shit, even coming to harass people with curses and blasphemy. I wonder HOW Usenet in Italy is still widely used with all that shit pestering it.
Luckily the Guardia di Finanza (Fiscal Police) regularly does a full clean sweep of morons selling on the newsgroups AND THEIR FUCKING 14yr old buyers (and supporters), like they have done with famous spammers (and scammers) Claudio Gaudino (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=author%3Aclaudi o_gaudino%40hotmail.com also known as "I would like to be like Goatseman") and Streetguy (http://groups.google.com/groups?author%3Astreetgu y+group%3Ait.comp.giochi.*)
You are so unfortunate not to be able to read Italian... otherwise I would suggest you to read this site:
http://www.bynoi.com/
http://www.bynoi.com/gaudino.html
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
So SCO can sell Unixware on eBay and not get prosecuted fro not delivery working goods?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
One of the reasons Joe and people like him get away with this is that eBay doesn't care. They make it practically impossible to turn someone like him in to the "authorities". They know this is going on and turn a blind eye to the problem.
If you get ripped off after an eBay auction there is a "system" called "Safe Harbour" you can go through to handle the situation. The dirty little reality is that its fairly difficult to deal with and is really designed to protect eBay from any liability while not adding to their workload in any way. There are time limits that get imposed on you in all sorts of ways and there is no human being to help you through the process. In short, it is more "apparent" than "real".
Re: the feedback system. Again, its set up for eBay's benefit. There are limitations on the number of letters you can use in your feedback and you won't know if or when a seller responds to your complains. It requires that you constantly check back and counter any statements such as "it has been shipped - let me know if you have problems". Unless the buyer cares to continue to fight a war over the theft forever sooner or later whatever they say will be countered. And, remember that no person at eBay will ever bother to monitor a seller's feedback so even if you get lots of negative feedback there isn't any cost save a few buyers that might stay away. This of course is easily handled by "selling" great stuff cheap. Since you won't ever ship it anyway this isn't a problem.
Finally, even if a seller builds up a bad "feedback record" this isn't much of a problem. He/she can just change their name and start all over again. eBay doesn't care.
Frankly, my guess is that you can steal lots of money from people on eBay as long as you do it in small increments. The story only talks about the most blatant form of theft at eBay. What about those who knowingly ship defective merchandise and say its good? This happens a lot on eBay. Most people just can't spend the time to jump through the "hoops" eBay has set up to get money after it is stolen. And, the nasty fact is - even is you spend time on the "process" you may never see a cent of it!
Remember, it is the seller who pays eBay so their customer isn't the buyer - its the seller! eBay gets its cut each time so as long as it doesn't hit the press and hurt sales it ain't their problem. eBay survives because most sellers are honest. If/when that changes it will be interesting to see what they do!
All other links on the page go to the valid eBay "help" and "contacts" pages. It looks really official, except for the non-professional grammar.
I wonder how many people fall for this type of scam every day?
It wasn't even sent to the special email address that I use exclusively for my eBay account (my first clue, woohoo!).
And yes, I've already reported it to eBay...
Wot sez we demonstrate the SlashDot Effect(TM) for the thieving bastard?
Here ya go:
http://cgi1.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayISAPI.dll?UPdate
You can't take the sky from me!
eBay needs to find some way of beating the scammers to survive.
EBay already has a system. Don't sell internationally, and use ONLY USPS money orders. That way, if you have a problem, you have a real address to go off of, though this still may not be much help.
The point is, Ebay has figured out a way to make zillions while steering all possible risk to the consumer. This is genius. Unlike any other business I can think of. Sure, shopping on Ebay has changed - you can't move an inch without being cautioned to Know Your Seller and similar worthless crap.
It's gotten even more specific: don't buy from sellers who demand wire payment. Who refuse escrow. And above all, rest assured, your purchases are protected up to a big fat $200. I have this incredible idea - but no one at Ebay seems interested. How about, don't give sellers the option in the first place to list high-ticket items without escrow service? How about that? And "Feedback?" Clap your hands three times if you believe in Feedback. I figured it out. Ebay uses their customers for friggin' scam triage. I came across new Powerbooks at absurd prices, sent inquiries - and heard from five different guys. In Spain. At the same address. Special deal. Wire money first, please. Emailed Ebay - next morning, all gone. Fine - but try finding the form to email Ebay. The least, the very, very least they could do is a small "report suspect listings" button. A "community." "Built on trust." Sure, Meg. Need another wheelbarrow? or does the bank come to you.
One day at Disney World, Nelson met a Disney employee. She eventually moved into his motel room. He told her that his wife had been killed in a car accident and that he was a special agent with the Department of Justice. Nelson said that because of the types of cases he was working on, the agency had had to move him out of New Hampshire for his own safety -- and that she shouldn't tell anyone that they were living together.
He got that from True Lies, huh?
The post is right. This is the face of "capitalism." You need to remember, the word "capitalism" was pretty much defined by the enemies of the free market. The ideologues who defined the term use to describe every excess of the free market. I've been trying to figure out who coined the term capitalism. But it is basically Marx and Weber who turned it into the modern understanding of the term.
The really sad thing is that in trying to defend ourselves against communism, we end up trying to support the excesses of the free market.
Defining the terms of the debate is one of the skills of dialectical materialism. When you define the terms you can make freedom slavery and slavery freedom.
oh yea.. ebay's doing a terrific job at stopping fraud. ha! Check out my web page I errected about fraud that happened to me. Did ebay seller protection help?.. no because I recieved an item,... no matter that it didn't work at was fraudulent and was in some sort of house fire!
http://bubonick.teknikill.net/tivofraud/
reply to this.
great article, nicely written, very informative, will read again!!!! A++++++++++++++
This is actually a good question masquerading as an extremely stupid one. Here's the answer:
A transaction involves 2 people, a buyer and a seller. The seller sells the item, the buyer buys it.
After the transaction, both the buyer and seller are better off than they were prior to the transaction. How do we know this? Because the transaction was mutually voluntary. If the seller was going to be worse off after the transaction, he would not have sold the item. If the buyer was going to be worse off, he would not have bought the item.
The buyer's life has been improved. That morally justifies the seller's actions, including the profit. The seller did a good thing for the buyer, evidenced by the improvement in the buyer's situation. Your question is answered.
Now here's a question for you: What morally justifies the actions of the buyer?
Answer: The seller's profit justifies the actions of the buyer. The buyer made the seller better off by the amount of the profit. The buyer did a good thing for the seller, evidenced by the improvement in the seller's situation.
This system of free, voluntary transactions that benefit both buyer and seller has become known as capitalism.
In 97 or so, there was a scammer on EBay who was fleecing the Japanese sword collector community. He knew something about swords, and had done some real deals, but then started ripping people off - both not sending things and cashing money orders (this was before paypal/etc), and offering to repair/polish blades, taking the swords, and not sending them back. He was in the midwest at the time. People started to figure it out, and got together. He made the big mistake of ripping off a Deputy elsewhere in the midwest as well.
He switched screen names and moved out of the town he lived in. He started scamming again under the new name, and I both identified him by his use of his real name to sign an email, and I proved he was using an image from someone else's website as the sword he was selling. We arranged for one of us (using a new screenname) to be the high bidder (the Deputy from KS). This gave us an address (Mailboxes/etc I think) in the northwest. He was arrested and forced to return about a dozen swords (and money I think), and I think was given a suspended sentence. He'd probably scammed on the order of $20-40K or more; one of the bigger ones at the time.
Note: while I helped track him down, I was lucky and wasn't taken by him, so after he was caught I only heard a few random details.
I was selling a video card for a friend on eBay, and someone writes me from Spain, saying she's starting a computer shop in Amsterdam or something and needs parts. She was completely insane, but I just chalked it up to the language barrier. I cancelled the auction so I could send her the card immediately and waited for her to transfer money to my PayPal account. I wasn't really concerned because I figured since I got the money first, what did I have to lose?
A lot, it turns out. So she finally transfers me the money, I transfer the money to my bank account, and I go right down to FedEx and send the card 2-day. When I get back home, I have an email from PayPal telling me that the person who sent me the money had their account hijacked and PayPal had taken the money back. This, I suppose, was fine. I couldn't argue because I had agreed to their terms. I was a little pissed because I wasn't the idiot who had their account hijacked, but such is life.
So I immediately called FedEx and had them stop the shipment, but it was already over the Atlantic, so they couldn't stop it until it got to Spain. This caused me to have to pay for it to be shipped back, effectively doubling my shipping costs. Not cheap...this was 2-day to Spain.
I was further irked by PayPal's bad programming. Instead of intercepting and canceling my bank transfer, they just deducted the money from my PayPal account, so now I was in the negative, and had to wait for the transfer to go through, and then transfer the money back. Annoying, but at least it was free.
So what about PayPal's protection policy? Doesn't apply to international orders. Also, you have to ship to the person's registered address. Not sure I know how to even look that up.
Oh, also, I checked the eBay ID of the person, and that was a hijacked account, too. The person sold a lot of "exotic" drinking glasses and had a high feedback rating. Obviously, not someone in the computer fraud business.
Anyway, the point of my story was that you have to be careful even if you're the seller. Only ship to registered PayPal addresses and check what sort of stuff a person is selling on eBay. I recently saw someone selling a really cheap Powerbook, but all their previous items were dolls, or something. Definitely something fishy there.
is apparently missing the single biggest change ebay made to prevent people like this guy from building up positive feedback:
they separated buying feedback from selling feedback. now to get +50 selling, you actually have to sell 50 items, not just buy a bunch of paperbacks and give a false address.
of course you can still get positive feedback selling cheap items but it'll take you a few days now instead of a few hours.
could ebay do more? probably. but at least they're not missing the obvious.
Nelson earns 17 cents an hour working on construction projects inside the medium-security federal prison at Otisville, New York. ... He is pursuing a degree in business administration by taking courses offered at the prison.
I see...
Nothing is so smiple that it can't get screwed up.
I got scammed out of $1,500 on ebay a couple months ago... I researched a bit on what my options where and filed complaints to paypal and ebay. Paypal found the seller guilty and was able to get me back a total of *50* dollars out of the $1,500.
:
It's amazing how difficult it is to get anything done about online fraud.
Anyways, in doing research, here is a very helpful site I found : http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/!turk
and don't ever order from these companies
http://www.factory101.com/
http://www.my1stop2gaming.com/
http://www.masonavenue.com/
I for one welcome our new derivative overlords.
Good read. It's a bit scary, ANYONE can pull a scam like this. I thought I'd check to see if his feedback was still up... indeed it is, feedback ;[
Notice he has 2 1/2 pages of good feedback spanning over a few months... Then he goes in for the "Attack" all at once... ALL the bad feedback comes in a two day period. Those bidders thought they had a real seller I'd assume... There's no real way to protect yourself sadly
_________ Help me get a PSP!
- Have a special "verified id" program.
- Make feedback based on the cash amount of the transaction.
This would make it so that a buyer or seller would know there is a real person or business behind the transaction. Further, it would make it quite expensive to fake a good feedback rating because of the fees he'd have to pay to ebay. This would be a lot better for all involved, rather than ebay and legitimate users arguing over who should pay for the fraudsters abusing the system.In my experience as a long time sellar on eBay, since 1996, there are certain categories which attract "scum." Computer hardware/software, video games, jewelry/watches, toys (especially Transformers) and worst of all consumer electronics.
When I do get a non-paying bidder, I follow the eBay guidelines, eventually get a refund on my fees and relist the item. I require the buyer pay postal insurance on all items over $ 20 to guard against the "item never arrived" excuse.
As I see it eBay has no incentive for guarding against non-paying bidder fraud. Most sellers won't complain so eBay makes double when the item is relisted.
Okay, I buy computer parts and electronics and such on ebay from time to time. Generally $20-$200 items. It's usually a good deal. I've never had a bad experience, though I've passed up many a good deal from a seller with insufficient feedback.
This is what I do:
(1) check out seller's feedback, make sure they've sold similar things before. If they have less than ~50 positive feedback and any legit negative feedback, I don't bid.
(2) ask seller a question about the item, something so they'll have to put a minute or two of thought into it and actually LOOK at the item.
(3) if they respond in a timely manner, I can be fairly sure they actually have the item.
(4) go ahead and make a SINGLE BID for the item
My bicyles
One scam I've noticed on the real low-priced vendors selling IDE hard drives via Pricewatch is selling either OEM drives, intended only for use as part of a name-brand PC, or selling the drives received as RMA replacements from defective drives.
Many people don't realize it, but whenever you send off a hard drive that's under warranty for RMA replacement, your replacement drive you get back is only warrantied for the remainder of the warranty the original unit had. Some vendors will sell these replacements as new stock, yet their factory warranty may only be 4 or 5 months long!
They also try selling the drives originally destined for OEM system builds as though they're normal drives for end-users. I got burned on a Western Digital 100GB 8MB cache drive like this not long ago. It worked for a few months and started developing bad sectors. I figured "No problem. I'll RMA it to Western Digital." When I keyed in the drive's serial number, it rejected it as an OEM drive I couldn't directly exchange. (I would have to go through the OEM vendor who sold me my system, it said.)
Isn't this the purpose of the eBay rating systems, etc.?
...Oh yeah, please mod this up so that I get away with posting my rant on homosexual nazi liberals in the next post.
Well, Slashdot's system gives good ratings to the majority of the people with something interesting to say. And you can just set your system up to block off most of the AC's. But then there's the few devoted trolls who sign up for 12 different accounts, jack them up to excellent karma, and then go posting goatsex links on every post they can until someone cuts them off. It doesn't happen often, but...
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Yeah, I know, that's what banks do on credit card transactions. Because Federal law says they have to. But before you decide that the law should cover Paypal too, consider how much banks charge for credit card transactions. Plus they rake in huge amounts from interest and client fees. If they didn't have these huge income streams, they couldn't afford to obey the federal law -- and credit cards would be a lot harder to get.
Which wouldn't be a bad thing, come to think of it.
I find this quote from the article very telling:
That neatly expresses the it's-somebody-else's-problem attitude of modern consumers. If the cost of something isn't something that directly and conspicuously affects them, then the cost doesn't exist. Sorry, a market economy doesn't work that way.When I do get a non-paying bidder, I follow the eBay guidelines, eventually get a refund on my fees and relist the item
One thing that annoys me is even when you get a non-paying bidder, and go through the process of filing a non-paying bidder report (find the obscure link, submit the warning, wait 10 days, file the request for final value fees) is you only get final value fees. So you lose the initial listing fees - which can be a decent chunk if you started the auction at a high price, listed in 2 catagories, or sprung for those extras (bold, gallery, extra pictures, ect). It would be nice if you at least got part of your listing fees back when someone doesn't pay through no fault of your own.
I don't have huge amount of non-payers, but I probably have one in every 10-20 who doesn't pay. I really don't get it, especially since most of the stuff I sell is low-value
I have blog like everyone else
There is nothing on ebay that protects the consumers. Ebay only knows how to make more money. For example, recently I won a bid and I later found out that the seller makes shill bidding. It was so easy to spot the shill bidding that I was totally suprised why ebay couldn't find it yet or that another user didn't catch the man yet. Later on I found that the same user was using a different name before. If you complain about the shill bidding, ebay doesn't compensate you. There is nothing you gain by complaining. You always lose on ebay. People list their items without guarantee and they say that you have to agree to the rules which is that they can sell you any item they want. Beware of ebay.
(1) Never ship anything until you receive payment in full.
(2) Never pay for anything until the shipment arrives in good condition.
Voila, problem solved.
-- thinkyhead software and media
a Dungeons and Dragons character...
... about $4,000 in gold and platinum coins."
"He was traveling with
When stopped by the Feds did he warn them to back off he's a 7th level rogue with a +5 short sword of slaying?
from the article"One day at Disney World, Nelson met a Disney employee. She eventually moved into his motel room. He told her that his wife had been killed in a car accident and that he was a special agent with the Department of Justice. Nelson said that because of the types of cases he was working on, the agency had had to move him out of New Hampshire for his own safety -- and that she shouldn't tell anyone that they were living together."
Talk about a stupid woman. This is one of the oldest in the book.
I do this for a living.
From the day I got my Private Investigations license, I have been selling my services to trace and locate people that have fradulently profited using online auctions.
It happens so often, that I have steady work because of it!
Yeah, I thought only Japanese schoolgirls could sell those...
More fun: google for sorc3r3r. First few links are for someone who registered with a number of dating services in New Zealand. Next you have some IRC activity in Romanian. Then you have some caches of rooted web pages, and sorc3r3r gets a shoutout along with a bunch of other Romanian nicknames (mafiotu (mafia man), dulcica (sweet girl), beculetz (light bulb)).
The most interesting link:
here
This is google's cache of a Romanian web server's stats page. Note that sorc3r3r.org accessed this page, but the DNS entry was a different IP at the time (traceroutes to Australia or New Zealand). This ties together the sorc3r3r.org domain name with New Zealand and Romanian, so it corroborates the rest of the links.
So we have our man. A lonely Romanian in New Zealand who I'm guessing runs Windows XP and plays Counter-Strike. He's also interested in script kiddie games on IRC, so the spammer email trick may just work if you're clever with the subject line (to trigger a preview). (Look up some Romanian greetings, that should do the trick :).
For the curious: yes, I'm Romanian (that's how I can read the IRC logs and whatnot). And no, we aren't all little script kiddies, although that's what it looks like if you're ever on IRC (so I have no sympathy for this guy - when I tell fellow network security guys about my origins, the first thing that pops into their heads is the IRC nonsense).
Have fun. Don't steal. Keep off IRC.
i've been screwed via ebay/paypal... and going through the process and finding out what they don't protect you fro is a great way to learn how to scam people..... for example.... as long as you received *something* paypal doesn't care.... i didn't get what i bid on, and they basicallt told me "tough luck" and if the sale is under like, $30 per item..... ebay won't do anything.... don't worry, armed with this info i plan to spread the love... i have some crap layin around here i can sell... and paypal and ebay can help me get back the money i was screwed out of..... thanks for the tips paypal!
hold on a sec... this guy reached the 10 most wanted on the US post... and his earnings were only 5 digits??? this sounds like one of those cases that the media highlights the capture of a small fish, while leaving the big fish in the shadows... of-course, untouched. Something here is definately wrong...
I don't worry about the seller's rating - sometimes you can get something you want from a first-time seller.
However, I only buy from people
At least then I know I have a good chance of being able to show up at their doorstep and kneecap them if they rip me off.