Slashdot Mirror
P-P-P-PowerBook for a S-S-S-Scammer...
kormoc writes "It all started with a ebay auction when the seller got a email from a dude who wanted to scam him. It was a normal setup and it went horribly wrong... for the scammer. This has turned from a awful plight for a ebay user to a wonderful prank on the scammer. Throw in some crazy brits with digicams and you have the making of a great story.
Mirror
Mirror"
That should get the coffee out your nostrils on a fine sunday morning. Note that you have to download the PDF to read the story.
I loved the photos. This seemed like a big production. Any idea of the status of the "buyer" now?
Edmund White
http://flickr.com/ewwhite
I've often thought of doing something similar, but....
Even if they are being scammed, aren't this person and his/her accomplices committing mail/wire fraud?
I just wouldn't want to be on the other end if the scammer tried to fight back.
Scott
Oh yea, Fark had it yesterday...
"Man sells PowerBook on Ebay, gets fraudulent offer, sends scammer p-p-p-powerbook instead"
in soviet eBay, YOU scam the scammer!
This originally started off as a "I think this guy is trying to rip of me off" post on the SA forums. Through the magic of peer pressure and paypal, it blossomed into this wonderful production.
The thread is now in the Comedy Goldmine here and has over 3200 replies and 3/4ths of a million page views.
Here is a direct link to a cached .pdf, looks like their server (and mirrors) are already going down.
This originated at the Somethingawful forums; we followed the thread day-by-day as the events unfolded.
d .php?s= &threadid=1016390
You can find the original thread here:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthrea
Thanks to MyNameIsJeff and the SA forum community for a good laugh.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Just start about halfway through the original thread and you'll get the minute-by-minute updates as they await for delivery. Pretty funny.
= &threadid=1016390&perpage=40&pagenumber=69
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s
It all started with a ebay auction when the seller got a email from a dude who wanted to scam him. It was a normal setup and it went horribly wrong... for the scammer. This has turned from a awful plight for a ebay user to a wonderful prank on the scammer. Throw in some crazy brits with digicams and you have the making of a great story.
Or were you looking for a *longer* summary?
I hoep you got ten bux
I thought powerbooks only had one mouse button, they have two!
You didn't read the article. The sender is only scamming the buyer after he found out that the buyer was using a fraudulant escrow service, to scam him.
Scammer attempts escrow fraud for a notebook computer. Computer seller sends fake computer to scammer who believes the scam is working, pays 27.5% tax on the "computer's" value of $2000, and presumably discovers he has just been owned.
(Scammer will get the last laugh as seller will soon be going to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for mail fraud.)
Having read it all, here I go with a summary:
A guy was selling an Apple Laptop and a scammer offered to buy it. The scam was revealed when the scammer tried to do the payment through a fake escrow site. The seller then shipped the "laptop" in the pictures along with some heavy books so the package would feel like the real deal.
The seller then got donations via paypal to pay the $180 for shipment. The really funny part is that he had to give a value of the package and he said $2000. The scammer then had to pay a tax of the package value to actually recieve the package.
It wasn't all that easy. It almost didn't happend but FedEx trace-system confirms that the scammer actually paid customs to get the package released...that's how it ends! Read the entire story - it's funny!
You know it's coming: Scammer auctions P-P-P-Powerbook on eBay to cover cost of customs duty.
This story is getting popular enough that it just might work.
I've read the pdf and I still don't quite get it all. What did the professor in Indiana have to do with anything? Was his site merely hacked, or was he in cahoots with the scammer?
That's the only part of the story that's a bit of a shame - after all that work, it woulda been nice to have some pics of the fraudster received the p-p-powerbook, not that they necessarily would have opened it on the spot. Oh well. Still, they did succeed in a bit of financial punishment to the scammer with the 27% import duty.
Wow, talk about support from the community. Even though this may be teasing legal bounds, I say the guy gets what he deserves! I can't wait to see if this guy gives a reply. The guy should send the pdf to him, just to rub it in his face :)
Read the MOTHERFUCKING FIRST LINE OF THE ARTICLE YOU STUPID FUCK. Jesus, every day people get dumber. What next, people posting about how it's a disgrace the pope isn't catholic?
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
Do the mail fraud laws apply to FedEx and other non-USPS carriers? I thought, by definition, only the USPS could be used for delivering mail. FedEx and UPS are not allowed to carrier common postal correspondance, only parcels and time sensative documents.
the tax the scammer had to pay was in the neighborhood of $500+
Brilliant... way to stick a thumb in the scammer's eye!
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Is it legal to do this even though he "knew" this was a scam?
The scammer committed fraud first; and thus the original contract regarding the sale of the powerbook was void at that point. Anything that happened after that isn't really fraud anymore, at least with respect to the sale of the powerbook.
Think of it like selling a car, if the guy doesn't give you any money, or attempts to defraud you through non-payment; and you deliver a different product, there is no fraud on your part.
What?
Smells like... irony!
Is there anything in life so sweet as turning the tables on some shitsack who's trying to scam you? If there is, I've never heard of it.
How horrible of them to trick a thief trying to steal $2,000 from them into paying $600 in taxes.
In most societies, if you do something bad, you get punished for it. The only difference here is the state isn't handing out the punishments.
And if push came to shove, I'm sure the scammer would rather be screwed out of a few hundred bucks in taxes than sent to prison.
If anything, he got off lucky. Imagine if that guy got scammed and filed a report to the FBI.
With the mirror links posted on the front page the original site is quite responsive while the mirrors are being ./ed to oblivion!
I stole this Sig
You know, I'm all for this but some points have to be brought up:
Potentially the recipient could file a fraud charge against the seller AND against FedEx.
Take this example into mind:
When on the playground as a child if you were hit and DID NOT hit back - you were safe. But if you hit back, even if in self defense, both of you went to the office.
I would also like to point out that this seller defrauded Paypal, Fedex, eBay, the scammer and it just (in my opinion) tells scammers what mistakes to avoid in future, more sphisticated scams.
Lastly, I'd like to say - as I am an Apple parts dealer on eBay - selling or buying a PowerBook on eBay or Yahoo auctions is the riskiest thing you could POSSIBLY do. If you even bid in ANY POWERBOOK auction or SELL ANY PowerBook (newer than 3 years) you are deluged with offers from Romania (usually) for $800 PowerBook G4 17". What's funny, is that some even offer AppleCare.
The story was interesting and entertaining - but the outlets to properly "report a crime" are readily available and much less costly.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
As the video clip of the kid getting his rear bumper pulled off in the snow said...
"Damn."
That's all.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
:gb2gbs:
Mirrored here:
www.mrbumper.com
You know that tl;dr is bannable, right?
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
OS X would work just as good on this box as the real thing...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Ahhh ... the obligatory "where's the torrent?" post. I am waiting for the "the damn site is slashdotted" post.
Except that there's not law in either the UK or USA that says you have to send a REAL powerbook to someone who DIDN'T pay you for it. He pretends to pay, you pretend to send him a real computer.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
haha
Personally, I think it's pretty horrible to defraud someone in this manner. While I'm sure this guy in the UK is not totally without blame...
Not totally without blame? Are you in politics? Maybe Rumsfeld could use someone of your talents.
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
The best scammer-scam I've ever seen is the infamous The Holy Church of Fish Bread & Wine. If you haven't seen that one, be sure to check it out.
I can't help but feel that the scammer is getting his just desserts. On the other hand, I believe it's worth taking note of what this activity really is: vigilante scamming, also known as taking the law into your own hands.
If going outside the legal system to fight back is OK in this situation, where else is it OK to do this? One wonders how steep this particular slippery slope is.
It's not fraud since he's not claiming insurance or anything like that on it. It's a work of art, so who can judge whether or not it's really worth 2 grand? I'm sure there are some among us goons that would pay close to that for it. Also I highly doubt the British government is gonna complain about getting a couple hundred bucks in extra taxes.
...while things like this can be humourous, chances are that the scammer *really* used a stolen credit card to make the payments. While this guy is having fun jerking a scammer around, and Slashdot readers are getting a big kick out of it, someone else is having a really crappy Sunday morning wondering wy their credit card bill is suddenly $2400 higher.
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
I highly doubt our scammer paid his own money for the customs duty. Despite absolutely retarded scam techniques, he did use a buggered box and failed to reveal himself at each step. My instincts tell me he paid the tax with a stolen credit card probably.
So he got made the fool and wasted some of his time. Unless he gets caught and charged with various fradulencies he's just going to do it again to someone less astute.
Here is a HTML version of the PDF file... http://www.mannequin3d.com/powerbook/
http://seanism.com/
I would also like to point out that this seller defrauded Paypal, Fedex, eBay, the scammer
Paypal was not involved.
Fedex, per the legal definition of fraud (in which financial gain or advantage is given through use of deception), was not defrauded.
eBay emailed the seller to say the transaction was void due to the stolen account.
and it just (in my opinion) tells scammers what mistakes to avoid in future, more sphisticated scams.
Right, security through obscurity, that always works...
It should also be mentioned that ebay was prodded into investigating the account of the top bidder and found that it was the same guy - and that he had hacked the account (the real owner was innocent).
So this guy was into all sorts of trouble.
Pics of the shop (scroll down, shitty forum...)
Ok, ok, you're all right, he's probably not going to prison. But it would be ironic if he did. I'm sure some lawyer could find some law he was violating. =P
I would also like to point out that this seller defrauded Paypal, Fedex, eBay, the scammer and it just (in my opinion) tells scammers what mistakes to avoid in future, more sphisticated scams.
WTF are you talking about? I read the story, so please tell me:
How did he defraud Paypal? He asked people to contribute a buck via Paypal to help cover the costs of shipping this item overseas. They knew exactly what it was for and chose to contribute of their own free will. There was no trickery involved. The auction payment never went to Paypal, it went to a phony escrow service, i.e. there never was a payment.
How did he defraud FedEx? They were paid for their services.
How did he defraud eBay? They got their listing fee and final value fee on the auction. It doesn't look like he has relisted the PowerBook for sale, so he does not meet the requirements to have the final value fee refunded due to a non-paying bidder.
Finally, who cares if the intended victim screwed the scammer? What's the shithead going to do, press charges? I'd like to hear that phone call to the police: "Hey, I was trying to defraud this guy out of his $2000+ PowerBook and he sniffed out the scam, turned it around, and made me pay $X in taxes on a 3-ring binder-- now will someone please prosecute him?"
This is not a very sophisticated scam if it can be put together by someone with such a poor grasp of English. The problem is not sophisticated scammers-- it's unsophisticated and/or just plain greedy scammees. I have sold quite a few laptops on eBay, and there are always idiots who try to get me to fall for stuff. Ain't gonna happen, because I will not ship overseas for any amount of money-- especially to the practically-lawless, armpit countries these scammers usually reside in (the scammer in this story was an exception). They also never want to do things the way I specify they will be done in my auction listings, which is something else that should set off alarm bells in the mind of any intelligent person. They always want to pay via escrow, or have me end the auction early and offer me some absurd amount of money to do it. I don't.
The moral of the story is, don't be stupid and greedy and you won't get scammed. The guy who pranked this scammer wasn't, and didn't.
~Philly
That's the reaction you sought by posting this, right?
You get a gold star.
who's the scammer and who's the victim?
5555 golden manbabies
the fake ist just little too obvious. it has two mouse buttons!
nice big shot of the barber shop
:-)
lil' movie of the street
movie of the package delivery
possible pic of the scammer
Great media coverage... beats CNN
Personally, I think it's pretty horrible to defraud someone in this manner. While I'm sure this guy in the UK is not totally without blame, it seems pretty goddamn stupid to send someone a fraudulent package with a ring binder instead of a laptop and make them pay ~$300 in VAT
It's called street justice, my friend.
This guy wouldn't have gotten nailed for $300 if he hadn't tried to rob someone in the first place.
And as for the publicity, good. Maybe it'll stop the next guy from trying.
I always view calling a policeman or getting the law involved to be a last resort. If you can solve your problems on your own, more power to you. Here, we have crime, and we have just punishment. Bravo, guys.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
On one of the upper lines, it says "UFAG", and on the lower one, it says "LOL".
Nice touch
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s= &postid=287035010#post287035010
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
After the first page I thought this was going to be a huge waste of my time, but by the time I got to the 4th page I couldn't stop reading. This was a perfect way to strike back at a scammer.
I'm going to bookmark this site so I can follow up on this later.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
That's the biggest scam ever! ROFL!!!
Powerbooks are silver and stuff and that thing is white!!!!!!!
WTF!! It's like an ibook or something instead!!!!!! That england guy got totally ripped off paying for a Powerbook and getting an I book!!!!!
(sorry, I don't necessarily do humour like that very well... )
What the hell is wrong with plain HTML!? It'd save on bandwidth, and this thing is just text!
What gives, mac users? Please!
those somethingawful forum goons are the funniest people on earth
That's not a real Powerbook, they only have one mouse button!
Dude, where's all the obvious jokes?
"I'm going down to Office Depot and buying a Beowulf!"
"Yeah, but does it run Linux?"
My take on it: wait till that poor barber in England finds out that he just bought a USA p-p-p-owerbook, and all his metric A4 paper isn't going to work in it!
The keyboard's re-arrangement including: UFAG and LOL ... great stuff ...
[Registration required but fear not for your data, they're good guys!]
= &t hreadid=275779
:)
http://thedvdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s
Similar story involving a P900 phone and a package including tissue paper, dirt and some old French Fries.
The keyboard's re-arrangement including:
UFAG
and
LOL
... great stuff ... thanks for the laughs...
It does not matter whether payment has been made or not prior to delivery. The delivery of the object of the contract is the most important aspect this. So what really happened here in legal terms is failure to deliver the object of the contract to the buyer. It is clearly intentional fraud.
So in terms of law the delivery of an object comes first and payment second. The scammer in this case has no obligation to pay for the powerbook because he did not get one. The scammer could have a case to get back the fees he had to pay.
A right course of action would have been to contact the anti-fraud authorities both in the US and UK so they could have picked the guy up. But now the scammer might be a few bucks short of money, but he'll have a chance to make up for it at the expense of his next victim.
The really sad part of this is that some scammer now has a really excellent work of art. It will probably sell for several million pounds in a couple hundred years. That would be about the price of a cup of coffee.
That bluetooth mouse just cracks me up!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If you think Fark got it first, you live in a very small world.
Hello, We have a genuine time machine for sale. Willing to deliver anywhere and anytime in the past two years.
This product is also covered by our unique returns policy. If you are in any way dissatisfied with this product, you may return it any-time one day prior to purchase for a full refund.
I posted this story to my blog yesterday and copied the pdf and the images there. The last time I checked the site was down.
http://blog.zorka.com for the pdf and images.
"With enough memory and hard drive space, anything in life is possible!"
So, there goes that silly export fraud claim..
Three-ring binder: $2.50
Black Magic Marker: $1.95
Express shipping to England: $80
Look on scammer's face as he opens his "Powerbook with 'Fire Wire!' and 'blue-tooth mouse'"...
(well, we don't know since that moment wasn't captured on camera)
Whether or not the transaction was on or off eBay - he DID list an actual PowerBook - but shipped a "scammer's mockup"
Which was not BOUGHT through eBay. Remember the part about avoiding fees?
He did put ON THE FEDEX slip that it was a PowerBook and insured it FALSELY for $2200. The recipient could have claim potential (regardless of the fake escrow service)
That was the sketchy part, but why would the seller do that, and release his own address and contact details? Won't happen. How does that gurt FedEx? It does not.
He did use Paypal to collect funds to "scam the scammer" - I believe Paypal would not look favorably on this.
He collected funds to ship a real box!! PayPal doesn't care what you collect money for, but there's nothing even questionable about this!
His BEST option was to simply not ship the item if the buyer didn't use the services and payment methods the seller wanted. PERIOD!
Why is that best? I enjoyed the story, and the work of the fake powerbook. If you define "best" as dull then I guess you might have a point. No-One was hurt in this. Two parties lost a little money, and we all got some entertainment - and perhaps, just perhaps, this guy won't try the same thing again!
I'm all for the scammer being scammed - but poetic justice and vigilante justice are not the same.
No they are not - vigilante justice is when the guys showing up at the store have bats instead of cameras. Now do you understand?
Again, there was no physical harm to anyone and both parties lost some money - and not even that much. And the scammer did get SOMETHING for his money.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If customs ever found out about this, would they be very very upset. He knowingly misclaimed the value of the package by a couple thousand dollars. The scammer can claim that he actually wasn't a scammer, right? I mean...maybe he didn't know that the escrow site was a fake and doesn't like to conduct the final transactions through ebay..
chillax137
While this is a great story, did this guy really need to register p-p-p-powerbook.com for it? People register domains for the stupidest reasons.
Also, what's with the 28 page PDF? What's wrong with just HTML? That alone would cut down his bandwidth usage, especially in light of all the publicity this story is getting.
Yeah, I know, -1 Flamebait.
I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
Is it just me, or is this an incomplete prank? I read through the entire PDF and found, to my surprise, that it ended with them waiting for the package to be delivered. Hello? This would be just a little more amusing if there were some sort of punchline. The whole point to this is to get the guy's reaction in some form. So have they waited two weeks without hearing anything more from the scammer? Are there still people staking out the barbershop? WHAT'S GOING ON?
Amusing little prank, but it's just a little prank as long as nobody knows what happened in the end. C'mon, I could send someone a marked-up binder in lieu of a computer anytime I wanted. For those of you who haven't read it yet, don't waste your time. The pictures of the P-P-P-Powerbook itself are worth a giggle but that's pretty much the climax of the whole scenario.
Actually the first provision of the transaction was that money be placed in escrow and it never was. Given that failure it's unlikely that the seller was under any obligation to ship the item
It will probably beat AYBABTU!
perception is reality
Here's excerpts from The Paypal User Agreement found at the bottom every Paypal website page:
... the shipper agrees that the contents of any parcel shipped through the fedex service is properly identified and properly insured. Fedex may investigate and open certain parcels if fraudulent activity is suspected; concerning false insurance statements and declared values.
This item COULD be considered conterfeit:
You may not use PayPal to sell counterfeits, unauthorized replicas, or otherwise unauthorized items (such as counterfeit watches, handbags, or other accessories).
Guideline
You may not use PayPal to sell a product that bears the name or logo of a company but wasn't made or endorsed by that company.
Examples
The following are examples of items that may not be sold using PayPal:
A purse that has the Chanel® name on it but was not made by Chanel
Sunglasses bearing the Oakley® name in a style never made by Oakley
A fake autograph claiming to be real
Replacement parts for an Epson® printer which use Epson's part numbers and names, but were not made by Epson
Warning
You may not use PayPal to sell replica, counterfeit, or otherwise unauthorized items. Violations of PayPal's Replica and Counterfeit Item policy could result in the suspension of your account.
This is also a strecth but the "mock up laptop" was being shipped in conjuction with an escrow, eventhough fake:
Money Transfer Companies and similar businesses that accept PayPal as a source of funding for money transactions are required to register and receive authorization from PayPal before conducting such business. PayPal requires pre-registration and approval to ensure the safety of the system, and the proper knowledge and satisfaction of regulatory requirements that apply to this industry.
Parties interested in opportunities to work with the PayPal network in this manner should send contact information and a brief business summary to Money_Transfers@paypal.com.
Here's another tidbit from the computer category:
Ensure legal compliance in both countries
PayPal insists that your transactions comply with the laws of the countries where both the seller and buyer reside. We can't give you legal advice about your particular transaction, but users are responsible for ensuring that their transactions are lawful in both countries. To avoid potential legal difficulties, be informed about all applicable laws of the countries where you plan to do business.
This is from The Fedex User Agreement:
(iv) Unless otherwise indicated, the shipper's address indicated on the face of any Shipping Documentation is the place of execution and the place of departure and the recipient's address listed on the face of the Shipping Documentation is the place of destination.
AND
There are lots of other interesting tidbits from both sites, but here's one from eBay too:
See the following (circumventing eBay fees) - he WAS going to offer an indirect sale (EVENTHOUGH) the buyer wasn't using a legit account.
You CAN NOT LIST an item on eBay, in the hopes of selling it UNRELATED to eBay. The seller did this.
I'm not defending the scammer, I'm merely pointinting out that the seller went too far and I found no humor to the story whatsoever. The use of profanity in the story telling also was unappealing.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
They sent me back a canned reply--this is fraud, don't give them your credit card information, etc. I sent them back a very polite reply indicating that, yes, I knew that, which is why I forwarded it to them in the first place.
Remember the scammer gave a fake phone number to Fedex and when it couldn't be used to contact him, he went and paid the customs duties to Fedex in cash. There are no credit cards involved.
Its not mail fraud because he didn't ship the actual Powerbook, but because he knowingly inflated the actual cost of the contents. He insured $10 worth of crap for $2000 some odd.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I'm all for the scammer being scammed - but poetic justice and vigilante justice are not the same.
... I was just wondering.
No they are not - vigilante justice is when the guys showing up at the store have bats instead of cameras. Now do you understand?
If they have bats and cameras, is that poetic vigilante justice?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I'd just like to point out that unlike this picture real Powerbooks only have one button below the trackpad! This is obviously fake!
This story got me thinking of a recent problem I've had with identity theft. It turns out that some guy got my social insurance number, birth date, address, phone number, etc. and applied for a couple of credit cards online. (The irony is that I'm the most paranoid person about destroying documents that have any important personal information... a couple of my friends have now bought shredders after hearing my story.)
Anywho, talking to one of the credit card companies (after they phoned me to confirm info... and discovered the fraud) this guy had registered on their site and had given a Hotmail account address (I know what it is). I've now got the cops involved, but I'm not counting on them to dig up much... I'd like to know if there's anything that I can do to dig up more information on this guy's Hotmail account. Any ideas?
Along the same lines, does anyone know if the folks at Hotmail record IP addresses of their users? Would this be available if the police asked for it?
The coordination that existed all under the nose of the target is amazing. They had three operatives just waiting there, and dozens of others investigating the crime and tracing every possible connection.
If just some guys on a message board can do this, what does this say about organized crime? About the police? I can't even imagine the possibilities for the group that stays connected like this.
The Political Programmer
NO MONEY FOR THE POWERBOOK WAS SENT OVER PAYPAL.
I don't know why you cannot understand that key point. All that was sent over PayPal was donations to help him pay for shipping!!!!! It was all donations and had NOTHING AT ALL do to with the powerbook itself!! At no time did the SELLLER USER PAYPAL. RFTA RTFA RTFA.
Let me put this yet another way so that you might comprehend. People sent monery TO the seller - expecting NOTHING IN RETURN, as they were donations!!!!
As for the eBay thing, the seller did not, in fact, do that at all! He listed a REAL powerbook on eBay. He then proceeded to sell a FAKE powerobok to a seller, indepndantly - so no eBay rule was broken!! He may have defrauded a frauder, but eBay had NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT other than being a place where the scammer learned the seller had something they wanted. He only mentioned the dropping fees as a way to hook the scammer on the plan, if you read carefully (I may have mentioned that before a few times).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
omg b&
This kind of vigilante approach is risky, because while you may or may not have guessed correctly that someone is trying to defraud you, sending a piece of plastic instead of a PowerBook is definitely attempted fraud.
For example, if the guy at the other end has a mean streak and some spare cash, he may just send the $2100 and then charge you with fraud. Try explaining to the police and judge that you thought you were being defrauded because some WHOIS information didn't look right to you when the other guy can prove he sent the money to you and you sent him a worthless piece of plastic. Or maybe you are just dealing with a very unprofessional operation, but not necessarily a fraudulent one.
If you believe someone is trying to defraud you, just don't do business with them, contact eBay's fraud department, and maybe go to the police. That's better for everybody involved.
For some reason, for years Google had blocked somethingawful from their search engine. It isn't blocked anymore, but I really wish I knew why it was originally.
Really? Let me check the [img-timeline]
WHAT? The Pope isn't Catholic? Do you mean there was something wrong with his baptism or what? Can you tell anything more about it?
Just looking at the pics, it smells of homestarrunner type humor... brilliant!
damn site is slashdotted.
happy?
In the PDF, Jeff mentions "The site".... so where is it? I found a link to one that asks for a user and password, and I cannot contact him, because the site asks for money before being allowed to post....
Is anyone on here willing to pay to ask him where this so called "Site" is?
Other mirrors have "bandwidth exceeded"...
It's an elaborate joke. SA does like doing that sort of thing. They also like controversy(they have a gallery of legal threats).
/. in the first place.
Yet I don't find it funny.
Really, it smacks of a sort of rampant egotism that someone would try to get this on
...a B-B-B-Beowulf cluster of those P-P-P-Powerbooks!
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Notice that the "victim" asks the scammer about how he is going to get his money since he never gave his bank account info, address or the like.
PDFs take a bloody long time to display (unless you have a top of the line 'puter and a broadband connection, it takes as long to load a PDF as it does to load Photoshop).
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Look Troll - READ for comprehension!
He asked for donations for scam himself. You cannot ask for anyone to send you money through Paypal to contribute to a scam.
He collected monies for the purpose of perpetrating a scam.
Compare to collecting monies to buy a gun to kill someone. everyone who sends the money is an acomplice to a crime!
Just because you don't like someone doesn't justify breaking the law or breaking service policies to get back at them.
eBay was defrauded - he listed the item there - and then made a seperate deal for the item off of eBay. It was under the guise that he was shipping what was listed in the auction. This is expressly forbidden in eBay policy.
Again, just because you don't like someone or they are trying to scam you means you have any right to scam them back.
I want the scammer with the fake escrow to go down in flames, but I what I don't like is that the "victim" believes in mirror victimization = vigilante justice.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Shut up esco
For someone who used to live in Colindale this whole thing is hilarious. The fact that it's on Slashdot is even better.
Slashdot is *sooooo* slow these days.
Lamers. Not very fast nor dense lately, eh?
...the scammer wins anyway. This is probably not the first (nor the last) scam he's been involved in and in 1 failed scam he probably have 50 sucessfull.
So, yes it makes us laugh and it's a small step for the good guys. But he will retain what he lost in another single scam.
Here is a mirror
hey guys i took the slashdot logo and fiestad it lol
Why won't slashdot let me change my terrible username
Despite all that's been written above, there's no doubt that our scambuster broke the law. And moreover it doesn't actually seem that the "scammer" did anything illegal (though it seems likely that he was going to).
* The sale was agreed outside ebay, by email. So it's irrelevant that ebay cancelled the auction. There is undoubtedly a binding contract between the author and the "scammer" to sell a powerbook for $2100.
* Any failure on the part of the seller to deliver the powerbook is a breach of contract. Ditto a failure by the buyer to pay. If both fail to do their part, they are both in breach and can sue each other. E.g. say I have a painting that I think is junk and you think is by Van Gogh. I agree to sell it to you for $100. I don't deliver, you don't pay, we're each furious because we each think we got the better part of the deal. We can sue each other. Two legal wrongs do not cancel each other out.
* Our hero has sent the scammer a fake powerbook. That's not only breach of contract, it's misrepresentation (since what he sent did not match the description). And it is also fraud, because he deliberately sent the wrong item. Those are civil offences. As for criminal, it's clear deception - even if our hero gained nothing, he has caused the victim (sorry, scammer) to lose. And I'd imagine lying on a customs form is some form of perjury.
* as for the alleged scammer, what has he done wrong. He's failed to pay for an item he never got. As I said, that's breach of contract, but the damages would be minimal (especially given the scale of our hero's deception). In criminal law, you could charge him with attempted deception. On the other hand, there was no deception involved since our hero knew exactly what was going on and was never deceived. So in actual fact, it looks like our scammer has done nothing criminal.
* regarding jurisdiction, for the breach of contract it may be US or UK, my inclination is US since that appears to be where the offer was accepted. But for the criminal law, the victim/scammer was in the UK the whole time, so it's pretty clear the UK courts have jurisdiction whether ot not the US courts do as well.
So the net result of this brilliant prank is that our hero has committed one or more criminal offences, and the scammer has done practically nothing wrong. Is this the way things should be? I guess that depends on your view of vigilante justice. Funny that at no point does our caped crusader consider reporting anything to the London police (or the FBI, considering a US college professor was apparently involved). Yes, they'd have probably done nothing but he should have at least attempted a legit channel. This scammer may have been burned, but he's not behind bars - do you really think he's going to give up for a few hundred bucks when he's probably already made thousands? And while it looks like this scammer was for real, there's a real danger of copycat "anti-scammer scams" that will end up screwing an innocent party at some point.
Overall, I'd rate this as a pretty childish attempt at revenge which shows a basic disrespect for the norms of society.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
Show of hands please, is this the greatest story ever told? Top 10? Top N?
[o]_O
if the guy at the other end has a mean streak and some spare cash, he may just send the $2100 and then charge you with fraud.
Any fraud claim done in this way would be easily shot down. Via tracking numbers, postmarks and dated receipts it would be possible for the seller to prove that he shipped the item and it was received by the "buyer" before the "buyer" made payment. IANAL, but if the "buyer" sent payment after knowing he had been sent a jacked-up 3-ring binder, I'd say that constitutes implicit acceptance of/satisfaction with the item-- he'd be screwing himself.
And if he had $2100 in spare cash laying around that he could send to someone to try to nail them for fraud, why not just spend it on a brand new PowerBook from Apple and avoid the effort of trying to fuck someone on eBay?
Shut up Euro
Any fraud claim done in this way would be easily shot down.
You apparently have never needed to make a legal claim. Nothing is "easy" if the opposing party is determined. They can poke so many holes, raise so many doubts, and call in so many experts that the jury will doubt whether you even gave your correct name.
Furthermore, juries get really tired of this sort of thing. They have to waste days of their personal time on your case and they don't want to have to sort out who was defrauding who or who was trying to scam who just because you got off on some elaborate scheme trying to prove a point.
And if he had $2100 in spare cash laying around that he could send to someone to try to nail them for fraud, why not just spend it on a brand new PowerBook from Apple and avoid the effort of trying to fuck someone on eBay?
Maybe he isn't a scammer, or maybe he is an eBay kleptomaniac, who knows. It's just stupid trying to mess with people who are already obviously criminally inclined.
as of 6:30p eastern, only one of the three mirrors are still holding together. i'm not karma whoring or anything, just thought it was a really funny article and trying to keep it alive.. http://www.starliant.net/users/flyawaymike/powerbo ok
The Adult Happy Meal - "I'm lovin' it!"
He didn't insure it. The $2,000 price was to jack up the VAT that the scammer had to pay.
So, technically he did mistate the value of the package to UK customs, but he _overstated_ the value, giving UK customs more money than they diserved. I don't think they'll be upset by getting too much money.
Not to mention it may be worded in the law that so that understating the value is illegal, but overstating the value is not.
HE was not scamming anyone! He was turning the tables on a thief.
eBay got real money for a real item. The deal he made was never for the real powerbook as he DID NOT SHIP THE REAL POWERBOOK. Or were you fooled by the pictures into thinking it was the real powerbook?
Originally he was telling them the buy-it-now price through eBay, then he figured out it was a scam right away and did the other stuff outside eBay (at the scammers request, I might add - if you'll RTFA you'll see that the scammer is the one that wanted to go outside eBay - with good reason!!!)
I think if someone is trying to scam you there's nothing wrong with playing the same game. I personally would not have bothered as I wouldn't want to be out $80 but really they made a work of art out of the thing.
You are misunderstanding key points. Let me repeat - when the holder of the powerbook intiiated the stuff outside eBay, it was already known this was a scammer! Everything from that point has no relation at all to the Powerbook or eBay. You need to let go of that whole aspect.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
reality TV and a great series to boot!
I'll bet TNT would air it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We're sorry. The scammers that were sent to scam the scammers are, themselves, scammers.
The ______ Agenda
More stories should be posted directly on Slashdot and not as links.
That's certainly what I'm gonna do when I submit my Mandrake 10 review.
How was the buyer a scammer? I missed that part. All I read was a vague "this is obviously a scam" and the entire article was about his revenge after that.
How do we know this all wasn't perpetrated on a perfectly legitimate buyer?
Seems to me like they prematurely judged an innocent buyer as a scammer, and then broke a bunch of laws to scam him as "revenge."
Help me see what I missed. Where is any evidence at all that the original buyer was a scammer at all?
I could not afford one from Apple, nor auction sites, so I bought a $4USD white plastic notebook hat I can put papers into and got some markers and used an old keyboard keycaps and an old MS-Mouse and made my own Powerbook. L@@K, it works 100%, runs OSX as well. Only downside is I am now being sued by Apple for making a Powerbook clone without their permission. ;)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Pretty like a Ponay
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
IANAL, but mail fraud statues only apply if you put a stamp on a letter / parcel and send it through the US Postal Service.
Most scammers use Fedex, UPS, and other shipping methods precisely to avoid mail fraud laws. Shipping through USPS is a completely different animal than "private" shippers, with a host of regulations (including old decency regulations) that don't apply to UPS/Fedex.
(Not sure if this is an urban legend or not, but some adult products cannot be shipped via the US Postal Service for this reason.)
You might have him on fraud, but not mail fraud or mail fraud conspiracy.
but at this point, if he wanted to, our fraudster could transfer 2000 dollars to the seller of 'laptop' and then all hell breaks loose. Wire fraud for one thing (how many copies of the confession are publicly available?). I wouldn't underestimate how galvanising the thought of thousands of people can be.
My school had a policy that anyone involved in a fight/assault was suspended, even if you didn't hit back you were gone. And yes, that was enforced. I got a 3 day vacation for being on the receiving end once.
This sounds very, very wrong. If you do not fight back, it isn't a fight; it's assault. My parents were schoolteachers and one thing I had to learn was if/when someone actually picked a fight with me on school property, I had to put my hands behind my back and take it to avoid suspension. The victim had to be completely passive. It wasn't fair, but that was sufficient proof of assault rather than fighting.
I doubt this policy would stand up to due process standards. By the same logic, a girl who is sexually assaulted wouldn't a victim, but a "willing participant in conscentual behavior". A ludicrous notion indeed.
Considering my parents and their friends and families have been in education a very long time, and have never seen a policy where assault was classified as "fighting". Either your school policy was blatantly illegal, or you aren't remembering/telling things the way they actually were.
excuse me? --- in which jurisdiction is the overpaying of taxes tax fraud? I can't think of any.
Nonsense, in this day and age anyone attempting to raise money via spam, whether for a valid cause or not, deserves everything (within reason) they get and then some...
I used to live in the same apartment complex as the ISU prof that the fake escrow service was registered to. Just a building over, even.
I still live in Terre Haute, and just checked the phone book. Mr. Surakul does in fact live at that address. It's tempting to post his phone number, but I'll be the better man and refrain.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
I sold my iBook on eBay a few weeks ago and got an email from the same scammer asking me if I wanted to sell it off eBay for well above the market price, with two day shipping to the UK. Sounded funny from the start, but the fake escrow site was the clincher. Glad he's had his comeuppance.
Copies of emails here if anyone's interested.
lol azn.
man babies.
Troll? That looked like pretty righteous indignation to me, mods. Thanks for reminding me to metamoderate more often you dumbfucks.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
The problem that the laws against Mail Fraud is supposed to address is not that Customs might get a little more money, but people shipping broken valuables, declaring the value of them as something outrageous, and demanding compensation on the receiving end when a broken item arrives. Whether or not customs got more money isn't the problem, its that he lied on a government form for the purposes of defrauding. The fact that it wasn't a government or a company that was targeted changes nothing.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
The seller then got donations via paypal to pay the $180 for shipment.
The story said $80 in shipping costs, but he got about $100 in donations.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It was a pretty common policy - my schools had it when I was a kid. (early 80's)
In fact, they used to not only punish both the aggressor and the victim, but also anyone else in the area who "should have stopped the fight".
They were big on collective punishment - if someone at a nearby lunchtable mouthed off at one of the lunch monitors, your lunch would be going into the trash along with the lunch of everyone else at an adjacent table.
This story was on Fark yesterday. The one about the WWII decoders was on Fark the day before yesterday. I'm not complaining, just wondering if maybe /. submission reviewing is bottlenecked?
A) It is too cheap.
B) The interface is too clean.
C) The keyboard is too useable.
D) The screen updates too quickly.
The pictures of the fake iBook are the punchline, but they're all over the page that links to the pdf file, so the main joke fell a bit flat. It was the "other escrow transaction" that had me in stitches.
Just called that shop just for fun, the phone number for his shop (Jean Climax barbers!) can be found on the SA thread: Here Here it is if you have nothing else to do: (+44)2089059244
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
Actually i am pretty sure that using a private shipper (a la UPS or Fedex) is enough for federal jurisdiction if the package crosses state lines. The important part of the "mailing" in mail fraud is simply to act as a federal hook for jurisdiction. If it is mailed in the USPS then it doesn't have to cross state lines becuase federal jurisdiction arises from the use of a federal service.
The interisting question that arises in these senarios is whether the use of a private shipper intrastate is enough to create federal jurisdiction. This is a question for another day.
The point being that using a private shipper is enough for federal jurisdiction if it crosses state lines becuase of the commerce clause.
As far as decency regulations go, i think this may be a first amendment issue (i'm in speculation mode here). The USPS as an entity has the right to say what it will and will not ship (to a certain degree like any corporation has the right). So the USPS (per congressional mandate) says it won't ship porn. This is ok. But congress has to jump though more hoops (1st amendment) to place the same restrictions on private shippers. Now this is speculation, and it all could be a urban legand. But i'm pretty sure that congress has more power to regulate the USPS than private shippers becuase USPS is a federal entity.
What if the buyer was actually legitimate, but technically inept?
Did it ever occur to anyone that the real scammer might not be the buyer, but rather, the phony escrow service, which has now taken the buyer for his $2100, plus the duty taxes on the laptop never delivered? If that's the case, then the seller could very easily convicted of fraud. Now that the seller has shipped a worthless piece of plastic, it would be very difficult for him to convince a jury that he wasn't the one running the phony escrow site, and duped an innocent foreign buyer.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
An Indiana man was indicted for fraud in an international sting operation today. The man advertised a powerbook for sale on eBay, but shipped a 3 ring binder to the buyer, instead of the computer. He is also charged with setting up fake escrow sites to dupe buyers into believing that their purchases were secured.
The man claims he shipped a binder because he believed that the buyer was trying to scam him. He claims that the fraudulent WHOIS registration led him to believe that the buyer was a scammer; police, however, believe that the man set up the escrow site with fraudulent information so he could avoid prosecution.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Go find your acrobat reader folder off in the Program Files directory. You should see a "Plugins" folder and an "Optional" folder in there. Move everything in the plugins folder into the optional folder.
Voila, instant speed. When Acrobat starts up, it pre-loads everything in the plugins folder. This is what causes the tremendous slowdown. If you move the plugins off into the optional folder, it's still all accessible, but it's only loaded on demand, when you're actually using it.
It's a tremendous speedup for Acrobat.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
It's not fraud until he makes a claim of damages and tries to get compensation. "Overstating" the value is only an issue when you're trying to get a third party (e.g. insurance company) to pay.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
what
my teacher had the first p-p-powerbook
In fact, they used to not only punish both the aggressor and the victim, but also anyone else in the area who "should have stopped the fight".
Now I know you are trolling, because students who try to break up a fight are guilty of fighting themselves. Only a school representative is allowed to break up a fight. Such a policy you claim to remember would bring utter chaos, turning a fight between two people into a mob brawl on the playground. Students would feel obligated to join in to "break up the fight" to avoid punishment. Any school district with this policy should rightfully be sued and have their administration replaced.
Collective punishment is legal...to a point. Collective punishment has to be, by definition, less severe than individualized punishment. You can't suspend the assaulter and the asaultee and every witness. If the two persons fighting actively participated, ie, the one picked on fights back, then both can be suspended.
You are claiming that the penalty for fighting and assault would carry over to every witness? That may be true in a private military academy, but not in a public school.
And again, under such a system, a girl (or boy) who was sexually assaulted would be punished as well. Total nonsense. Such a school would be sued six ways from Sunday.
The point being that using a private shipper is enough for federal jurisdiction if it crosses state lines becuase of the commerce clause.
Actually that is NOT the question. Just because the Feds have technical jurisdiction, does NOT mean the Mail Fraud statues apply. The US Constitution grants powers of regulation, but that does not mean the government will excercise specific statutes over specific commerce.
Here is a link defining mail fraud.
The idea is that behind self-defense or going out of your way to help someone. Example, someone is going to shoot your daughter. You can shoot and kill that person and it's okay. Other example: A child playing in the street is going to be run over by a truck. You can jump into the street to save that child (jaywalking, but okay).
My other first post is car post.
Actually that is NOT the answer.
The government may not exercise jurisdiction over Puff the Magic Dragon if he crosses over state line but that has dick to do with whether the government HAS jurisdiction, which is what the whole question was.
I don't even think in the way off world of waxing philosophicaly that anyone could come up with a reason for the federal governemnt to exercise jurisdiction here, but they do have jurisdiction.
Oh, and to clarify. Just because the feds have techinical jurisdiction DOES mean that the mail fraud statutes apply. Your response makes no sense. Let me see, just becuase the mail statutes apply doesn't mean they apply?
I think what you are looking for is a policy justification of why the government would not exercise thier jurisdiction here. There are many policy reasons (not the least of which is that this is so small as to be pointless to waste federal funds on) but the fact remains that the only way the government can exercise its power to prosecute is over "specific commerce" that violates "specific statutes" of "regulatoin".
Read the statutes. The statutes only apply to USPS mail. What I said about federal government CAN make a law regulating UPS/Fedex, but that Mail Fraud Statutes only apply to USPS Mail is a fact. Did you even read the link?
Or were you too lazy?
And I quote " deposits ... any matter... to be sent or delivered by any private or commercial interstate carrier." See 18 USC 1341. Well i think that UPS/Fedex is a private or commercial interstate carrier which the mail statute CURRENTLY applies too.
So did you bother googling the WHOLE statute,
Or were you too lazy?
For reference http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1341.html
In most countries, if the buyer did not like the goods delivered, he could always return it and claim a refund on his VAT/Tax/Duty. Of course, he would have to pay return shipping. All he needs to do is show original proof of incoming shippment (still on Fed-Ex), and fill out the proper forms, I would suspect.
So, like everyone else, if the goods are not up to "spec", you can return them for "refund".
The original scammer probably does not have the brains to figure this out....
So, if you can return the goods, there is no fraud or scam....he got what he paid for, and if it does not perform to his specifications, he can return it. I'm sure Jeff would donate it to a worthy cause...