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.

Comments

A bit hard to follow...... but funny....

[ewwhite]

I loved the photos. This seemed like a big production. Any idea of the status of the "buyer" now?

What a great way to start a dreary Sunday!

[Geraden]

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

Re:What a great way to start a dreary Sunday!

[YankeeInExile]

who says the value is far above the real value of goods sent?

As far as the beef with customs goes:

An artist can take ten dollars worth of canvas, smear five dollars of oilpaint on it, and sell it in a gallery for tens of thousands of dollars

By the same token, a sculptor can take a three ring binder, some magic markers, and a broken keyboard and make a sculpture easily worth two thousand.

Art is in the eye of the beholder

Since the eBay transaction never occured, they have no beef with him -- he merely used the contact made with the person who stole the german account to sell some artwork in a separate transaction

Re:What a great way to start a dreary Sunday!

[nycsubway]

I love it. Nothing like screwing a scammer. I nearly fell for something like that about 5 years ago, although in reverse. Someone advertised a computer for sale for a really low price. I knew little about internet fraud at the time, so I beleived that because they advertised this computer for a low price, it must be true... otherwise they'd be lying, which people couldn't do! (duh)

So I emailed the person to express my interest in buying the computer. He writes back with a long description of their 'operation'. They hacked into 'major computer makers' and re-routed shipping containers to me because they felt that computer makers were overcharging, etc. They were doing it for the good of the public; stealing from rich computer makers to give to the public.

I almost fell for this, until I started to think about it. What if it was a scam? I couldn't contact the police, because I would have knowingly bought stolen goods. Wait! it must be a scam then!

Scammers come up with incredibly diverse kinds of scams, because someone will eventually fall for one of them.

Re:What a great way to start a dreary Sunday!

[cloudturtle]

Well it could quite possibly be both mail (UPS) and wire (internet to access e-mail and escrow account).

Basically the elements for mail and wire fraud are
A scheme to defraud (about a material fact)
Intent for the person to rely on the false information
and a mail or wire interaction.

What is interesting under the law is that an actual fraud does not need to be commited if the elements are met (unlike commom law fraud/misrepresentation which requires damages). The point is that the orignal scammer is still liable even though he never actually got the chance to defraud MyNameIsJeff (becuase he never recieved the real Pbook).

Now the scarry part is not the M&W fraud but the fact that Jeff had help. This would be a conspiracy to commit M&W fraud which is a federal felony as well. So even if they meet the M&W fraud (which would be real hard considering that they posted EVERYTHING to the web for evidence) there doesn't need to be a conviction on the substanitive crime for a conspiracy conviction.

Conspiracy might be a bit more attenuated becuase the second person (Gizmo_gun) just kind of jumped in, so there may not be the requisite agreement...

But i am going to stop now. I don't like the feeling that i am analyzing stuff on slashdot better than i did on my white collar crime final.

A bit confused

[Jonathan]

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?

Re:A bit confused

[Jon Kent]

My thoughts exactly!

There was absolutely zero followup with regard to Mr. Saral Surakul - our esteemed college professor. It would be interesting to know whether his identity was simply hijacked/spoofed for the purposes of domain registration or whether he was in fact complicit in the scam.

An entertaing read nevertheless.

Legality?

[gabeman-o]

Is it legal to do this even though he "knew" this was a scam?

Re:The end isn't quite clear...

[TehHustler]

Er they did get the van arriving on video, and there was a guy inside when the package was opened, and he was arguing on the phone with the person picking it up, saying there was something wrong. No pictures of his face when he opened it up, unfortunately Another SA Goon checking in, I cant believe this made Slashdot.

Bitter Sweet?

[Anonymous Coward]

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 are the pics mentioned in the article

[Psychic Burrito]

Fake Escrow Website (zipped).

Pics of the shop (scroll down, shitty forum...)

:-)

Street Justice

[Weaselmancer]

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

Re:All for it .... but

[MO!]

he DID use paypal to get funds to ship the item.

Wrong!

As far as PayPal is concerned, he received funds to ship an item - they have no involvement in what item was involved. Since he shipped an item, he has completed that transaction properly and PayPal has not been defrauded in any manner.

He DID use eBay to sell a real item but ACTUALLY shipped a fake item

Wrong!

He used eBay to advertise the sale of a real item. The "purchaser" in this transaction persued the sale completely outside of eBay. Thus, eBay has not been defrauded in any manner.

He DID use fedex to ship a fraudulent item.

Wrong!

He used FedEx to ship an item. They are not a party to the contents of the box - they were simply the transport medium. They were paid to ship a box, they shipped the box. Thus, FedEx has not been defrauded in any manner.

The only debatable fraudulent actions were between the buyer and the seller directly. But since the bogus escrow site disappeared and the seller was never paid for an actual PowerBook - the buyer has no basis for a fraud claim!

This can be wrapped up as: the buyer used PayPal to pay the seller to ship a box via FedEx to his address. The buyer payed taxes on the declared value of the box's contents - which as was said elsewhere, could be a $2000 piece of contemporary art for all the government cares. That the buyer did not receive an actual Apple Powerbook is due to the fact the buyer never paid for an actual Apple Powerbook! So there was no actual fraud from the buyer's side. The seller still has a claim though - since he was never paid for the piece of $2000 art he shipped in the box!

Wanted: Missing Conclusion

[Eil]

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.