Slashdot Mirror
eBay Scam Victim Strikes Back
jcomeau_ictx writes "Justin Spence doesn't take lightly being scammed out of $1155 for a laptop he never received. The seller, Salvatore Wise, Jr. of Philadelphia, is growing openly more hostile over the webpage Justin produced exposing his and his wife Michelle Heinlein's scams to the world. So far Justin has documented $6841.00 total lost to this crook, but the total is more likely in the tens of thousands. " As it goes along it just gets more and more bizarre. My favorite part is when "Sal" says that all the earlier messages were sent from a different Sal, but you can tell them apart because the true Sal always writes his emails in italics.
Salvatore Wise, Jr., or someone going by that alias for several years at least (verified since 1997), has taken tens of thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of dollars from eBay shoppers. Whether or not he does other types of online trading is not yet known to me.
"How could that be possible?", you must be asking. Surely there are safeguards against that kind of thing, right? Yes, there are. But Sal has been ingenious in finding workarounds for those safeguards. See, for example, how Justin Spence, a shrewd businessman himself who was initially suspect of Sal's integrity, was conned into finishing the deal. Sal doesn't accept credit cards nor Paypal in any form; he wants his money in checks, cashiers checks or money orders. And he often makes believe he hasn't received your payment when in fact he's already cashed it.
Sal's accounts have all been terminated, of course, but he always seems to have one more on the back burner he can use in a pinch. Lately, his wife Michelle Heinlein appears to be actively involved, since in at least one case a check made out to her name was cashed, in one of the scams. Notice the same trading pattern as Sal's former username needforspeed97, starting off good then, once he gets a good reputation, cashing it in for a few thousand dollars before eBay kicks him off. I'm pretty sure this guy Robin, needforspeed, is the same dude too, but Sal of course denies it.
I'll post more info as I can. Watch out for anybody on eBay from PA who sells high-dollar items. Sorry Pennsylvanians, but you've got a scoundrel in your midst. He lives at 1941 W. Passyunk Ave. in Philadelphia, but he sometimes sets his eBay "area" identity as Pittsburgh.
So if I know where he lives, why don't I just go break his legs? Believe me, I've thought about it, but I don't want to do something illegal that'll get me thrown in jail. Besides, he's threatened to shoot me if I come there. So if the threat turns out to be real, I'd either have to kill him or get killed myself, either of which has consequences I don't want to consider. And on top of all that, I'm a coward.
Well anyway, not to be outdone by Justin, I'm digging up my emails now too... here's the most recent thread which shows the same typing style (being very loose with that word here) as his recent threats to Justin. More to follow!
Wow, that was fast! Here he is again... it's after 2AM on the east coast, so he must be sweating bullets! Aren't you, Sal old buddy?
This is getting to be another blog in itself, so let's just follow the story in my existing blog, shall we?
Link to the bounty.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
This is what I encourage people to do instead of risking a transaction through Paypal or some other entity where you're subject to their mediation in the event of a dispute. If you send a money order through the US mail accompanied with documentation about exactly what you're ordering and how and where said order is to be shipped, it becomes mail fraud if the seller balks and it falls under the jurisdiction of the US postal inspectors.
In most cases of small-time fraud, you're lucky if the local authorities do much more than file a report. Postal inspectors take mail fraud very seriously regardless of the amount involved.
IMO, sending a postal money order through the US mail is the safest form of payment. It protects both the seller and the buyer.
Well anyway, since Justin's T1 is being pummeled too, a bunch of slashdotters have come to the rescue and mirrored the site! Here are the ones I've had pointed out to me so far, and more are appearing as I type:
http://pio.longstair.com/misc/salwise.htm6 67.html
http://pio.longstair.com/misc/salwise2.htm
http://www.ibnads.com/sal/salwise.html
http://sd.wiretapped.us/07222004/
http://www.freelancesecurity.com/projects/1089824