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.

Comments

Karma Whoring

[ack154]

Full text:

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?

Big Nasty Guys With Guns

[T_O_M]

Since the scammer wants money orders, I assume that someone has sent a U.S. Postal Money Order.
_IF_ the sender was VERY CAREFUL to enclose the POMO with a "mail order" that PRECISELY describes the item ordered, the Postal Inspectors are VERY happy to help out; they HATE eBay scammers!
It usually takes them a simple fone call or casual visit (flash badge and BIG gun) to convince the seller to cough up the goods pronto.
If necessary, the inspector can patiently explain how 5 years "quality time" with Bubba is a 5 FULL years: no time off for ANYTHING in the Federal pen.

Been tried on me twice. In both cases I eventually received the merchandise - in the condition described at the time of the sale.
Yes - it make take as long as 9 months (in one case) but I have yet to be dissapointed by the power behind that $.90 piece of paper.

Bill
T_O_M

Re:Big Nasty Guys With Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Salvatore Strikes Back!!!

[jebilbrey]

Salvatore probably couldn't get him to take his site down, so instead he posted this story on Slashdot and let the /. effect do his dirty work! Muhahaha!

Another Brian Silverman?

[hacker]

I had something even worse happen to myself, and about 200 other people with a very similar-sounding laptop scam from "electro_depot", otherwise known as "Brian Silverman".

Luckily, my vigilance paid off, and Brian Silverman, aka "electro_depot" was caught and charged by the FTC for his crimes.

Dozens upon dozens of people were scammed by Brian over the course of a year or two. Many of them went to google to find out more about him, because he failed to return emails and phone calls. At that time, my Advogato diary entry was the only hit that google returned, and over 80 people contacted me directly via email to ask if I had ever received my laptop (at the time, I hadn't).

I had an officer, Det. Mike Gischner from the NYC "Computer Crime Squad" division call me directly, based on that same Advogato diary entry (the only one mentioning "Brian Silverman" by name at the time), asking me if I had heard of anyone else that had problems with Brian. I asked him if 120 people was enough. Silence on the phone. He thought I was kidding. I forwarded him all of the emails I had received at the time, and proceeded with his end of the case. He had no idea that there were that many people being screwed by this jerk.

As time went on, several web sites popped up to try to track the fraud from Brian Silverman, based on my original "collection" of users and emails that I had received. I take full credit for bringing enough evidence to bring him to justice.

I did eventually receive my laptop... the last one he actually sent out to anyone. I managed to track him down, at his home address, and called him one night asking (no no, demanding ) my laptop, or I would be at his front door the next morning. The laptop arrived a couple of days later.

As an aside note, the laptop, which I am typing this reply on right now, has been back to IBM 7 times for repair in the last couple of years, for repairs and replacement of almost every part, several times. Its definately a lemon, but it works well now.. and is basically brand-new again.

Basically his scam was as follows:

• Put "several" laptop models online on eBay for sale (note: He never actually has these laptops at all, he has never even purchased them). Let's use 10 laptops as an example; 5 IBM laptops and 5 Sony laptops.
• Get several dozen bidders on the laptops, raising the price around normal MSRP
• Take the highest bidders on all of the auctions, and demand that they send the payment within 5 days of auction close
• 10 people send in their payments for the "10" laptops (remember, he hasn't ever purchased a single laptop)
• Keep the money as long as possible, in a bank account, until people start complaining about shipment
• Delay delay delay, using whatever tactics are necessary. I've heard dozens of his excuses from various bidders.
• Delay some more, making sure to keep that bank account interest rolling in (more profit in his pocket)
• When people get heated enough to start threatening, send 8 people back their money (leaving the highest 1 IBM and 1 Sony buyer waiting) (more profit in his pocket)
• It is now 2-3 months later, and the "top-of-the-line" laptop is now no longer top-of-the-line.
• He purchases the laptops, wholesale, from the absolute-cheapest place he can find, having them shipped ground, factory-direct. At this point, since it is 1/4 of a year later, the laptops cost anywhere from 20%-40% less than the original auction price (more profit in his pocket).

Eventually, he decided that the whole "Ship the laptop" thing was just too much trouble, and he started keeping the money, never purchasing any laptops at all, for any bidders.

I'm glad he's rotting in a federal prison right now, getting 60 months (from what I understand), for his crimes, and an enormous $600k fine and penalties.

The Slashdot Bride

[ThatDamnMurphyGuy]

"My name is Justin Spence. You kiled my server. Prepare to die."

FYI, there's a bounty on him now.

[Beardo the Bearded]

Link to the bounty.

Re:P-P-P-Powerbook

[tdemark]

Honestly now, is there any fucking reason for that site to have the story in PDF?

Hold on... let me check.

Yep... just what I thought. Justin wanted to personally piss off you and you alone. He specifically went out of his way to make sure that only you would be angry. In fact, he spent a lot of time writing code so that only you would receive a horrible PDF, while the rest of the Internet gets an HTML document.

The code doesn't work on IP address or anything like that. It is a complex operation that identifies you by your PHQ - PDF Hate Quotient. It uses the monitor as a scanner to collect data on pupil dilation, skin temperature, pulse, and CO2 production of a user while a PDF is displayed to calculate a PHQ. Few people realize that the PHQ works like a fingerprint and can identify a specific person.

At least you know the whole story now.

I struck back

[jdavidb]

Honestly, if you always use a credit card, striking back is usually not that hard. Most credit cards guarantee your purchases, whether or not the merchant does.

Last year I decided I wanted to buy a Pioneer Tivo/DVD recorder combo set. Retail price at the time was about $1500; I noticed on ebay I could pick one up for around $700. While thinking the decision over for a few days, a seller popped up suddenly with a "buy it now" price of $350. I foolishly decided this was an offer I couldn't pass up and bought immediately.

Well, this seller had made some legitimate sales before, but apparently he decided that the time between taking my money and sending me the product was a good time to close up shop and disappear. In retrospect, I could see from his feedback that several people had had problems with him. A couple had sent complaints, not received a prompt answer, and posted bad feedback, only to receive angry replies to their feedback denigrating them. Apparently, this seller believed he was a better person than the rest of us for not sending prompt responses, because that indicates that he "doesn't sit at a 'puter [sic] 24-7 like you!" I still fail to see how that makes one a paragon of virtue, but I digress.

So after a decent amount of time I contacted the seller and received no response. I had initially contacted him on purchase to verify what he said in the sale about shipping being free (yes, that should have been another tipoff), and did receive a response. But now he was nowhere to be seen. And ebay reported that his userid did not exist and/or was not active (although it was still in the system complete with previous bad feedback).

At this point I looked up the seller's phone number and tried to call it, only to get a message that it was out of service. That made sense, since the number had four or five consecutive digits in it. (The number was something like ###-4567, though the area code did match the seller's alleged area.)

Satisfied I'd done everything in my power to contact the seller and resolve the situation, I contacted paypal and informed them I had not received the product and expected to take advantage of their policy. They informed me they would launch an investigation and attempt to recover my money, and I would hear from them within a week. I was a little bit dissuaded by the claims on their policy page that they were only liable up to a certain dollar limit, but I was not terribly worried because I knew my credit card guaranteed me!

After a week, paypal cheerfully sent me a message telling me they had determined two things:

• The seller was indeed at fault and had cheated me.
• My money could not be recoved.

Apparently they thought this news was going to overjoy and satisfy me. Wonder of wonders; I had been vindicated! At last the whole world knew that the seller was at fault! I felt better already. (Yeah, right.) Turns out the only real promise paypal makes is that they will investigate.

So I immediately contacted my credit card company and let them know what had happened, and that I had no attention of paying the bill. The credit card representative expressed mild surprise that paypal/ebay were not cooperating with me. I was immediately given a provisional credit, pending followup investigation by my credit card company with paypal. I had done this about 6 months earlier, over a DVD bought from an Amazon.com associate seller; the policy is that once they take over, you don't have to worry about anything. The credit card company investigates and, unless you're found to be lying, you get your money back. You don't have to deal with the offending merchant at all going forward.

So, about a day later, I got another form email from paypal. This one stated that they were now involved in responding to an investigation from my credit card company. The form email mentioned that paypal had a very generous policy and would have been happy to have dealt with me directly and investigate

thanks for the mirrors guys!

[jcomeau_ictx]

Looks like I lost my freeshell.org account. I thought my CGI scripts (bash) were up to snuff but they'd never been stress-tested until now. So let me publicly apologize to the guys hosted on otaku, and please let me know how to make amends. I really didn't think this would get published, or I'd have planned better.

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.htm
http://pio.longstair.com/misc/salwise2.htm
http://www.ibnads.com/sal/salwise.html
http://sd.wiretapped.us/07222004/
http://www.freelancesecurity.com/projects/10898246 67.html