eBay vs. Romania's Online Scammers

spinctrl links to an interesting story in the L.A. Times about the cloak-and-daggerism of fighting online scams in Romania, summing it up like this: "The country is the top source of auction site scams. One company is trying to do something about it, with increasing collaboration from local law enforcement over recent years. Ebay has sent over equipment and a team to help the authorities combat this form of cyber crime, which is run with all the organization of an industrial-scale business."

Comments

dating fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the fine article:

...Russians have a profitable niche in Internet dating fraud...

What exactly is dating fraud? Is this where you setup a date with some hot Russian gal online, only to wake up in a hotel room a week later married to the scariest woman you have ever seen?

Re:dating fraud?

[MightyYar]

Can you tell my mom to pick up some milk on her way back from the hotel?

Reminds me of a Romanian friend of mine...

[Anonymous Coward]

... his best joke was:

What's the recipe for a Romanian omelette?

Step 1: steal a dozen eggs.

Re:Good..

[moderatorrater]

If it's too good to be true, it proberly is I can honestly say that I've never heard that before.

Re:They gave the equipment to WHO?

[FredFredrickson]

Yeah, it turns out ebay was scammed by a Romanian group that pretended to be anti-scammers. Ebay should've seen the warning sign when the email they received about the matter stated that once they receive the equiptment, they'll send back 10 times the equiptment, plus 8 extra computers for their trouble.
tsk tsk, ebay.