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Interview With A Craigslist Scammer (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: Ever wonder what motivates people who swindle others on Craigslist? Roger Grimes did, so he set up a fake Harley Davidson ad on Craigslist and requested an interview with each scammer who replied to the ad. One agreed, and the man's answers shed light on the inner world of Craigslist scamming: "If you mean how often I make money from Craigslist, it depends on the day or week. Many weeks I make nothing. Some weeks I can get five people sending me money. But I respond to a lot of ads to get one email back. I'm not only doing Craigslist -- there are many similar places. I haven't counted, but many. It takes many emails to get paid. That's what I mean. Some weeks I lose money. It's harder than most people think. But I don't have to go into a place at a certain time and deal with bosses and customers. I can make my own time." Grimes asked the scammer a number of questions ranging from "How do you know when you have a good victim?" to "What country do you originate from?" and everything in-between. He ended the interview asking the scammer for any words of advice for readers. The scammer responded: "It's getting harder for business people like me to be successful, but if they [the victims] follow the rules it would be very hard for me to be successful. That's one of the surprises. My friends and I thought we would not be successful for so long, especially with how Craigslist is different now. But there is always someone looking to sell something who doesn't know the game."
It's why the Here is a $100,000 check, can you cash it and send me the change.... I'll let you have an extra $1,000 for your trouble, obvious as hell scam works. Most people brains shut off when the greed center in their brain is triggered.
The main problem here is that people think the bank has verified the authenticity of the check when they've "cleared" it and given you access to the money, and that any failure to spot a fake check is now their problem. Like if I go deposit some cash I got from a yard sale I expect the bank to either accept it or reject it. Not accept it now and two weeks later say "Hey, those bills you gave us a few weeks ago were counterfeit we're deducting $200 from your account". And you never get a second "real" confirmation that your bank got their money from the intra-bank system you only know when they don't. The system is pretty rigged against the somewhat clueless and gullible person who goes to a professional money handler that appears to say everything is okay.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This interview is full of classic self-justification;
"I like to think I am a businessman. Not a criminal."
"I like to think my victims are rich and won't miss the money I'm stealing."
"I like to think those I'm stealing from had the opportunities I didn't. This makes us even."
"I like to think that because scamming is hard and takes time, it's like a real job."
"I like to think it's my victim's own fault I'm scamming them. It's not my fault they don't follow the rules and don't know the game."
There is a good bit of diversity in scams, however. I've been reading up on the different varieties as I've been looking to make some sizeable purchases from China and the number of scammers operating among the legitimate manufacturers/service providers over there is disturbing.
For example, one involves freight forwarders. They actually do have your goods shipped to your port of destination - but they don't send you the bill of lading, so you can't prove that you actually own the goods and thus can't collect them from customs. They then demand huge sums for the bill of lading so that you can actually collect your goods.
A common one with legitimate manufacturers themselves is exploiting any terms that you didn't specify, especially "price inflation". Unless you have it spelled out, they'll charge you for all sorts of unexpected costs (after you've made your initial deposit, of course) on top of the agreed-upon price. And more common than actual scams are quality issues. It's usually easier for them to just decide to lose you as a potential repeat customer than to spend a lot of money ensuring quality or to fix production errors.
With actual scammers, and sometimes legitimate manufacturers, one's in big trouble if they don't use a service that allows them to dispute the charges (paypal, credit card, legitimate escrow service, etc) and instead get tricked into using western union or other non-contestable source. Even if you're dealing with a legitimate supplier, once they have your money, they have relatively little motivation to follow through. Few have any sort of reputation that they need to protect; they can always just rebrand. And sometimes the company is legitimate but an employee is acting rogue.
Verification is made harder because sometimes the people buyers are supposed to be able to trust are in cahoots with the crooks - for example, there was a scandal a while back involving Alibaba with this sort of thing. An important part of working with foreign manufacturers is ordering an inspection (to see if you're dealing with a real factory that can actually make the real thing you're ordering, and to inspect produced goods before making the final payment). But there's no legal requirements for a person to meet in order to be able to classify themselves as an "inspector" or an "inspection company".
The whole thing is a minefield :P
Monkeywrench Ex Machina.
Also, criminals are well aware of the risks they take
If this were true, then setting penalties at 50% more than the reward of the crime divided by the probability of being caught would eliminate crime, yet time and time again we've seen that increasing penalties has a negligible effect on crime rates.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
A check is just an order to pay from a certain account to either the specified person or the person cashing in the check. If the account is not with the bank the check is presented to, you have interbanking transfer. And you have transactions (read an RDBMS manual to learn about transactions!). Basicly one bank has to lock the account at the other bank, check the balance, withdraw the money and then credit it to its own account. For security reasons, no bank can simply lock an account at another bank. Instead, the transaction is split into two transactions between the banks and a clearing point. The bank the check is presented to is booking against that account at another bank at the clearing point, creating a short time debt. Then the clearing point is performing all transactions with the other bank, and thus creating a short time credit voucher. The debt and the credit voucher are then cleared at the clearing point, thus the name. If they don't match, both transactions are rolled back the next time the banks and the clearing point contact each other. A copy of the check is mailed to the other bank. So it takes at least three transaction runs just to get money from one checking account to the bank to cash out a check. For security reasons, the transaction runs are done several times (I know of one bank which does it at least five times with five different ways to transfer the transaction file, just to make sure the transaction file is complete, not hampered with and authorized).
Now the other bank has an account where money was withdrawn. The owner of said account has a certain time limit (depends on the Terms of Services, but can easily be two weeks) to dispute the withdrawal and to cancel it. If he says that the check is fraudulent, the original check will be inspected at the other bank, and if there is anything fishy about the check, the transactions are reversed. So it can take easily more than two weeks until a check finally clears. And it has nothing to do with incompetent and slow banks.
The real issue is that it's 2016 and checks don't fucking clear instantly yet!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No it is just a normal criminals self rationalization.
Just like "If the victim really cared they should had been more careful", "People are always scamming me, so I should be first"...
Most people rarely consider themselves a monster or the villain, they will feel quite justified to themselves on what they are doing.
That is why we have a court of law, to judge peoples actions beyond the point of view of the criminal and victim because often both sides are too focused on their point of view then what is considered right and just.
Because often the victim of a crime does have a degree of responsibility too. Trying to acquire and illegal product. Avoiding working around the system to avoid taxes or extra fees... Often the victim isn't completely innocent, however the crime committed against them is far worse than what they were doing. However all this needs to be factored in.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.