Investinginpaper needs some time in the crossbar hotel

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Posted By: tbob

I am tired of these scam artists having their hands slapped and either being booted off ebay (only to return under another name) or going free. According to reports, this guy was running a scam using stolen scans to fraudulently cheat ebay buyers out of close to a million dollars but luckily he was caught before his scheme worked. He needs to spend some time in the hoosegow. To hell with probation or being a "no longer registered user." Hopefully someone will tip off the FBI about this loser.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Agreed. No question a crime was committed and when you consider the amount of money at stake, this was a large, federal wire fraud punishable by at least a few years in prison. Ebay should have an automatic referral to the FBI for this crap instead of relying on its users/victims to alert the feds. They can provide ISP numbers, contact info (if real) and other identifying markers. It really is an outrage that some scumbag can do a day's worth of fraud and ruin lifetimes of hard work for honest people.

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Posted By: leon

I think the other issue is the "punishment fitting the crime" arguement put out by ebay's policies. This guy get's the same ebay punishment as a relative who honestly, with hopes of winning the auction, gets for bidding on another relative's auction. That's not fair (though business doesn't have to be). I don't see why they couldn't go the extra step and at least alert authorities in cases like this. regards

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

How in the world do you expect any U.S. authorities to do anything about a scam artist who is probably operating out of an Eastern European country whose government couldn't care less? Heck, they probably receive bribe money to look the other way. Until our government puts some pressure on these countries to quit providing safe havens for internet fraud, don't expect anything to change.

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Posted By: Brian

If I do recall from the auction's description, the seller wanted a check or money sent to them presumably to a U.S address. Eastern European countries don't have anything to do with this.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Yeah, it was clear that the seller was in the U.S. and no buyer would, after seeing that in the listing, send a check to Pakistan. And this is such an easy case to make for the FBI...the evidence is already completed, they would just need to track down the culprit via the net's fingerprints. Or even 'win' an auction and get his address that way...and show up with handcuffs.

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Posted By: cmoking

I thought the real guy behing the userid had his pasword phished. If you looked at his complete auctions through his feedbacks, the stuff he sold and the format of this auctions were completely different. He sold some $20-$40 modern cards, with 5 or 7 day listings (I forget which). meanwhile the high priced card auctions were 1 day listings for vintage high grade cards (such as a 1934 Goudey PSA 8 Gehrig).

This is what these crooks do when they send out the phishing emails asking for ebay userid/passwords. They use the accounts as fake sellers so they can't be tracked back to them. There is no other reason for the phishing for ebay userids that I can think of. If someone used it to buy, they still have to pay before the seller sends them the stuff.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Edited - (incorrect info - I had posted that he was asking for cashier's checks or money orders, but I think you are right that he was asking for checks).

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

This may indeed be a case where the scammer was stupid enough to get caught, but it would be the exception to the rule. The other thing I noticed about those auctions was the terrible spelling - same words misspelled multiple times, as if the seller was very uncomfortable with English. It could be that they were located in the U.S. (was someone able to prove this?), but I think it's more likely they planned to work off-line deals with a payment plan that would avoid any danger of being located.

You can gloss over the "out of country" angle, but it's a significant problem - until our government starts working with these other countries on internet fraud, we can implement all the laws and stiff penalties we want, and it will be for the most part a waste of time. Our buddy Toni is probably driving a Jag and spending his winters skiing and summers on the beach.

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Posted By: Mantle52topps

Investinginpaper won a 55 clemente psa 7 rc for 2050.00 on saturday night, his account was hijacked and ebay reinstated his account. It is my understanding, that the hijackers used 1 day auctions to bleed as much money as quick as they can.

however, jeff is corrrect, the authorities could find where the fake auctions originated from, and even send a check ( win the auction) and watch who picks it up and we now have one more criminal off the internet highway.