Digital Workshop

I hate to admit this, especially since Linda told me to be careful: I was conned out of $1805 USD through an Internet scam involving eBay.

I contacted a "seller" with a question, and was told I could immediately buy a Sony camcorder from ************* which has an address of:

****************
***********
**************
************
***********

I wired ********** the money via Western Union per instructions which appeared to come from eBay, with a guarantee of a refund through eBay's SafeHarbour. I was told they would ship the camera the next day. The next day I was told the "new" camera was broken and had to be repaired. I requested a refund. That was the last I heard from them. I tried calling, but the lines are either busy, or there's a message that the message bin is full.

eBay now reports this seller has been banned. My request for a refund was actually sent to the scammers. eBay said there is no guarantee, and that SafeHarbour is only an eBay chat/discussion forum. Yes, the got me good.

I've contacted different police agencies to no avail. ******* has committed the "perfect" crime.

But here's where you can possibly help me. Can someone get the information on the ISP for their website? I'd like to contact the ISP and let them know of this fraud/thief. Can anyone in the London area check the address? Does it exist? Does ******** work from there? Is there a Manager or Owner we can identify? Should I try to contact local police in London, or some other agency?

The money lose really hurt, but being taken advantage of is even worse. Can anyone in the London area help me? TIA

Fred,

I'm so terribly sorry you were caught... I know I warned you off them, but it certainly doesn't make me feel any better.

As to who they are... that was what put me off in the first place; any website that only offers a mobile phone number has something to hide.

Their site is registered with Yahoo... look here for the details:

http://www.samspade.org/t/whois?a=www.* ... tnGo=Whois

The local police station for ********* is here:

Metropolitan Police Service
101 Ladbroke Road
London
W11 3PL

Tel: 020 7221 1212

I'm a long way from London, but the police would at least be able to tell you if the business existed at that address; be aware that the postcode and address don't quite match; the postcode given refers to the numbers around 120 rather than 20. The correct postcode for 20 I think would be ******.

I hope that Rob K will pick up on this message, as he was very into ebay, and might be able to recommend further channels of help there.

In terms of reporting the problem, do a Google search on International Internet Fraud.

It's late now, but I'll try the mobile number in the morning.

Good luck, Linda

Fred,

Having asked around some more, I've just emailed you privately with an offer from an American International Investigator willing to take a look at the company and their dealings.

Aren't international online communities wonderful things... I do hope you can get something positive out of this.

Do let us know how you get on... Linda

Yes still into eBay (studiorob)

Fred, I too am so sorry to hear this.

Unless I'm misreading, the deal wasn't actually done through eBay as such (although that was the means of initial contact). So I think all eBay will say is they're not liable because you didn't follow their safe buying advice.

To be honest I think that even if the deal WAS through eBay, you'd be pretty much on your own - seems all they are really interested in these days is collecting fees.

Unfortunately I'm afraid I can't see much hope of getting any redress ...as Linda says the phone numbers are mobiles, and will most likely be pay-as-you-go, so no details will be registered with the phone company.

If the address actually exists it will most likely be a mail-forwarding address - where pretty much anyone can open a mail collection point with no questions asked. Given that the postcode is wrong, I suspect the address is probably bogus.

There are some other warning signs about the deal...
...Western Union is regularly used for these scams, as it's easy to pick up the cash with appropriate ID.
...The website for this 'UK' business quotes prices in US dollars.
...The website prices are too low - I recently bought a Sony VX2100 here in the UK, and their price is at least 800 dollars too low.

I know it's too late for any of this to be any use to Fred (I wish it were not so) - but I hope it might prevent someone else suffering the same.

I can't offer any suggestions on how to guarantee to get anything done - in theory the UK police ought to be interested in it, but I'm not convinced they would be ...or son's garden shed was recently broken into and a similar value of goods stolen - the police issued a crime reference number over the telephone and never visited.

I guess the only chance of sorting this would be to carry out a sting operation - I've no doubt it's a scam they'll be repeating in the future.

Rob
www.visibleform.co.uk

The address appears to be genuine. (Look it up on http://www.multimap.com.) Of course that doesn't mean anything as obviously you can say anything you want on your website, and they might have just picked an address at random.

As Linda pointed out the address and postcode do not match exactly.

You can do a limited number of free checks of address v. postcode here...
http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/

Rob
www.visibleform.co.uk

I know of somebody else who was scammed in a similar way by being contacted by somebody via e-bay, but not actually doing the transaction via ebay. So that's clearly to be avoided (as ebay do say). I'm not sure what happened in the end, but the police did investigate.

Credit cards do have their flaws, but at least you have some protection that way. If the wire transfer means it could have been collected as cash, then there's no way to trace the money either.

Fred, I am really angry for what has happened to you. I'll see what I can do from here since I have connections with the Australian Federal Police.
I do not know if you already got this info that I am posting but that domain has been registered in USA. Check the image for details. You can follow the trace there.
Again, I am sorry and I'll see what I can do mate.

Here is the ISP of this scum:
*****
Now go and get him/her

Cheers
German

(Picure moderated).

Fred,
Really sorry to hear this sad tale -

I went to the following address and did a search on the .com name

www.internic.net

The result came out as a different potential ISP i.e. www.melbourneit.com which is different than the one Linda found.
Maybe it is Australian

Hope this helps abit.

Regards
John

(Whois output moderated)

The ISP is yahoo, so there's not a lot of point blaming them.

I hate to do this, but we're potentially liable for things posted on our forums, so I'm going to have to go do a bit of moderating. Even if these people are the scum of the earth, please don't post their names and addresses in public here, use private messages if you wish to discuss the details. Thanks.

Dave

Thanks for the help so far. As Dave suggests, please post to me in private if you have something really good.

The ISP for these thieves is listed as an indivdual here in the US. It turns out he's an old eye doctor, with no idea someone set up a website using his name and address. He's actually in Mississippi (MS) not Missouri (MO). His phone number and address are correct. He was stunned to hear my report. For the past two months he's been fasely billed by eBay, when he's never even been on eBay.

I did learn something when a rep from eBay actually called me (of course, I now don't trust anything anyone says). eBay is only responsible for $200 USD if you were the winning bidder on their system. Anything that ends early or is done direct -- not covered. PayPal is only good for a maximum of up to $1,000 USD. Therefore, my advice is don't buy anything on eBay that costs more than $1,200. There are firms which charge a fee and then hold your money and pass the merchandise to you for approval before releasing the money. The thieves now have their own service like this, so unless YOU select the provider, you could be falling right into their hands (like I did).

eBay said the item I bid on was only available for 20 minutes before they pulled it (but were unable to say why). It was my unfortunate timing to be online then... I'm $1,903 poorer, but a lot wiser.

Good advice from Fred - I will add a little more which I hope might help someone...

When using eBay as a buyer (or seller) don't commit more than you can afford to lose. I've done around 350 deals via eBay, and I've had about 6 go bad - in one case I lost 9 GBP because the seller never sent the item, and all the rest are people winning my auctions then never paying.

If buying a large value item I strongly recommend you pay with a credit or debit card - either direct to the seller (if they will accept it, and you're comfortable doing this), or via PayPal.

Why?

1. If you buy something over 100 GBP on a credit card, the card company is jointly liable with the seller for delivery and 'fitness-for-purpose' - so if the seller vanishes, the card company is liable and you get your money back. (This is the case in the UK, please check with your card company if you're outside the UK).

2. With both credit AND debit cards for any amount, if the transaction goes pear-shaped you ask the card company to do a 'chargeback' against the seller's account. Simple non-delivery is plenty good enough to initiate this. What happens here is the card company will immediately refund the amount to your account, take it out of the seller's account, and then set about sorting out the rights and wrongs of the situation.

So, if you use PayPal, I strongly suggest you pay them with credit/debit card - because then you can inititiate a chargeback against PayPal and guarantee to get your money back ...if you use PayPal's own procedures it takes at least 10 days by which time the money will be gone out of their system, and they'll do a shrug and say "sorry can't help". Charge it back to PayPal via your card company, and maybe if enough people start doing this, PayPal will start to put their own house in order - and remember PayPal is NOT a bank, and it IS owned by eBay.

Rob
www.visibleform.co.uk