Fraud/Scams: how to protect yourself and how to report it.

[vexangel]

First let me start by saying that the information I am listing is of my own opinion and findings; and what I have done in this kind of situation. And just as a side note: I have spent; so far, a full week researching and gathering information on this and I will continue to do so until I feel I have made my pint, so if anyone would like to help in adding information please feel free to do so.

On 07/17/2007 I had purchased a 8GB mp3 player on E Bay. I received it in a shipping box from China. I opened the box and found that the box inside containing my player had already been opened. It was missing a software CD. In its place was a print out on how to use the player and where to "buy" the software that should have been included. I plugged it into my computer and formatted it. After doing so I had a 1GB player. I also had a new virus on my computer that was transferred from the player. It had many problems for a week; mainly with file corruption and format errors. The day after my warranty expired it stopped working completely; I would turn it on and it sits on the hour glass. So I came here for assistance and saw all the info on the one person who ripped me off. I requested a refund and filed a claim with E Bay and Pay Pal. After I did this the man is still refusing to pay for this so I have taken further steps against this guy. First I called Pay Pal and let them know that I have become a victim of fraud. They in turn gave me a web site to report to. Now I did not think this was enough so I did some home work.

I found many sites to report this person too. I am still in the process of filling out reports to my local government and international agencies. At this point I have a friend; who is a lawyer, who has written up papers for me to file a law suit against him if it is needed. I am calling people all over the world about this to have this mass fraud brought to the attention of every one. Now I have to say the sad thing about this is that E Bay already knows this man is committing fraud and they do nothing to stop it. What is really funny about the whole thing is that in the past seven years Pay Pal; whom is owned by E Bay, has had four (from what I found) charges of money laundering brought against them for allowing funds to be transferred when a crime is involved. Does this seem wrong to anyone else? So with this being said I will give you as many links, email addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses, fax numbers, and names as I can to help you if you have become a victim of fraud or even if you are just sick of seeing all the fraud running around with nothing being done about it. If you still have questions about what you can do or where to go please feel free to ask; if I can't answer your question I will try to find someone who can. Thank you all for reading and for all support givin on this topic.
The links I have listed also have great ways on how to protect yourself against fraud.

Please be aware that some of the links I am listing for international claims can also be used for the US.

International Links:
http://www.icpen.org/
http://www.ftc.gov/oia/consumer.shtm
http://www.icrpc.org/
http://www.econsumer.gov/
http://www.cardserviceinternational....n-services.htm
www.consumerfraudreporting.org
http://www.fraudwatchinternational.c.../report-fraud/

Mostly US Links:
http://www.fcc.gov/
http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/reporting.php
Edit: http://www.ic3.gov/
http://pages.ebay.com.au/securitycentre/howcontact.html
http://consumeraction.gov/state.shtml
www.consumerinterests.org
www.fraud.org/aaft/aaftinfo.htm
www.consumer-action.org
www.consumerfed.org
www.consumerreports.org
www.cwt.org
www.consumersunion.org
www.nacaa.net
www.nclnet.org
www.consumerfraudreporting.org

(Note: If I find anything that could help I will post it here. Also I am not done adding information so you may see my information grow larger and larger over the next few days.)

[lattesurf]

vexangel , a quick way of recovering your money would be to contact your credit card company you used for the paypal payment, and filing a chargeback. Paypal can't do anything, and very likely you'll get your money back.

Sadly there is nothing much anyone can do against ebay or paypal, they earn loads of insertion and final value fees from each sales, probably in the millions each day just on these hacked players. And pretty much i guess they would not want to stop the sellers from doing so.

Taking legal action against ebay and paypal would be extremely costly, and again i guess no one wants to pay the huge legal fees just for a cheap $50 player (unless of course the person is a multi-billionaire).

Also, if i'm not wrong, if you want to file a lawsuit against the seller themselves, you'll probably need to engage a lawyer in China, this again would cost a bomb.

[vexangel]

I completely see what your saying; however, if I remember correctly there is a lawyer that is building up a large class law suit against E Bay/Pay Pal (which has been done in the past for money laundering, transferring funds while a crime is involved and knowing about it.), if this is the case I plan on helping this man/woman as much as I can. Also as a silly side note; I have written letters to all the legislators in my state and some for the country about this. I have talked to way too many government agencies and representatives to not continue. I actually have a friend who is helping me with this for free; he won't go to court with me but I do know of a legal service that will give me 1000 hours of legal service in court for $36.00 US a month (no strings attached) so this is where I plan on going if need be; they have lawyers world wide who will represent me even if I am not present. And this may sound silly but I have also reported this mass fraud to many reporters/journalists around the country. Can you say obsessed? :lol: all I can say is I have spent way too much time on this to have the pessimistic attitude you seem to have (no offense intended) and I mean that in the nicest way possible, I have worked quite hard to get as far as I have and there is no way I am going to just give up because most people choose not to do anything about it. I really don't mean to say that in a mean way but it's true, I refuse to be a victim and stay a victim. I am here to do what is right and to help those who feel the same way. I’m not sure what else to say but I am going to continue on my crusade no matter how hopeless it may seem to those around me. I appreciate your reply; as it is the first on this thread. Thanks again and have a good day.

[lattesurf]

vexangel , i'm probably kinda pessimistic about this, as i've seen many such cases, but nothing really comes out from it. However, the other cases probably did not have that many sources as you do. All the best with your crusade and do hope that you get somewhere with it.

[ashley_rb]

I'll probably get all ragged on for this but here it goes:

A lot of people say eBay should be doing more to stop the scam. I don't agree. eBay, like some buyers don't know what to look for and sometimes with hacked players no one knows except the seller that the player is hacked.

Sometimes the sellers give no clues, there's nothing in the description that a player is hacked. Everyone is blind to the fact a buyer is about to get scammed, including eBay and the buyer.

There are some real players on eBay and some great clones that offer people a cheap or inexpensive way to get a great player because alot of people can't afford a few hundred bucks to get a ipod. I think there is a market place for the good clones.

I don't think its productive to sue eBay and PayPal. Its more productive to tell everyone on eBay whats going with hacked players, like what robjones is doing.

Now you can rag all over me for this too but here's come the biggy: eBay isn't at fault - the sellers on eBay selling hacks are.

What is robjones up against? Lets take a real hard look - i checked eBay a few minutes ago and there are 7507 players listed. Robjones has 7 listings about the hacked players scam. Like O My God. How can robjones compete with 7507 listings. His 7 against all of eBay. Think about it.

How many of us has supported robjones effort and given him money or bought his guide even though we don't need it?

Take the money that it takes to pay lawyers to sue eBay and PayPal and give it to robjones - donate enough money to him so he can post 7507 listings about the scam. Give him twenty bucks and say here - go post more listings with it.

That's the answer - telling people on eBay about hacked players and the scam.

And what you are doing in this thread, that's the answer to. Get the word out. Bombard eBay with thousands and thousands of listings about the scam. That's the answer.

[AK]

Of course ebay is at fault. ebay knows about this and is being paid for every transaction. Besides the listing fee, ebay gets a share of the profit - a percentage of the final sale price. That makes ebay an ... uh ... accomplice?

I wonder how much of ebay's $1.13 billion of earning last year came from scams like this one.

[robjones]

I think it is fair to say that Ebay should be doing more to stop this, for one reason only. While they may not have the knowhow to spot a scam, they do not listen to people who do know. It is often said that Ebay users are the Police for the site. There is no reason why that should not work. But there is a reason and that reason is Ebay themselves. They either dont learn, or dont want to learn. We have a prime example on the go on Ebay at the moment. We got dana.rack stopped EVENTUALLY. But it took the Ebay users themselves by leaving negative feedback which snowballed before Ebay took notice. This was despite the links that we found quite early on in the scam. A total of over £25,000 was scammed by the seller, and as it was all in cheques, postal orders and bank transfers, it is safe to assume that the scammer got away with a lot of money. Just one day after that scam came to an end another one was started using the same method by seller mylistspeer. The same positive feedback built up with Sim cards and the same method of listing with the same medium value items. Okay, you might say, as soon as it is pointed out to Ebay they will put a stop to it. I have reported the listings about six times. I have informed the Police internet fraud team. Still it goes on. So far this week £6,500 has been scammed plus anoher £4-99 per item for postage. The scammer has learned from the last one by making the auctions bidders private, so they cannot be contacted. The seller is still getting the odd pos coming in, but buyers of the later items dont know that the feedback is all for past sim card sales. I know this because I have just checked on Goofbay. Ebay are in my opinion aiding and abetting by their inaction. I am convinced that both sellers are the same person, and it is astonishing that Ebay do not even suspend the listings until they have checked it out. That`s my rant over for the day.