I was scammed out of about $180 on eBay. Of course, PayPal and eBay are useless. Through some stealthy work, I was able to find out the following about the scammer:
[ol]
[li]His full name[/li][li]His email address on comcast.net[/li][li]His service provider is comcast.net and he is on a cablemodem[/li][li]He lives in the Boston area, possibly in Seabrook, NH[/li][li]The IP address of his computer (could change if he uses PPOE)[/li][li]The operating system of his computer (Win NT 5.1)[/li][li]His web browser (MSIE 6.0)[/li][li]His girl friend’s full name[/li][li]His girl friend’s parents recent address (they seem to have moved)[/li][/ol]
I have filed a complaint with Comcast for violating their terms of service (using the service for illegal activity). If I can find out his real address, I could file a complaint with the local police. So far, I have not been able to find his address (Switchboard, etc. don’t list him). I have considered submitting his email address to a few spam sites.
What can I legally do to make this person’s life hell? I’m open to suggestions.
First, you could consider filing in small claims court (after filing a police report, of course), but, that’s the end of my helpfulness, of course.
Unfortunately, the only way you can legally make this guy’s life hell (and no, submitting his address to spam sites is not a good idea, I think it’s actually illegal…) is to hire a lawyer to do it. The only problem is that a lawyer might not be willing to take the case for a sum that small. The lawyer will have ways of finding the guy’s address. If it’s interstate, the FBI may get involved, but I think there’s a $5000 minimum on cases they’ll get to.
Do you have Paypal set up to make payments by charging your credit card or by direct withdrawal from your bank account? Whichever way it is, contact them and tell them you were a victim of fraud and you wish to have the charges reversed. If you can document all the steps you took in the transaction and how you didn’t receive the merchandise (or it was an illegal copy, or whatever), and you have a decent credit card company or bank, you shouldn’t have any problems getting the money back in your account.
I ordered something through a website directly once. Got a confirmation email and an order number, etc. Never got the merchandise. Repeated contact via email went unanswered. I printed copies of everything, filed a complaint with my credit card company and they immediately reversed the charges. I’ve never heard one peep about it again, and that was over 2 years ago.
Call his local police department and ask if you can report him, and if they can help you. They are responsible for tracking down fraud in their own city.
Stuff like speeding tickets and traffic violations are public information. If you can narrow down to a few cities, scan the courthouses in the area and if he’s ever gotten a ticket, you’ll have a home address.
Incidentally, how did you manage to find out his gf’s full name and her parent’s most recent address? That’s some impressive sleuthing, you should freelance for the AP! snaps
World Eater, I have contacted Comast. They will not release information due to privacy concerns. I suppose they would with a court order. This sounds expensive and difficult.
Shayna, I did pay with a credit card and have put the charge in dispute. I have heard very mixed reports of how PayPal will respond to this. Some people have said PayPal forces you to pay as per their terms. Others say they let it drop. At least one person had their credit card company eat the charge because dealing with PayPal is such a pain (even for a bank!). I haven’t heard anything from either the bank or PayPal about my disputing the charge. I’ll have to wait and see what happens.
If I knew his address I could file a report like MrTuffPaws suggests. without even a confirmed city, this is really not an option.
county, his eBay and PayPal accounts were suspended after I filed a complaint with eBay and PayPal. As best as I can tell, he has not registered a new account. But, he may have done so with a new email address.
And finally, Yamirskoonir, the theif was using his girlfriends eBay account. I was able to get her name and phone number from eBay. The phone number lead me to a house in which lived a male and female with the same last name but different first names. This was clearly her parents. Unfortunately, the phone had been disconnected. It looks like they moved.
I was able to confirm last night that his IP address has not changed. A port scan showed he’s running Kazaa. Would the RIAA like to know about this?
Ex-Chemist, you have him. Why are you giving up? You traced everything to GF’s parents house. Guess what? Thats where he lives. As for the changed number, the scuzzball probably told GF’s parents that some crook hacked that # and they changed it to a non-published number.
Call the cops in that town. Explain that you’ve been scammed by (give his real name) who lives in their town at (give the girlfriend’s parents address). Odds are this crook has been at their station more times than he was in class in Highschool. They’ll probably be quite willing to help. Either way, good luck to you.
Also, hiring a private investigator (especially if he/she is an ex-cop) is a good way to track him down and having a local there on your behalf to file the necessary information (when you fax it to him) is a great plus. Some can do it cheaply (under $100)…and know which authorities to report the criminal to in a very efficient manner…
As quietman1920 suggested, try calling the cops in his town. I do a lot of selling on eBay. When one of my buyers wrote a rubber check and all my emails and phone calls went unheeded, I phoned the police in her town and asked for information about pressing charges against her. Apparently, they made their own phone call to her. A week later, I had a Postal Money Order for the amount due plus my bank fees. YMMV, of course.
Oh, and PunditLisa, Ex_Chemist mentioned the scammer’s account has been suspended. eBay’s system won’t accept feedback for suspended/terminated accounts.
I would call the cops, but I can tellya right now that unless you run into a very unusual situation, they’re going to give you blank stares.
“Internet? That’s on the computer, isn’t it?”
“What’s ebay?”
Police stations are notoriously underfunded. It is not uncommon to find a police station that doesn’t even have a computer, much less internet access. The police are waaaaaaaaaaaay behind in the area of cybercrimes.
However, since you’ve done the work for them, call them. All you need them to do is haul him in.
The guy will probably be so scared shitless (chances are he’s a small time crook and not a slick one, you’d never be able to trace a slick one) that he’ll pay you back on the spot. Guys like this are pussies, they never expect to get caught and when they do they break.
Did you pay extra to have the item shipped by the United States Postal Service? If so, make the seller aware that you have no choice other than to turn the matter over to his local police and the USPS. Mail fraud is a federal offense.
Now I have no idea if this really is mail fraud, but it would scare the beejesus out of me!
Have you not had any response from Paypal or EBay?