Online scammer busted (long but worth it)

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#1
Originally from a motorcycle forum

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http://www.socalsvriders.com/forums...p?threadid=5114

Main story
After seeing a CBR 600RR for 4800.00 on CycleTrader.com I quickly called the phone number listed and sent and e-mail. The phone call went unanswered but the e-mail was responded to. Below is his reply to me.

-----Original Message-----
From: j k [mailto:eshop2324@blaiteng.net]
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2003 2:01 AM
To: gtp@***.***
Subject: 2003 HONDA CBR 600RR!!

Dear Aaron,
My bike has NEVER been down or dropped. Bike is in
perfect shape. NO ACCIDENTS. NO DENTS. NO SCRATCHES.NO
CRACKS. NO DEMAGE. Kept inside. I do not know any
problems. All service on time.Runs FANTASTIC . BIKE IS
ROAD READY.
The bike is crazy fast and handles like a dream.I will
provide you all the papers you need for the bike !
Please let me inform you that I'm a private seller and
I'm from London ( U.K. ).The shipping will be made
from here .Because it's a long way as a
carrier we can use the UPS ( I have a nice discount
here).The shipping costs will be supported by me.For
this transaction I'm willing to use an escrow
service.This is a 3th part service. They will protect
your money and my bike.You will have to make the
payment for them. They will keep your money in their
custody till you will receive and inspect the bike.
The service is Autotradesecure ( it's safety, cheap
and fast ). I'm sure we can proceed this way. You will
find more info about the service here :
www.autotradesecure.com
Thank you for your prompt respond and great efforts
!!!





After doing a little investigative work here's my response to him.

Hello Joseph,

Before I forward your information to the authorities I'd just like to explain how incredibly stupid you are.

First mistake:
Listing a cell phone number to someone who never picks up or returns phone calls. The cell phone is registered to a AT&T wireless customer that does not match your name.

Second mistake:
Wanting to use a third party escrow service that’s not real.

Lets take a look at some things here.

First your e-mail address and display name.

J k eshop2324@blaiteng.net

The domain blaiteng.net domain forwards to a simple and lame geocities website registered though Yahoo domains.

Third mistake: The autotradesecure.com domain.

The contact page is unavailable. What kind of business do you think has international transactions and has a down contact page? Not likely. The "History" partition of the website claims it was started in 2000 yet the website according to Network Solutions has only been active since Aug 3rd. And the website is registered with a contact address of business@best-e-shop.com

Fourth mistake: The best-e-shop.com domain has another lame geocities redirect to of all things, Ebay.

Seeing your e-mail address like I mentioned above "eshop2324" it wasn't surprising to lookup that domain and find it registered to none other than YOU!

Organisation Name.... Joseph Kispo
Organisation Address. 3485 Creek Drive
Organisation Address. Douglasville
Organisation Address. 30135
Organisation Address. GA
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES

Pack your bags and close shop Joseph. Your day is done. This e-mail as well as all documentation has been forwarded to Cycle Trader, Yahoo, FBI High Technology crimes div and my local authorities.

Have a nice day

P.S. That was me who just called you on your phone and asked if Joe was around, thanks for confirming your name with me it made my day. You're also unlucky enough to live close to a relative of mine in the Armed Services in Douglasville. Shall I send him a knockin?

Aaron Lephart



Just a heads up for people who might have been lured to this type of scam.

Main Story Part II
I held off following up as long as I could. Mostly because I did'nt want anyone who might have felt sorry for him to clue him in that I was serious about someone taking a drive to his house.

Get your popcorn ready cause this is long. I'm going to refer to the person making the trip to Joseph's house as the "visitor" to protect his identity. Don't think i'm talking about a person from another planet.


This morning I checked e-mail before work and found the following reply to my e-mail.

-----Original Message-----
From: j k [mailto:eshop2324@blaiteng.net]
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 1:39 AM
To: gtp@***.***
Subject: 2003 HONDA CBR 600RR!!
Importance: High

hehehe!!!
I'm so scared!!!!
So you think you're so smart?
that's not even my credit card,the domain you
mentioned is no problem,I'm not even from the US
THAT'S IT!!!YOU'RE OUT OF THE HERD!!!

Adding fuel to the fire I decided to give a call back East and have a visitor make a road trip. At first I decided maybe a couple pictures of his house e-mailed to him might scare him away. Then I starting thinking it over and thought either way its been reported to the proper people so it might not be a bad idea for a knock at the door. I left everything in his hands and let him make a judgement call on how far he wanted to go with this.

After talking to him after the visit he explained things to me over the phone. Here in short is what he said between the laughter.

After the short 9.2 mile drive to Joseph's house the visitor arrives at about 4:50pm local time and finds the address is a nice house with some mountain bikes out front and a garage door open with an old Chevelle being turned into a hot rod inside. He yell's "hello" and gets no response and pounds on the door 3 times. He waits and wait and noone answers. Off to the left he see's a curtain close with the face of a young man briefly viewed. He waits a while longer and noone answers. Undeterred he gets back into his car and parks it into the driveway. Clearly giving anyone inside notice that he was there for the long haul. He bangs on the door once again and finally someone answers the door. It was a young man that could'nt be more then 15 years old. He asks to speak to a Joseph and unbelievably replys with a "thats me". The visitor then starts explaining why he was there and Joseph proceeded to deny everything. As the conversation is going on he asks the visitor to leave and Joseph was trying his hardest to slowly close the door on him. The vistor knows exactly whats going on because we had planned it this way. The parents obviously worked and either 1 or both of them get off at 5pm and start the trip home. Before Joseph closes the door he shouts back "I'm coming back to talk to your parents".

This is perfect. From his e-mails I had assumed he was at the very least immature and best case scenario a minor. What better to stir your mind up then the thought of a rather large Marine who just confronted you coming back to visit you and your parents.

It worked! The vistor arrives at 6:00pm to find a minivan in the driveway (perfect) and a new E class Benz next to it (also fitting).
He parks and makes the trip to the front door. Before even getting to the door it opens and a man appears with a woman beside him. The welcome he gives is "I know why your here". He invites the vistor in and explains that Joseph and a friend of his admitted to using his computer to lure people into transferring money into a person's paypal account. The man then leaves the room and gets Joseph. Joseph comes in the room weeping with his dads arms on his shoulders. Joseph then begins to do the crying/hicupping thing where your trying to talk but keep getting shortwinded and can barely get a word out. The vistor is doing all he can from busting up and laughing inside. Halfway through some sort of incoherent apology Joseph is sent back to his room. The parents where EXTREMELY KIND and the visitor got the feeling they where really going to do something about it. They where also not overly upset to learn that I had already forwarded all the information to authorities. He left the house at about 7pm and got back into his car. He pulled away about found the nearest place with good cell reception and called me like an excited school boy. Between the static and the laughter I got most of his message and got a more detailed account of the situation when he called me at home.

2 lessons learned.

1. Just like in real life don't think your ever unaccountable for your own actions online. There is always somebody bigger and stronger then you are, mentally and physically.

2. Meet and befriend as many people as you can in life. You may end up doing allot of favors for people and not think you will ever be repayed or appreciated but then things like this come along and make it all worth while.

I keep a file that has things I have done and learned in life. It sounds weird because most of the things I cannot repeat or tell anyone for different reasons. I mostly do it to keep a hyper accurate account of memorys and things I have done in life. This incident will find its way into the file.

Aaron Lephart

End of story.
 

mikev

Active Member
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#2
codex57 said:


I keep a file that has things I have done and learned in life. It sounds weird because most of the things I cannot repeat or tell anyone for different reasons. I mostly do it to keep a hyper accurate account of memorys and things I have done in life. This incident will find its way into the file.

Aaron Lephart

End of story.
You mean a diary little girl [joke] did your marine friend go in his combats or was he wearing civies?
 

junglestylz

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#4
That is great. If i ever tried to pull a stunt like that when I was 15 I would have tried to hit the marine with a bat so that after he pummled the sh!t out of me and my parents got home they would at least have some sympathy for me. Either that or I would jump off the roof and save my father the trouble of throwing me.
 
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#6
There has been a good amount of ebay fraud in the NSX world. Somebody from Hawaii responded to a fake ad and lost $60k.

Another fraud to watch out for is the scam buyer. If you have something for sale, you may get a call from an overseas buyer. They will offer you more than you are asking, and send you an authentic looking cashier's check in advance. Your bank will accept the check when you deposit it. A few days later, the seller will call back with some sort of crisis, and ask you to refund a portion of the purchase price temporarily and send it via wire transfer.

The check you were originally sent is a fake, and will eventually bounce after 7-10 days, which may be after you have sent real funds to the buyer.

Other variations have the exchange of funds going on at the time of transaction, usually with the excuse that they could only get the money in the larger denomination.

There is a good amount of ebay identity theft going on. They send a fake email to the ebay seller pretending to be ebay and asking for the password.

Good rule of thumb: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

I had a friend who was ready to buy a $12k Sony Plasma at a $1500 buy it now. That item was yanked shortly after he found it.

Caveat Emptor. [wave]
 

Big Daddy

Senior Member
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#7
Interesting, I just got an e-mail, very professional with the eBay logos and in color, indicating it is from eBay about confirming my account information. The e-mail says something about updating account information, then asks for my bank account numbers, routing numbers, credit card info and more. Of course I e-mailed eBay asking if this was legit, no response at this time. I would never give all that information over the net.
 
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#9
Big Daddy said:
Interesting, I just got an e-mail, very professional with the eBay logos and in color, indicating it is from eBay about confirming my account information. The e-mail says something about updating account information, then asks for my bank account numbers, routing numbers, credit card info and more. Of course I e-mailed eBay asking if this was legit, no response at this time. I would never give all that information over the net.
Very good move. I would never do either, however you (just generalizing) wouldn't believe how many people out there that would. That's the people they pray on. Just not enough people using common sence. Especially online and through email.
 

Tom

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#10
If you guys ever get a fraudulant email, please post a copy to the Fraud, Scam & Consumer Alert Forum.


BTW: Great find Richard.[thumb]
 
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#12
Yeah, I've been scammed before but it was a rookie eBay move on my part (me sending money to someone with almost no feedback). Luckily c2it refunded my money, but I still didn't get the cell phone I wanted. Thanks for putting up some of those scams, Brahtw8. I didn't know about some of those. Like Tom said, we should post our experiences up so others can benefit.
 


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