I saw an advert in a magazine called Macromart, well known and well read
weekly. The item was an A3 printer, the private advert looked good, not to
expensive but not to cheap, it stated preferred payment PayPal, I ran the
email address through Ebay and it told me he had a feedback of thirty odd
with 97.7% positive feedback.

I paid after a couple of emails from him, I sent the money through PayPal to
the email address he had given in Macromart. That was the last I heard from
him, I started a dispute with PayPal and have got nowhere, infact they
insisted on waiting ten days to see if he replied to their emails and
nothing, of course he had cleared out his PayPal account in that time.they
then asked him to return the money, what a joke, any one know of a thief
retuning freely the money he has stolen.

I am asking this group if anyone may have come across this Thief, he is
using multi addresses one is jonjones26@yahoo.com the other we have found
as graham.pickford@yahoo.com Because of data protection both Macromart and
PayPal refuse to pass any details to me, seems a thief has the same
protection as an honest person. he now has my postal details and I have
nothing about him. He could be anywhere in the world or the person living
next door.

The Police have been informed and I have a crime number but at this time
they have not found him. I have no complusion in broadcasting his email
addresses, I do however hope someone may know a little more than what I have
been able to obtain. I apologise in advance if anyone thinks this is off
topic, I think otherwise. Thank you.

Interesting, Usually EBay/Paypal will automatically give you contact info
when a transaction is involved. I've had to call sellers
about delays & other problems and have always been able to obtain the
contact info. The safest way to do things through PayPal is to use your
credit card, thus getting an additional level of protection.


"Shooter" <photoman52003-shoot@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0oSdnTUh76kmT3fanZ2dnUVZ8tWvnZ2d@bt.com...

Shooter wrote:
from the guy, as part of their Payer Protection Plan, or whatever they
call it. However, like any insurance company, they will first seek
payment from the liable party. Give them some time. And Chuck is right.
For larger purchases, use your credit card via Paypal. That would make
Paypal all the more interested in resolving your dispute, as they are
the ones who would be on the hook if you file a dispute with your card
company, not the "thief."

TJ

I don't use paypal, but I was under the impression they offered some
type of escrow service. They may charge extra for that, but it is
probably worthwhile if a lot of money is involved in dealing with an
unknown quantity. I believe ebay offers an automatic insurance package
up to something like $200 on a purchase over a certain amount, which may
make ebay a safer method to make a purchase.

With the current cost of phone calls being so low, it may be worthwhile
to require a phone number and an actual conversation by phone before
agreeing to a purchase, and also asking for some specifics. I believe
in a balanced transaction where both sides take similar risks. If the
deal just seems too good to be true, it might be, so be more cautious in
those circumstances.

And lastly, anyone can be conned. Some cons are professionals, and all
of us make some assumptions of honesty in others. Sadly, there are
always those who will abuse this trust, making the rest of us have to
become less and less trusting. The violation is more than about loss of
money or merchandise, it is loss of trust, which is a more devastating
loss. Try to learn from the loss, pursue the thief, but forgive
yourself for allowing yourself to take the higher road and trusting
someone. In the end, we are a better world because trust exists, even if
we occasionally get taken advantage of.

Art

Shooter wrote:

"Shooter" <photoman52003-sh...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Which is horrible, by the way. Plus, you need to compare timestamps
on given/received feedback and see if the seller "hostages" FB,
in which case knock off another couple of %. Hostaging FB is now
ending on eBay.

But I take it that you did not execute the buy through eBay, but
off-Ebay using PayPal.

Not doing it through eBay means you can't pull Contact Information,
which would include a phone number (often bogus with scammers,
but then you call before you send the money).

You are evidently in the UK, where credit card rules may vary, but
in the US, had you flushed your PayPal account, and funded the
buy through PayPal using a credit card, you'd still have recourse
to charge-back.

Lessons:
1. Learn how to interpret eBay feedback scores. Check toolhaus.org
too.
2. Never make a significant buy from a seller you cannot locate or
contact.
3. Always execute a significant buy with cc-funded PayPal.

--
Regards, Bob Niland mailto:name@ispname.tld
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.

Thanks for the replies, no one feels worse that I do at this time at been
taken in, I am most careful in all my transactions. Paypal offer no
protection in sending money unless the purchase is made with Ebay. Their
Status in Send Money fails to work. When you email them they start a dispute
which is their way of dragging their feet. You then make a claim and have to
wait another 10 days on top of the posible 20days the dispute takes to give
the thief time to reply to an email they send, that's really a joke, a thief
returning money to the person he has robbed.

Now comes the rub, the money I sent to the fraudster through PayPal went
into his Paypal account and because of the time they took he was spending it
on Ebay, I had to sit and watch his feed back increase from the day he
received the money until PayPal after sixteen days took what was left from
his account, the amount of £5.45, over £200 had gone.

How do I know this, well it is unlikely a fraudster would have the money
forwarded to a bank, to much of a trail back to him so he used Paypal as a
bank and withdrew what is required to pay his Ebay commitment, as I say
leaving just over a fiver in the account.

So this is how Paypal look upon Fraud, they don't call it theft, they say
it's "Non Delivery Of Item" thus allowing them to play silly buggers while
the fraudster spends the money sent to him. I think PayPal have a nasty
smell about them and should advertise Fraud Is Fun. Ebay have the same could
not care less attitude, having tried to find out about him, if you type his
email address in find all you get is the feedback and percentage and a
message saying, "Because you have not had dealings with this person in the
last 60 days we are unable to give you further details". The meaning of this
is that everybody in the world who log on to Ebay will never know if they
have looked at an auction this frauster is running, Now how safe is that.

If anyone comes across this person be aware that you will loose your money
so please let me know any details you may find.



"Shooter" <photoman52003-shoot@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0oSdnTUh76kmT3fanZ2dnUVZ8tWvnZ2d@bt.com...

"Shooter" <photoman52003-sh...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Another eBay tip - normally, the rational way to buy on
auction-style listings is to place one bid late in the auction
(perhaps 20 seconds before end time), for your max price
plus an odd penny amount to prevail in Bid Increment games.

But there are reasons to bid early, in some instances,
although only if the current or start price is low. If you
place an early low-ball sure-to-lose placeholder bid, you
now have "a dealing" with the seller, and can pull CI
(Contact Information). Place your real bid late.

Other reasons to bid early are:
- to lock-in a listing error in your favor,
- detect any unintended bidder blocks, or to
- stomp a BIN (a tactic that is apt to vanish soon).

--
Regards, Bob Niland mailto:name@ispname.tld
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.

I told everybody that I do not use Ebay or Paypal.&nbsp; I buy legitimate Canon ink from mostly Costco.

Shooter wrote:

Thanks for the replies, no one feels worse that I do at this time at been taken in, I am most careful in all my transactions. Paypal offer no protection in sending money unless the purchase is made with Ebay. Their Status in Send Money fails to work. When you email them they start a dispute which is their way of dragging their feet. You then make a claim and have to wait another 10 days on top of the posible 20days the dispute takes to give the thief time to reply to an email they send, that's really a joke, a thief returning money to the person he has robbed. Now comes the rub, the money I sent to the fraudster through PayPal went into his Paypal account and because of the time they took he was spending it on Ebay, I had to sit and watch his feed back increase from the day he received the money until PayPal after sixteen days took what was left from his account, the amount of &pound;5.45, over &pound;200 had gone. How do I know this, well it is unlikely a fraudster would have the money forwarded to a bank, to much of a trail back to him so he used Paypal as a bank and withdrew what is required to pay his Ebay commitment, as I say leaving just over a fiver in the account. So this is how Paypal look upon Fraud, they don't call it theft, they say it's "Non Delivery Of Item" thus allowing them to play silly buggers while the fraudster spends the money sent to him. I think PayPal have a nasty smell about them and should advertise Fraud Is Fun. Ebay have the same could not care less attitude, having tried to find out about him, if you type his email address in find all you get is the feedback and percentage and a message saying, "Because you have not had dealings with this person in the last 60 days we are unable to give you further details". The meaning of this is that everybody in the world who log on to Ebay will never know if they have looked at an auction this frauster is running, Now how safe is that. If anyone comes across this person be aware that you will loose your money so please let me know any details you may find. "Shooter" &lt;photoman52003-shoot@yahoo.co.uk&gt; wrote in message news:0oSdnTUh76kmT3fanZ2dnUVZ8tWvnZ2d@bt.com...



I saw an advert in a magazine called Macromart, well known and well read weekly. The item was an A3 printer, the private advert looked good, not to expensive but not to cheap, it stated preferred payment PayPal, I ran the email address through Ebay and it told me he had a feedback of thirty odd with 97.7% positive feedback. I paid after a couple of emails from him, I sent the money through PayPal to the email address he had given in Macromart. That was the last I heard from him, I started a dispute with PayPal and have got nowhere, infact they insisted on waiting ten days to see if he replied to their emails and nothing, of course he had cleared out his PayPal account in that time.they then asked him to return the money, what a joke, any one know of a thief retuning freely the money he has stolen. I am asking this group if anyone may have come across this Thief, he is using multi addresses one is jonjones26@yahoo.com the other we have found as graham.pickford@yahoo.com Because of data protection both Macromart and PayPal refuse to pass any details to me, seems a thief has the same protection as an honest person. he now has my postal details and I have nothing about him. He could be anywhere in the world or the person living next door. The Police have been informed and I have a crime number but at this time they have not found him. I have no complusion in broadcasting his email addresses, I do however hope someone may know a little more than what I have been able to obtain. I apologise in advance if anyone thinks this is off topic, I think otherwise. Thank you.

TJ wrote:
When an ebay seller refused to ship an item I bought, Paypal refunded my
money within 30 days of my original complaint to them. I tried
resolving it myself first and when they read the paper trail I had
established they acted fairly fast when they didn't get a response fropm
the seller either. The OP should ask Paypal to resolve the matter, IMO.

measekite wrote:

Sucker!!!...LOL!
Frank

Michael Johnson wrote:
I had a similar incident with an Ebay sale, and Paypal refunded my money
even quicker than they did yours. The OP's incident, however, involved
an off-Ebay sale, even though it was an Ebay seller. According to the
OP, that makes a difference to Paypal. I've had only the one dispute, so
I can't deny his assertion from personal experience.

TJ

Shooter wrote:

Delivery of Item" would be a specific type of fraud. However, I'm no
legal professional by a darn sight, and besides, I'm in the US and
you're not. Different country, different rules.

That said, I believe you have to give Paypal bank account information
when you sign up as a seller. I might be wrong about that, because it's
been a long time since I signed up. I signed up with Paypal before Ebay
bought the company, and the rules have changed several times over the
years. But, I can't imagine them getting less strict in that regard. So
they know where to go to get the money, unless of course that account is
no longer valid. The trouble is, they can't just go there and get the
money without permission. Then THEY would be accused of theft.

Unless Paypal has told you, "We've done all we can do to resolve this
claim," you're being too impatient. It takes time to access somebody's
bank account without their permission. You have to be sure of your
ground, and probably have to go through the courts. Investigation takes
time, and the courts move slowly. Those things are the same no matter
which country you're talking about.

I know it's maddening, but be patient.

TJ

I don't know a lot about the law in the UK, but in the US and Canada you
can report fraud like this to the Attorney General's Office for each
state involved, as well as to the Postal Fraud division if any of the
transaction did or was to take place using their services. This will
give him a record with those organizations. In some cases, they may
even intervene and demand the goods or refund of money be sent to you by
the person. I had one case where the NYC Attorney General's office
took on a case for me over an internet fraud sales transaction and
warned the guy he would have a permanent record with them if he did nor
make good on his sale. It took him nearly a year but he delivered the
goods.

Art


Shooter wrote:

Thanks Art, we have the FSA They are the governing body for the banks and
give companies like PayPal a licence to operate as a bank in the UK, inreal
terms it means that PayPal have to have an address in the UK.

PayPal because of the many customers who may wish to litigate tell customers
that their offices are in Europe thus discouraging many from County Court
proceedings, as in your country it would be the Attorney Generals Office. In
the UK they would only be interested in Large scale fraud, but because
PayPal have a UK office they are subject to the UK court system.

I have been considering this road for some time and it may be my only way to
get at this fraudster, the problem is, all I have is an email address at
this time so I would have to go to a County Court and ask that the
fraudsters details be released under the UK Data Protection act 1998 section
35.2 which allows the protection given to be lifted in the case of theft.
However, the UK Police are also trying to find this person and would be able
to give me his details as well as prosecute. Again the problem is PayPal,
it's now over two weeks and they have not replied as yet to the police
request. Well and truly stuffed comes to mind.

"Arthur Entlich" <e-printerhelp@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:mo4Ij.12978$rd2.9593@pd7urf3no...

Well, good luck.

I had another case where I bought something on line via a for sale
newsgroup (this is almost pre-ebay) and again no delivery of goods. I
discovered the guy was working as a post grad at a university and was
employed by them as well. I did some detective work and was able to
find out he had defrauded several other people as well.

I wrote a letter to the dean of the university informing them of the
quality of graduate students and employees they had, but they were less
than interested, other than to tell me that he had just graduated, after
waiting months to reply.

Then I teamed up with one of the other people he defrauded and together
we found his new employer. We both emailed him that he had 10 days to
issue us certified checks (or cheques ;-)) for the full amounts he owed
and if not received we were reporting him to his new employer (he was a
coder working for a IT company). This wasn't a bad debt which you
cannot report to an employer under most circumstances, this was outright
fraud he was involved in and we had documented proof, and he was working
on potentially high security internal stuff. He tried to "negotiate" a
smaller payment but we both stood on principle and demanded full
payment. Well, the cheques showed up within days and were good. We
informed all the other people we knew of who he had defrauded to demand
payment as well. Sometimes you have to play hardball.

Art


Shooter wrote:

Arthur Entlich wrote:
story of the former governor of New York State, Eliot Spitzer. He broke
several US federal laws, and as a result is no longer our governor - and
rightfully so.

What you did by grabbing your money and turning away was to knowingly
expose that IT company and all its customers to a potential security
breach. Perhaps several before the guy got caught. Maybe he had
reformed, but even if he did, if he fell on hard times who knows what he
might have done? After all, he got away with it once, didn't he? And
what if somebody else got to him later, somebody interested in getting
more out of him than simply getting their money back. What company
secrets would he have exposed to save his own skin?

The guy had no business being in a sensitive position, and his company
should have been informed of that.

TJ

Well, we'll agree to disagree in this matter. Sometimes one has to
allow for people to reform and give them the opportunity to prove
themselves as having done so. My hope is that this guy learned a
valuable lesson that it isn't that easy to get away with what he was
doing, nor was it righteous, and that there are consequences to actions.
I do believe people are capable of learning from their mistakes, and in
this case, it is much more the responsibility of his employer to be
watchful and careful of both who they employ and what those employees do
as it is for me to make assumptions about what that employee might do in
certain circumstances. Had I known for a fact that he was a security
risk, I would have not held back. We all need to weigh our word against
the real and apparent risks. In this case, I gave my word I would not
interfere with his work situation if he made proper restitution, which
he ultimately did. I was not out to ruin his life, but to both correct a
wrong and to hopefully provide a life lesson.

Since you brought it up, I was very disappointed in Mr. Spitzer's lack
of good judgment, not because he strayed or even that he was a
hypocrite, but because he betrayed those who were relying upon him to
protect them through the hard nosed approach he took to corruption and
sloppy bookkeeping practices. His personal indiscretions are of no
concern or personal interest to me, and are between him and his spouse,
similarly to Bill Clinton, and many others (it seems many men in
positions of power have a difficult time controlling their intimate
relations). That, in and of itself, doesn't make them bad at the other
things they do. He spent his own money buying sex. Unfortunately for
him, he also encouraged a pro to cross state lines for him which is a
federal offense, but not one I am particularly worried about when it
comes to high price call girls who chose that as a profession. I'm not
sure who we are protecting in cases like that which seem relatively
victimless.

What actually was much more disconcerting for me, was the reaction of
the brokers and traders of the stock market on hearing of Spitzer's
problems and ultimately his resignation. They cheered. What exactly
were they cheering about? Spitzer may have been a hard nose, but he was
helping to clean up a very dirty and corrupt monetary mess which has
defrauded millions of people of many millions of dollars. It makes me
realize those same people are still all there ready to pounce at the
next opportunity to cheat stockholders. Makes me want to sell off my
stock knowing what I'm up against. It means little guys do not have a
chance to make legitimate money investing on Wall Street when traders
oppose proper reformation and oversight.

Anyway, we've gone way off topic here, for which I apologize, but I'm
not convinced the world is black and white, and as much as I would
prefer everyone was honest and consistent, I also recognize that in
truth, we are all shades of gray, and in both the case of the individual
I was referring to and Mr. Spitzer, I have a similar point of view, that
it is not always appropriate to throw the book at someone when a couple
of thinner pamphlets would do. ;-)

Art


TJ wrote:

Arthur Entlich wrote:
and it was wrong of me to jump to a conclusion without all the facts. I
too have maneuvered myself into a position where I had to weigh keeping
my word against what potentially might be the Greater Good, and I chose
to keep my word. It's no fun.

be as adamant as I am. Spitzer's whole attitude of arrogance turned me
off from the time he started running for the governorship, so maybe that
colors my perspective. The infidelity isn't my problem with him,
although it's a symptom of the bigger problem. The hypocrisy is the big
thing with me. He seemed to think, whether consciously or not, that the
laws he swore to enforce shouldn't apply to him. That doesn't fly with me.

the book while they investigate further, and from what is rumored that
book is getting bigger and bigger. He was getting more and more
ineffective as governor anyway. This just completely ruined any chances
that he would ever be effective in that role again, and just when our
state budget was coming due. He needed to go.

I too apologize for wandering off topic, and I have said all I have to
say on the matter. Art, if I have offended you, I apologize for that,
too. It was not my intention.

TJ

TJ wrote:
Art, if I have offended you, I apologize for that,
Absolutely no offense taken. I'm glad I was able to explain my actions
further.

Art