MatrixWatch
October 31st, 2003, 06:44 PM
Did anyone watch "The People's Court" today? They had an eBay scammer on there. He sold someone an iPod, but mailed the buyer an envelope filled with Newspaper. The scammer was from Brooklyn.
What blew me away, is that I was totally familiarized with this scammers mentality, since we deal with them all the time. His defence was that someone at the post office took the iPod out of the envelope and replaced it with newspaper. The kid was only 16, and already he was a scammer.
The plaintiff who was suing this kid for over $400 expressed his frustration that he had no response to the reports he filed with the Attorney General, the Postmaster, the IFCC, and eBay. The Judge became frustrated at the response from the governing authorities as well, and she ruled in his favor against the eBay scammer. The punk kid has to pay the buyer about $450 bucks. His mother was mortified.
What I don't think that Judge realized is that there are TONS of these reports being filed, and the authorities are overwhelmed. The Chicago Tribune reported that there were 48,000 online-fraud referrals made to State and Federal Agencies last year. That is THREE TIMES what was reported in 2001. I expect the number in 2003 to climb even higher. Scam.ORG reported that over 80% of consumer complainst filed with government agencies last year were related to online-auction fraud.
The good news is that we are stopping a majority of these auctions before a buyer gets tangled in them.. Peterdragin has reported that we have shut down about 30,000 of these scam auctions, and we've had over 500 scammer accounts kicked off eBay. That is great news.
I remember YcChen asking about how we could spread consumer awareness. I think that we should start telling eBay and media organizations about what we are doing here. Just start sending out emails to talk shows, court TV shows, major newspapers, and the eBay staff. In time we will earn the recognition we deserve. You have my permission to mention our website, and the fact that our efforts have been recognized by MSNBC, KTLA, and even TechTV. I think that our influence and efforts can only grow from here.
What blew me away, is that I was totally familiarized with this scammers mentality, since we deal with them all the time. His defence was that someone at the post office took the iPod out of the envelope and replaced it with newspaper. The kid was only 16, and already he was a scammer.
The plaintiff who was suing this kid for over $400 expressed his frustration that he had no response to the reports he filed with the Attorney General, the Postmaster, the IFCC, and eBay. The Judge became frustrated at the response from the governing authorities as well, and she ruled in his favor against the eBay scammer. The punk kid has to pay the buyer about $450 bucks. His mother was mortified.
What I don't think that Judge realized is that there are TONS of these reports being filed, and the authorities are overwhelmed. The Chicago Tribune reported that there were 48,000 online-fraud referrals made to State and Federal Agencies last year. That is THREE TIMES what was reported in 2001. I expect the number in 2003 to climb even higher. Scam.ORG reported that over 80% of consumer complainst filed with government agencies last year were related to online-auction fraud.
The good news is that we are stopping a majority of these auctions before a buyer gets tangled in them.. Peterdragin has reported that we have shut down about 30,000 of these scam auctions, and we've had over 500 scammer accounts kicked off eBay. That is great news.
I remember YcChen asking about how we could spread consumer awareness. I think that we should start telling eBay and media organizations about what we are doing here. Just start sending out emails to talk shows, court TV shows, major newspapers, and the eBay staff. In time we will earn the recognition we deserve. You have my permission to mention our website, and the fact that our efforts have been recognized by MSNBC, KTLA, and even TechTV. I think that our influence and efforts can only grow from here.