posted on October 8, 2000 01:11:25 PM
Toyranch: Obviously those activities are done by human beings, thus "it's human nature," can be stated for those things.
Obviously, we wouldn't have laws against certain activities if human beings did not do them.
But to state "it's human nature," as an excuse for criminal behavior is not a valid defense.
Buying a lottery ticket (where it's legal to do so) and gambling in Las Vegas are not crimes.
Vargas: PayPal does not provide the credit-card billing address of the buyer, that's true, but PayPal does provide fraud
protection if the seller is verified.
You suggest that she did this with criminal intent because she is not so dumb as to do it without knowing what she was doing.
I'm just stating why people do these things without criminal intent.
One of the things that must be proven in a criminal trial is intent. If you pick up a candy bar in a store and are looking at it and your kid starts grabbing stuff and you quickly put it in your pocket to get your kid and then the kid starts crying and you forget about the candy bar in your pocket and walk out of the store with it, you took the candy bar without paying for it. But if you are caught by security and charged and go to trial, if you have a clean record of such activity and the store video shows what happened with your kid, it is highly unlikely that you would be found guilty of stealing. You did not intend to do it.
Why would anyone take all the risk in a deal like this, with criminal intent, for a measley 7%? I mean, she has been handing out the Western Union numbers and stuff. It's not too hard for them to see her cut as 7%.
Sorry, I don't buy the idea that she did it with knowledge of wrongdoing. I just don't buy that at all. I had my doubts for a while, it sure was starting to look like she was just playing for sympathy, but I don't buy that any more.
If you believe that, it's your opinion, this is mine and the last post and this one detail why I hold that opinion.
posted on October 8, 2000 01:34:57 PM
Toyranch: My questions about her intent
is totally separate from my opinion of whether or not this could happen to someone else. Okay? That's the point I'm trying to make here, not to be confused with any speculation about why she did what she claims to have done, etc.
I think it's okay to disagree, okay to have different opinions and definitely wonderful to discuss the issues, because it provides a format for getting information out and sharing ideas.
Her innoncence or guilt is not important to me. The original topic was did PayPal do what she said, take money out of her bank account. And the sub-topic is "Can it happen to you?" Because that's what I'm concerned about.
posted on October 8, 2000 01:39:29 PM
[i]PayPal does not provide the credit-card billing address of the buyer, that's true,
but PayPal does provide fraud protection if the seller is verified.[/i]
bookdealers, paypal may provide fraud protection, but their first action upon learning of possible fraud is to freeze your account. Their second action is to require you to send them an email which they promptly ignore. You cannot close your account while it's frozen, so it continues to accumulate payments. Apparently, occasionally records of the individual transactions disappear. If you value your FB rating, you continue to ship the product even though you don't have the $$ and sometimes no way to verify you've actually been paid. All the while you sends emails and make phone calls trying to find out what's going on, but they tell you nothing.
But, hey, we're protected.
[ edited by fountainhouse on Oct 8, 2000 01:40 PM ]
posted on October 8, 2000 01:53:11 PM
I just wonder how many of these fraudulent PayPal accounts are "verified". This verification scheme is an absolute joke.
posted on October 8, 2000 01:57:03 PM
fountainhouse ~ is this what happens to verified accounts? I'm not aware of any users, on this board, who have been verified and this has happened to. The exception being the person this thread is about. (course, IMO, PP had very good reason to totally lock down this 'verified' account) If you have knowledge to the contrary, I would appreciate a link/hint to that direction so I could read it.
posted on October 8, 2000 02:52:54 PM
Blanche, thanks. Honestly, I'm just too lazy to do a detailed search I will start reading and searching tonight after dinner.
posted on October 8, 2000 03:37:37 PM
"I just wonder how many of these fraudulent PayPal accounts are "verified". "
None of them. If the seller had insisted that the buyer accounts be verified, the scammers would have found a new mark. They sent just under the $$ limit for each of dozens of transactions to slide under the radar.
posted on October 8, 2000 05:14:16 PM
Well, I finally went over to OTWA.com and read the messages on the first pages of several threads begun by the seller being discussed here in this messagethread.
Bookdealers, I do not have the same feelings that you have about her - but I am pretty preoccupied with higher priorities, so do not even have the time, much less inclination to read ALL the threads ALL the way through.
I cannot tell by black letters on a white monitor whether any human being is lying or not, nor can I adjudge if they are "innocent" or conniving.
I will say that in RL, I have met plenty of people who are G@@D decent people who are more than willing to do favors for others, to be helpful, who could easily be swayed by a con such as this.
I will say that in reading the posts, what struck me as a red alert D-A-N-G-E-R was that the first transaction from Roumania was for an engagement ring, and it was paid for by 3 credit cards, - now, this alone was bad enuff for me, but then the message from Roumania that the fiance was killed in a car accident, so to please return the monies via Western Union?
wow...............
Unfortunately, just like Bobby mentions, there is a huge pool of potential marks for all manner of cons, that composed of innocent, naive, gullible, inexperienced, non-jaundiced always-hoping-for-the-best sincere individuals.
I've read in textbooks of clinical psychology that sociopaths think that such traits are hilariously amusing - in a very contemptuous way.
Now, that said, let me mention again that I simply do NOT believe mucha anything I read on the Net, and most particularly whatever winds up at messageboards and in chatrooms, as I have personally seen five years worth of cons, and a multitude of obvious memes, and assorted games used on these mediums, so they are suspicious perveyors of information, imo.
posted on October 8, 2000 05:57:56 PM
Speaking of verified accounts --
This Romanian Connection thread and the several other ones here in Partner Services have made me FINALLY *get it* why PayPal has been pushing it so much. For BUYER protection, or for PayPal protection?
I think the latter, and if Buyers happen to be a little better protected in the process, well, that's gravy, isn't it?
Thanks for posting the Ebay thread link. I found a few posts in there very disturbing.
From a 50 year old grandfather: "I do not do mach business on Ebay, because I'm not here to make money.....its only $83.20 of my money was frozen by PayPal, some of you why already got cot in this scam loosing now more , maybe mach more money then my lost....your account is frozen, they not reply on your e-mails.....They will not present any document or proof of
anything they will accuse you......I'm still never received anything from PayPal, even the last time John told me that Investigation is over and my money confiscated. I do not have official document on his decision and will never be able to see one."
From another poster: "Paypal restricted my account too!....I couldn't even get through to them on the phone. It's very scary that they can just freeze your money like this. I didn't find out until I tried to log onto Paypal today. Right after that, I got an E from them saying my account had been restricted, and the steps I need to take to lift the restriction, to verify my account."
From yet another poster: "Same thing happened to me....My account has been restricted from 9-22-00 and is still restricted with no explanation....."
And the beat goes on......
[ edited by outoftheblue on Oct 8, 2000 06:26 PM ]
posted on October 8, 2000 06:49:46 PM
The first 'visible' offer of money has been made. Will it be accepted? Will others jump on the bandwagon? Guess we'll only wait and see.
posted on October 11, 2000 09:37:24 PM
The saga seems to draw to a close as the woman posts that she contacted Consumer Protection.
The man she spoke with, she relates, wasn't surprised at all. He told her that the FBI doesn't investigate under $50,000, PayPal would be very unlikely to come after her for anything else, and she could sue them and might be able to get the money back or at least force them to show WHY the money was removed as at present she has no proof of anything from them or anyone else (although it does SOUND like a con and I'd lay 100 to 1 odds that it is).
Anyway, she says she'd like to put it behind her but would like to share her story with anyone who can learn from it. The thread is called "Feedback From Consumer Protection"
posted on October 13, 2000 01:42:25 AM"I have called my local police and a detective has been assigned to my case. There is a bigger issue here than losing money. It is the issue of good people with good intent who are scammed."
jshumko,
The odds in your favor are slim, so slim as to be almost non-existant. According to your version of the story it would seem that PayPal has lost a fair amount of money. Local authorities are going to have zero chance of bringing a Romanian to justice. As for the Romanian authorities... well there's a reason that Romania is one of the first mentioned when it comes to international credit card fraud. The article below might help you understand how they operate, and how slim your chances are of the Romanian authorities taking any steps on your behalf.
posted on October 13, 2000 02:53:19 AM
I'd like to explain that I think the story of Jshumko is a frightening one. I think it frightens honest people who are doing
legitimate business to think that their money might be lost if an investigation of fraud is begun against them and their account with
a credit-card service is frozen. Anyone can be accused of a crime, and it's often difficult to defend oneself against an
accusation, and it may be very expensive to prove one's innocence, much less regain one's reputation after such an accusation.
In all honesty, I think we have a human being telling a story, who fails to understand the implications of what she claims to have
participated in.
I have feelings too, I am a human being. As a human being, I have opinions, which I have felt free to express here. I also have
questions about a story which interests me because of my desire to know the truth about what really happened.
I'd like to have some answers too. Based on your statements, Jshumko, I'd like to know the answer to this question:
The payments that you accepted for the guy in Romania: Were those payments made with stolen credit cards?
I really do have a problem with some other questions, which your statements would lead someone to believe that you have
been naive about:
Didn't you think something was strange and possibly illegal that someone would pay you 7% to accept payments and forward
them to Romania?
Have you ever heard of the federal laws against money laundering? Racketeering? Credit-card fraud?
Your comparing yourself to a rape victim is objectionable to me, because I do not perceive you as a victim. It's my opinion
(based on your postings) that you were made an offer to participate in something, which you willing did. When PayPal froze
your account, that's when you started telling your story. It appears to me that you believe you have been victimized by PayPal,
and that you do not think that what you did (which resulted in your PayPal account being frozen) was wrong?
You HAVE spoken up. Plenty. Way before this thread ever started. No one's opinion posted here has hindered you from expressing yourself or telling your story.
My expression of my opinion about what you stated happened is NOT "whip lashings," it's simply an expression of my opinion.
It is NOT that I do not understand. It's that I have a different opinion. I stand by my right to voice my opinion, as allowed by
the rules of this board.
Your opinion and your definition of "good people" is probably not the same as mine.
Perhaps you don't live in the same reality that I do. Perhaps you had best get yourself some good legal advice from a criminal
attorney, about your position and the possibility that you will need a defense in criminal court proceedings, before you
incriminate yourself further. "Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law."
You do NOT need my approval. You might need a good lawyer. The guy over at the Consumer Protection Agency is NOT going to defend you, nor will his opinion have any weight in criminal court proceedings.
The weight of public opinion will probably not help you or hinder you. If you get arrested for criminal activity, the opinion of the prosecutor and the findings of a court and jury are the things that are going to matter to you.
Please get the advice of a good criminal attorney and find out what you have to do to protect yourself.
posted on October 13, 2000 05:37:34 AMIt is those people, like the ones who expressed their opinions in this thread, who prevent honest people from speaking up, and who allow fraud to continue
HUH? You've GOT to be kidding, right? Ok, I'm going to assume that is your opinion, because I'm about to express mine.
What allows fraud to continue are people who do not use common sense. People who believe everything they are told without doing any research on anything. People who are consumed by greed and willing to believe any dog and pony show on which they can make a couple of bucks.
THAT is what allows fraud to continue.
Please do NOT equate this incident with that of a rape victim. You had a choice! You CHOSE to believe what someone handed you. You CHOSE to participate. A rape victim has no choice. The comparison nauseates me. I can think of more adequate analogies, but none are fit to 'print' so early in the morning.
posted on October 13, 2000 08:12:44 AM
There are a thousand cons out there. Have any of you received those letters from the Nigerian Oil Company yet? If you haven't this is how it works:
You get a letter stating that the Nigerian Oil Company has 30 million dollars which must be spent in a matter of months. If you would like a piece of that money, you will provide them with invoices from your company for "services rendered." They will then send you that money and you get to keep 50%. If interested, just fax the number shown with a copy of your business check to prove you have a business.
Once they have someone hooked, they tell them that they need a few hundred dollars or so to bribe some official. They ask for a transfer from your bank account (just like a Paypal transfer into your account). At some point they empty your bank account. I once read that one business manager did this and his company's account was looted for over $400,000. He went to Nigeria to recover the money and was murdered there.
These cons, in all their variations, have one common denominator. They all appeal to greed. They all promise people something for nothing. Whenever someone promises you something for nothing, be it 7% of a business deal or $5 to sign up new users, it's time to stop and think.
I believe PP shares a big part of the guilt here. All they had to do was send along the name and address of the credit cardholder with each payment and an instruction stating "do not ship to anyone but this person at this address." It would have virtually elminated the possibility of stolen credit cards being used. But at the same time all I have heard is "how dare paypal freeze my account and recover some of my ill-gotten gains" rather than "I can't believe I was duped into participating in fraud." You might want to think about which approach to take. You are not an innocent victim here. You are, one way or another, a participant.
Get a lawyer immediately. The credit card investigators, the FBI, Paypal, etc are NOT your friends. If they can't get the real crooks, they'll settle for you. http://www.ygoodman.com [email protected]
posted on October 13, 2000 08:14:34 AM
Hi Tessa! Hi JShumko and Toy Ranch!
I very rarely post here, but I did want to put my two cents in:
I was contacted about a year ago with the same offer--three or four times, if I remember correctly.
My initial reaction was, "yeah, sure, right. I'm gonna let you launder money through my Federal Employee Credit Union account." (This was before Paypal existed, as far as I know).
But the Commission where I work deals with issues of bribery and corruption, so I was a little more familiar with the pitfalls than the average person might be.
The thing that makes me so angry about this case is that the emails sent to Jshumko, according to the dns numbers she gave me, came from a computer system owned and operated by the Romanian government. I believe someone else at OTWA found that person listed as a government employee.
This is not just fraud, it is corruption. And that REALLY corks me.
posted on October 13, 2000 08:45:37 AM
I actually saw one of the Nigerian scam letters, probably in 1992.
The scam was this: The claim was the person sending the letter had millions of dollars that his government would not allow him to move outside of the country. However, he could transfer it by bank wire to the USA, which is what he wanted to do, and it would appear as if he had bought something from the recipient in case his government nvestigated. If the recipient of the letter would like to make a million dollars, all the recipient had to to was fax their bank account numbers right away, and the sender would transfer his millions to the recipient's bank account. Then the recipient would forward the money to a USA bank account of the sender's and keep one million of the money for the service of helping this person move his money out of his
country into the USA.
I knew right away that as tempting as this offer was, there was no way that it was legitimate. I had no knowledge of how bank
wire transfers are done, or that electronic transfers of money could be done in those days. I just knew that it was something
that sounded too good to be true. So, I figured it was a scam.
I learned later, when I read an article in the newspaper, that the scam was successful. Many people faxed their bank account
information and their bank accounts were promptly wiped out by the scammer. The FBI had investigated and the public was warned to report the letters to the post office or the FBI. I don't think anyone ever got their money back.
According to what Jshumko posted on another board, she was not scammed. It's my understanding that she was sent payments through PayPal, for a man in Romania, and she kept 7% and forward the rest of the payments to him via Western Union. She was paid for her services, according to her story. Thus, she worked for the man in Romania.
Questions have been raised that if what the man in Romania was doing a scam, what was the scam? Were the payments Jshumko received for him made with stolen credit cards? What is the case for fraud that caused PayPal to freeze her bank
account?
I notice that we are not getting answers to those questions.
What I find so troublesome is her inability to take responsibility to her behavior, her lack of conscience about what she did, and
her expectation that she ought to be viewed as a victim (comparing herself to a rape victim). Then her false accusation that our
posts in this thread are the reasons why victims don't speak out more often. Geez!
posted on October 13, 2000 09:41:08 AM
Tessa, according to Jshumko, Paypal has never informed her HOW, exactly, the payments were fraudulent--whether they were stolen credit cards or someone generating bogus ones (I suspect the latter).
I do not think Jshumko said, "Hot dang! I can make seven percent off credit card fraud!" I think she reacted in much the same way as those poor people who fell for the Nigerian money scam.
I suspect she was their unwitting dupe. And I think you will hdear of this more and more becuse they will continue to target online traders, especially those who advertise that they take credit card payments though payment services. There are a lot of naive people getting on the Internet thinking they can strike it rich for practically nothing.
Was Jshumko foolish? Oh yeah. Gullible? Oh yeah. Smart and cynical don't get conned so easily.
But I think yes, she was a victim. Someone set her up to take the fall for illegal acts when she believed she was doing something perfectly legal and aboveboard.
posted on October 19, 2000 11:18:20 AM
My account has been restriced since 9/22 for some unknown reason, My son derah was restricted the same day.
I guess he has been complainning too much, Today Pal Pal locked his account (over $1000)
He can't even see how much they screwed him out of!
Something else--If someone pays me with Pal Pal, Am I obligated to ship? Or can I wait until the funds clear to my bank?
Considering that there are several other PayPal threads currently open in the eBay Outlook, we are locking this one.
If you would like to continue discussing PayPal, please either post to the current open PayPal threads in the eBay Outlook, or open a new thread in our Partner Services forum:
I will start reading and searching tonight after dinner.