The infamous seller who ripped folks off for possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars was captured. Read the article and take note of the payment method he preferred.
posted on July 17, 2001 09:26:11 AM new
He prefered Paypal because it allowed him to hide his address to his victims, personal checks were not cashed. Says a lot about paypal's buyer protection.
posted on July 17, 2001 10:06:25 AM new
This is just too crazy. A guy scams hundreds of buyers for thousands of dollars, and all you can find to comment on in this story is that he took PayPal?
The story also outlined in detail how he used a series of different auction site IDs to work his scams, but I don't hear anybody screaming about how Yahoo! and eBay were responsible for his behavior because they didn't somehow figure out what he was doing and stop him.
The next thing I expect to read is that Gary Condit used PayPal to buy something on eBay, and it's been linked to Chandra Levy's disappearance ...so of course PayPal is the villain.
posted on July 17, 2001 10:34:36 AM new
I had to help a friend move last weekend. He almost rented a Ryder truck till I pointed out to him that was the rental agency that Timothy McViegh used.
posted on July 17, 2001 10:50:36 AM new
Paypal is the smoking gun in this case. A service so easily frauded to commit fraud.
Can I open several accounts at the same bank and get away with it, not im my town. I could open an account at several different banks but that is not what we are talking about.
I am one of the many people frauded by someone using PayPal. If I had used a regular credit card instead of paypal I would have my money back. Now I have nothing to show for it.
posted on July 17, 2001 11:09:48 AM new
Jim, you can open as many checking accounts at your bank as you like. I have three in my own name, plus several others for various family and business accounts.
What banks demand is a social security number, and yet when it was suggested that PayPal was going to ask for that number as well, the screams of outrage could be heard all over the Internet.
Of all the entities mentioned in this news story, IMO PayPal is the least blameworthy of the bunch. People have complained, literally, for years about the laxity of eBay in allowing NARUed users to register again under a different ID. They've tightened this up somewhat, I understand, but the situation is still far from perfect.
If you're going to look for a smoking gun, look at eBay (and Yahoo!).
If you got ripped off by PayPal, I truly am sorry, and I hope you can find a solution. But the blame in this case rests almost entirely on the scammer who perpetrated these frauds and not on PayPal (or, for the most part, the sites that allowed him to operate so freely).
posted on July 17, 2001 11:33:35 AM new
Yes, to an extent that is true, I have 5 at my credit union but not all checking, just 2. If I was a compleate stranger at my credit union and I walked in and said I wanted to open 10 checking accounts they would look at me funny and probably give me the once over as to why I needed 10. If I walked in a few days apart and got one for a couple weeks time about #3 they would ask what I was doing.
You are correct alot of it is SSN related. They have a link to look things up unless I used phoney ones each time.
This hear is a good comment and yet when it was suggested that PayPal was going to ask for that number as well, the screams of outrage could be heard all over the Internet
If paypal was a bank and had to follow some banking rules so when they screwed up we had bank regulators to turn to, there would not be a problem. Right now giving them you SSN is like giving it to the person that mows you lawn, just an independant business with no reason to have it.
Get paypal under some public regulators like banks, and utilities then people will feel safe. If that person had a merchant account with a bank and pulled this crap don't think the bank would not do something about it unlike paypal that will respond with the same old message like I got, you won your case but we can not do anything about it cause he has 0 paypal funds.
posted on July 17, 2001 12:27:41 PM new
Much of the blame lies in eBay's lax ID verification.
" ... simple but effective auction scam ... Nelson has used a variety of fake personas to auction off merchandise on eBay.com and Yahoo.com."
The report accurately points to Paypal's fault, " ... the service allowed him to hide his actual location."
It's also interesting to note that the coin shop dealer's photo ID requirement is what nabbed the guy.
It's impossible to eliminate all fraud on the Internet, but the anonymity of eBay and Paypal make it a breeding ground for con artists. If Nelson hadn't made a stupid mistake, he'd still be out there scamming customers.
It may not be possible to prevent the most dedicated of criminals. However, Paypal did facilitate this scam by allowing the user to pack up and move on a weekly or monthly basis. Paypal should now take steps to address this issue. How many of us would send payment to a business we knew had relocated 10 times in the past six months?
. Internet Pioneers
posted on July 17, 2001 01:10:58 PM new
You know its funny, I worked for three banks and people still managed to pull off scams, both high and low dollar. Anybody who knows the banking industry knows that they go to great lengths to hide such occurences when they can so as not to shake consumer confidence.
PayPal is under a microscope and has a lot of haters who blame it for everything including the neighbor's cat being up a tree.
There's a little thing called personal responsibility that applies in this case and some of the seller's who've may have had trouble with Paypal due to their own business practices.
I believe all these innocent PayPal victims about as much as I believe the excuses my late payers give.
Now I expect to be labelled the "C" word, don't dissapoint me...
posted on July 17, 2001 01:29:49 PM newbemused I am also a big proponent of people taking responsibility for their own actions. Too many times people do stupid and/or silly things and look for a scapegoat instead of looking at themselves. I realize that just being alive is taking a chance every single day and I have accepted that.
This guy duped a lot of people and if one of them were me, I would be sorely p**sed. (and angry at myself for being so dumb) Actually looking at him, he doesn't look like he has enough brain cells to pull something like this. So I guess the old adage that you can't judge a book by its cover applies here.
So now he is going to prison and will probably end up being someone's girlfriend. oh well
