Columbus, Ohio - A new scammer?

[hammr7]

Good old wildwilliam managed to make off with as much as $27,000 from his "beta" scam.  Not bad for a few days work.  And his poor victims are lighting up his feedback.

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d ... dwilliam56

One of the most amazing things is that despite the magnitude of the fraud, his eBay account is still open.  

[AXIOS]

then this feedback for william:


     Positive feedback rating      
     nice proxy, fast shipping thanks A++ seller and comucation
           Buyer   arica_zahn ( 44Feedback score is 10 to 49)             Jun-06-05 22:40            5195587234

18 bucks for a beta manaflare  :o

[squt]

I approached him about buying some of the cards that the first person backed out on - some copy artifacts and a Mahamoti.  He gave me a different e-mail address to write to about the deal.  

I was waiting to see what kind of feedback other people left before I contacted him again.  Maybe the alternate e-mail address he gave me could be helpful in an investigation - anyone have any ideas on whom I could forward it to?
Squt

[TerraFrost]

One of the complaints included a link to Washington states attorney generals office:

http://www.atg.wa.gov/consumer/

Perhapes that'd be a good place to submit what you have, although how to go about doing that is something I'm not so sure about...

Also,

One of the most amazing things is that despite the magnitude of the fraud, his eBay account is still open.

When accounts are closed, isn't their feedback normally not visible?  Or doesn't eBay delete accounts after a while of being closed, or something?  'cause I don't think they ought to.  I think buyers who have had problems with a seller ought to be allowed to see just how many others had problems.

It's also unfortunate that this was one of the first experiences some eBay'ers had on eBay.  The newest eBay seems to have 8 feedback.  It sucks that he got cheated like this so early on (in addition to the fact that he got cheated, at all)...

[silver.paladin]

One of the most amazing things is that despite the magnitude of the fraud, his eBay account is still open.  

Actually, what I find most amazing, are some of the 'buyers'.
I have emailed a number of buyers after they have won an auction of dubiuos distinction that is talked or written about here on the Library (being careful not to cross any lines, or any other Ebay bad thing to do - since emailing auction buyers/sellers can be viewed by Ebay as a much worse crime than theft or fraud - go figure!) - and a number of times I have received a reply saying that they (a) know about the Library, (b) they visit and read the Libary and even (c) they will read in the forums the negative views about an auction - but they will bid anyways  [smiley=goofy.gif]  [smiley=dead.gif]

I have almost no sympathy or concern for those foolish individuals who will admit to reading/knowing that an auction may be a 'con', but they are willing to bid and pay large amounts of money in an auction, just because 'it might not be a con, it might be for real'.

Unfortunately, there are a large number of informed, as well as uninformed fools/idiots/morons (select your own term here) who are willing to spend money, because they 'think' they are (or might) be getting a deal.  This is why scams and cons are so successful.  
Yes, this 'wildwilliam' has just scammed a large amount of money from a number of fools (and, to be honest, some people who honestly made a bad choice).  Wildwilliam is a person who deserves no credit, and people should watch out for this kind of individual. On the other hand, most of these people who lost money here, they deserve no sorrow either.

Here is one very good example of a useful quality of the Library.  A number of people have just lost money in a scam; a number of members of this Libary would normally have tried to bid and win some of these auction items.  So far, no Library member has lost their monies in this scam.  Why?  Because the issue of a possible scam with this seller was brought to attention on the Library; various members debated the pros and cons of this sellers auctions; most members read this thread, and for better or worse, stayed away from these auctions.  These members still have their money.  They were not robbed or scammed.  That is a good thing.  The community discussed an issue, various members of the community agreed with the consensus of the issue, and the community did not get scammed.  Can an international community show any greater strength, than in this kind of example?

[ende73]

silver.paladin: that's all perfectly true, you summed up what are my feelings too in an excellent manner  :D

Regarding the best ways to prosecute this fellow, what puzzles me most is that he has been "ID verified" on Ebay all the way.

I am not an expert on how ID verification works (since it's not available to people outside North America I believe), but unless it's completely useless, shouldn't it serve as adequate info to try putting this guy into a lot of well-deserved trouble ?  ???

[hammr7]

Consumer protection in e-commerce is a research area of mine.  EBay is a particular interest, since it is the biggest e-commerce success, and because its structure is vastly different  than most other Internet businesses in terms of consumer protection.

Under claims of privacy protection for all members, and because of disclaimers that they are a marketplace, not a market maker, eBay often hinders the ability of victims to publicize frauds or coordinate responses.  As a result, such frauds appear to be increasing across many categories of eBay, including ours.  EBay and Paypal have no effective means of stopping a scam early.  Their procedures require that there be a large number of victims, and / or a two to three week lag time, before a fraudulent seller can be stopped.  

As two examples:

1.  In the scam for which this thread was initiated (not wildwilliam56) -  I notified Paypal of the problem within 2 hours after making payment -  they let the account continue to close auctions and apparantly withdraw funds.  10 days after my complaint I got a refund, less the $25 eBay deductible.  They consider the case closed.  Assuming they did freeze the paypal account when I called, they might have even made money ((or not lost any) by refunding everyone while holding back the deductible.  If they lost much money, its because they never listened to my call.

2.  Last year I uncovered a repeat scammer who had a good feedback from a bunch of $1 to $2 sales.  He had hundreds of $15 to $300, no Paypal auctions.  He had burned me (same mail address) for $15 a year earlier with a different eBay account.  I informed eBay, who refused to research my contention, and gave the seller a week to update fraudulent contact information with new, fraudulent contact information.    I tried to contact some of the 100+ winners, but eBay limited my contact with other eBay members to a maximum of 10 per day.  By the time I contacted everyone, more than $10,000 had been sent to this guy.  Since my auction win was only $20, eBay dismissed my claim because it didn't reach their $25 threshold.  I have never heard back from them with an update.  The guy proactively deregistered his account so no one could leave negative feedback.  To the best of my knowledge almost no one ever got money back.

EBay and Paypal have publicly initiated promotions intended to assure the public that purchases are safe.  As most of us know, the reality is that there are many loopholes and limitations which restrict a buyer's ability to recover all losses in such scams.  

For a scam as big as wildwilliam's, eBay and Paypal might actually try to track him down, because he will cost them refunds (maybe even as much as $10,000 to $15,000 of the $27,000 he grossed).  He probably also cost them about $1,000 each in unpaid eBay and Paypal transaction fees.  If so, he is the exception to the rule.

EBay will publicly state that the rate of fraud is low, and that victims get compensated.  However, the only measure eBay uses to determine fraud rate is complaints that ultimately proceed to verified claims.  But the sad reality is that their numbers woefully undercount the level of fraud.  There are many reasons for this.  A few people may not realize they were fraud victims until it is too late.  Some may be ashamed to admit it.  Some may worry about retaliation to their feedback.  Some will feel that trying to recover their payment isn't worth the effort  of reporting the fraud (this is especially true for auctions with prices below $35).   Some will try to file a claim and get bogged down in the eBay/Paypal documentation.  Ultimately, the official "size" of wildwilliam's fraud will be greatly diminished from its true magnitude by the time it is reported.

Our forum is one way to help people protect themselves.  But there need to be more efficient ways.  Unfortunately, the most efficient require help and changes from eBay, which will likely not occur unless the problem gets much worse.

[ende73]

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d ... dwilliam56


... Ebay is actually giving Wildwilliam a chance to spend the money he scammed this way (2 positive feedback from sellers) !  [smiley=veryangry.gif] :-/ :o

I truly find that disgusting  :-[ :-X

[Gryfalia]

Has anyone gotten the actual authorities involved?  I guarantee you that EBay will pay a lot more attention if the police call than if you do.  

And $10K+ is the point where the authorities start paying attention much more..

Gryfalia

[hammr7]

I was not involved in any of Wildwilliam's auctions, so as far as eBay is concerned I have no legal status.  They will not listen to me.  They only listen to angry winners, and only when those winners demand refunds.  

Since william sent out proxies, he made life harder on his winners.  If you live in Germany, and won a bunch of $30 cards, you need to get a local Magic card expert (impossible, given eBay's requirements) to verify your claim.  You can then put in for up to 3 claims at full price, less a $25 deductible on each.  If you won 6 items, too bad, since you are limited to 3 claims every six months.

And they will not listen to most local police.  The local departments usually turn such complaints over to the state attorney general's office (Internet fraud is usually handle as interstate commerce fraud).  In turn, the states usually get the FBI involved.  But unless a case is large (multiple complaintants, many thoiusands of dollars losses) it is not a high priority, since the FBI has bigger issues to deal with, like terrorists and national security.

Sometimes these guys do get caught.  I got a letter from the state of California about a claim I made three years ago.  They actually caught the guy, and made him send reimbursement for the $60 he took.  But it took a full three years to happen.

[mintcollector]

People wonder why vigilantism is on the rise then?

Someone who schtoops me for lots of money will have me to contend with and not the police.  Believe me, they would rather have the police.

[squt]

He's finally De-registered, but does that mean it was voluntary?  This guy should be in jail!

Squt

[mintcollector]

Not only that but all of his nefarious auction history appears to be gone.

[hammr7]

If anyone needs it, I save a list of all his "Alpha" auctions, including winning bidder and price.

I learned in my earlier dealings with eBay scams that eBay quickly delists all relevant information.  At best, eBay only keeps auction details (like lists of auctions by a seller) available to all eBay users for 30 days after the end of the auction.  If the seller is a scammer, and the scam runs over a period of a week, and the "payments and deliveries" take two or three weeks to get to the buyers, then the seller's list of auctions starts disappearing by the time individual buyers realize they've been scammed.  eBay considers this normal housekeeping, to keep their databases under control.  Unfortunately it helps scammers who know how to take advantage.