Here’s your True Crime story for the day: Some guy has been posting questions to AskMetaFilter for a while now asking about possible recourses to getting screwed on eBay auctions. He bought a laptop; he received a box of sand; will the seller get off scot-free? That kind of thing. His latest question was about a seller who took the payment and then claimed the laptop was stolen out of his car. Somebody in the thread finally put two and two together and looked up this guy’s eBay history… and he hasn’t bought any laptops. In fact, he appears to be running a large number of auction scams and has actually been selling laptops. That’s right; he was using AskMeFi to see if there were any flaws in his brilliant scamming technique. Of course, the first problem was that he used the same login name on both sites. And then there’s the fact that his profile also included a link to his myspace page with pictures of himself and his family, and from there people were able to Google up a whole heap of information. One of the laptop buyers discovered the discussion and joined in with the information that he had. Now the cops are involved. It’s fascinating reading in a real-time CSI kinda way…
6 responses
Awesome! I love seeing crooks and idiots reap what they sow.
What an idiot… Almost reminds me of how police catch pyromaniacs
Heh. MeFi Justice Force. They should have badges.
As guilty as the guy may be, I certainly wouldn’t want my photo and private info on a website!
Which is funny, because my photo and private info are all over the damn place on the Internet… I just try not to give people an excuse to want to drive over and kick my ass!
Tecnology is making it neccesary for crooks to be smart these days. No longer can someone just smash and grab or hold someone up with a finger in an outstretched jacket pocket.