FYI: identity theft

[John Foust]

At 04:25 PM 11/23/2004, Gary Fisher wrote:
>Kind of a round about way to do credit card fraud, but on the other hand it puts the trail onto the hapless guys who paid for the items on eBay.  

As I pointed out in my first message, the credit-card-stealing seller
hadn't even received payment from the eBay buyers in three of the
four cases I found.  So he's playing a game - hoping someone will pay
faster than the time he needs to grab the money and run and before
the credit card owner figures it out.

>I hope you went to the eBay forums with your info, I suppose eBay will do nothing to warn anybody (scams never happen on eBay!).

I'm looking forward to filing a complaint with local law enforcement,
which will allow them to kick out a few subpoenas to request records
that eBay / eGold / Yahoo / BestBuy / Staples won't release.  It would
give IP addresses, maybe other account info, maybe a trail to where
the money went.  I'm hoping the police will share the details with
me, so I can assist in the investigation.

>Any idea how your credit card info got to the scammer?

No idea.  This card was generally used only for business, about
half-and-half in-person and online.

- John