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Beat an EBay Scammer: Call His Mom

consumerist.com — A man bought an item on EBay, never received it, so he called the phone number and talked to the seller's Mom. The rest is history.

Bury

theTrent 2 years 119 days ago, made popular 2 years 119 days ago

1147 diggs
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GreenLantern33, on 10/12/2007, -8/+144Why didn't you just link to the story?

I really don't want to read your ***** blog?

Link: http://wuvt.blogspot.com/2006/06/cyber-detective-case-238532.html
- infinity306, on 10/12/2007, -49/+5LOL, umm the Original Article was at another BLOG notice the Blogspot in the URL????
- JoVoCop, on 10/12/2007, -6/+52Have you noticed alot of people end thier sentences with a Question Mark?
  
  I've noticed it alot recently?
- j0c1f3r, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19SO i have to go to 2 blogs to read this story.....greenlatern is right...the second blog is the real story...the first is a cheap attempt at promotion..
- gotrevgo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I agree - I'm all for any site that talks about the consumer getting back, but if you want the story to be told you should link to the actual thing. Rest assured nobody clicked on any of your banners in the process of getting to the actual story. Dugg because the poster claims he's a noobie - everyone deserves a freebie.
- r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -21/+3"Have you noticed alot of people end thier sentences with a Question Mark?"
  
  Yes I have, but it's usually when they are asking a friggin' question, so it's justified (unlike your second line).
- Samus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8rezonance, it's called sarcasm, dumbass?
- jokerr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree, stop linking to your blog, take me to the article. That is one my biggest turn offs about Digg. Half of the articles are links back to someone's blog instead of the article.
tivoguysf, on 10/12/2007, -33/+8Actual story is at:
http://wuvt.blogspot.com/2006/06/cyber-detective-case-238532.html
Tu13erhead, on 10/12/2007, -41/+80A PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS STORY, WOULD READ AGAIN!!!! THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Terc, on 10/12/2007, -63/+15Thanks for the all caps. Asshat
- Elxx, on 10/12/2007, -5/+50Looks like nobody got the joke. Heh.
  
  "GOOD COMMENT FAST SHIPPING THANX!!!!!!!"
- evilgod69, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17he was being an ebay whore, if you've seen the feedback people give on ebay, then you'd understand why that's partly funny.
  
  edit: looks like i was beaten to it while reading my email
- FatPat, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15Terc: Way to not get the reference. Asshat.
- ByteGuerilla, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25I think the best eBay feedback has to be the one from the bash quote...
  
  "Complaint : BOUGTH IT FOR MY COUSIN WHO HAD CANCER, ITEM NEVER ARRIVED AND MY COUSIN DIED"
zeldafan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17"So, if you ever need any cyber crimes solved, just let me know. I'll call their moms."

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.
Vladk1000, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Spam.

Someone should submit a new story that links directly to the article.
- ccanni1028, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3KRose should implement something that we can report a wrong site and correct it to the correct site instead of the poster's blog.
  
  EDIT: Read the next lead message below this.
theTrent, on 10/12/2007, -5/+60That isn't my blog - it was a noobish mistake. Hence, I am probably noob-worthy. However, I am quite convinced that nobody wants to read my blog anyway, so forgive this one slip.
- FatPat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24How dare you?
  
  Didn't you know that the veteran Diggers here just miraculously appeared with complete and supreme knowledge of how everything works?
  
  (At least you responded in an honest manner without name-calling. Digg up!)
TheReport, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22"Beat an EBay Scammer: Call His Mom"

or you could actually physically find him and beat him.
- Mac2492, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6That wouldn't be as funny, now would it?
- Gabskij, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2It holds some merit to get the blood on your hands.
- lolox, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3how many "STONES" do you weight?
- regyt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Next best thing would be marrying his mom, becoming his dad, and take his stuff.
dielawn, on 10/12/2007, -15/+6lol, MOMMY PWNED!!
bennyboy371, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Kicked that boys ass. I'd do it too, I'd do some myspace searches, people finding, etc. I'd let everyone he knew and loved he was an online scammer.
- felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wow, you're tough. Like, I am no way gonna mess with you ever.
  
  "It's like, there's this story, right? And I read it, right? And, like, I would have done the same thing man, but I would have, like, kicked his ASS. Hell yeah. Let me at 'em."
dharm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2thing about most scammers is they have false contact information, or quickly move after scamming people, even if they are verified..
- TheReport, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10"or quickly move after scamming people"
  
  the question is can they move quickly enough to dodge a bullet?
- dharm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2if they are renting or something, some scammers just leave without notice, and noone knows where they have gone. Even poor crackheads are ebay scammers...
  (my roomate works for ebay anti-fraud... amazing they actually have people who look over fraud cases, does work on deterring fraud, not helping people after they are screwd)
- quicksilver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1What about the people who accept paypal? I mean all the information you get is there email to send there money and since 2/3rds of users only accept paypal you never get the address.
- mpeg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@quicksilver:
  if you pay someone with paypal you get his full name and address
  
  in fact, if you had RTFA, he says he used paypal
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball
juanbobo808, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The guy that was "scamming" him did absolutely everything you could do wrong. Who would put their real name on a paypal account they intend to scam people on?

Still... I find funny how a 22 year-old guy still living with his mom is trying to scam people. What a dweeb.
wmtrader, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I think this guy was selling a Xbox 360 he does not have with the idea of collecting payment for the Xbox he sold and then finding another eBay auction for a Xbox at a lesser price and then pocketing the difference, only this time he was not able to win an auction for a Xbox in time to make this guy happy.
kamisama, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Does anyone have Barbara Bush her phonenumber?
- infinity306, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Yeah Barbara Bush's phone number is 3825968
gamabunta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14The feedback is the best part:

"Paid $315 for Xbox360 Got no response for a week. Had to call his mom for refund"
sspooner, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I'm digging, I want this to stay on the front page, hopefully the little ***** will be ridiculed into never doing such a dumb thing again. He's lucky he just got his mom called, if it was me I'd sent a couple of the guys over to get my money back anyway they feel like.
Farmer77, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Paid $315 for Xbox360 Got no response for a week. Had to call his mom for refund"

That is the most embarrassing comment anyone will ever get on their Ebay feedback page. EVER.
- kalisphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I think it'd be more interesting if the kid's mom started showing up in MILF porn.
  
  "Never sent item. Had to introduce mother to xxx pr0n to recover losses."
- yuckfou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Would be funnier to include Mom's number in feedback for all others to utilize when he tries to scam again.
lormahoykyd2007, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0I hate to be the one to say it. If it looks too good to be true. And no matter where you live there is always a part of town to buy stuff cheap. Got mine for 200.00 unopened.
ignition, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Pretty good story, mom says I have to digg it +
inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Someone on eBay tried to rip my wife off by sending her a cheap knock-off of the thing she bid on, hoping she wouldn't notice the difference. He refused to acknowledge the "mistake" after a week of polite emails and then stopped responding. I set up a program to email him a polite reminder every 5 minutes. Needless to say, he became suddenly very responsive after a day of that and sent the proper item.
- Samus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4inkswamp, upload it somewhere and give us the link.
- mrmidgetman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah... that prog would be very useful.
- inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1> yeah... that prog would be very useful
  
  I don't think I have it anymore. It was several years ago and just something I whipped up in RealBasic. Nothing too complicated. And fortunately, I haven't needed anything like that since.
  
  I think most email clients nowadays could be automated to do this. Back then, that option wasn't available to me.
celchu33, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That was hilarious and I would have dugg it had it linked to the original story.
tito13kfm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Hmm.. Piqua, OH. Piqua is a pretty stinking small town, About 20K people. Kinda hard to not figure out who this is talking about if you know the area. This is about the 22 yr old loser who does NOTHING but watch wrestling, play wrestling, and wrestle in his backyard. Funny how my relatives live in Piqua, cousins went to the highschool there... Yeah, they know you. They always thought you were scum. And now here is the proof.

GG Scott... Freaking douchebag. How about you move out of mommies house and get a job.
- rdotson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5That was the first thing that struck me also - a 22 year old man who plays video games and lives with his mommie. I wonder if she still has to spank him?
- Haiyadragon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Maybe you don't decide how he should live. What he did was wrong but shut the ***** up dude. You know nothing about him. Don't be simple.
- homahlove, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4In Korea, it's not uncommon to see middle aged men/women still living with their parents. It's a culture-thing.
- aOenEz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1@ homahlove
  
  Good thing Piqua, Ohio is in the United States then, huh?
- kalisphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's hilarious :-P
  
  My wife's from near Piqua....
LordHalo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3somebody needs to lay the smackdown on his hillbilly ass
Talus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I purchased a used video card (FX5900) on eBay from a first-time seller a couple of years ago (yeah, I know I'm an idiot) and when I noticed that the seller was dragging his heels getting the item out, I used bits and pieces of his username and location to get his phone number. I got it right on the first try.

So I called the little bugger and told him to send the damned video card already.

Man...was HE freaked. He was just some kid who, in all likelihood, didn't have a clue as to what he was doing and also did not understand PayPal. He was TRYING to get ME to pay the fee that PayPal collects from the seller when they get their payment for items.

To this very day, the video card never really did work properly ... I'll never buy used computer parts on eBay again.

I've been through 2 video cards since ;) 6800GT and 7900GTX
t3rmin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have done the same thing. I bought an item from what turned out to be an irresponsible kid who was too excited when he got the money to actually ship the item... I called and talked to his dad, and it arrived very soon thereafter!
nanomated, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Somewhat related, I had some of my ebay auctions images hot-linked without my knowing and found them on craigslist recently. Somehow my server hotlink protection was reset during the last upgrade. Since the guy was using my images from my server to scam people, I changed the images that he is linking to. I also sent my server log files to craigslist. In my logs there are up to 50 scams around the country trying to resell my last two laptops that I sold on ebay.

Here are a few links that are up now:

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/sys/162064591.html
http://miami.craigslist.org/sys/170046448.html
http://newhaven.craigslist.org/sys/162062736.html
http://newjersey.craigslist.org/sys/162062522.html
http://nashville.craigslist.org/sys/162063169.html
http://newjersey.craigslist.org/sys/162062522.html
http://newyork.craigslist.org/fct/sys/162062271.html
- felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Nice. I can't believe he didn't even bother to download the photos for himself. You should have thrown in a goatse just for fun.
wuvt2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Something fishy is going on. I wrote the original blog entry. I then submitted a digg posting about it yesterday:
http://digg.com/gaming/Ebay_Xbox_360_Scam:_Fought_back_by_calling_seller_s_mom
That link lived for a few hours and was searchable in digg's search. Then it vanished altogether. Today, magically, a new post is seen on digg that links to an ad-filled blog that then links to my original blog. I then try to log in as 'wuvt' and find out my account is disabled due to 'misuse'. What is going on here?

I posted more details on my blog. theTrent, please dont steal this and link this comment through your ad-filled website. Thanks.
http://wuvt.blogspot.com/2006/06/fishy-activities-going-on-at-diggcom.html
- popsumer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Check your facts. theTrent does not own The Consumerist. Gawker Media Network does (along with Gizmodo, Gawker, Lifehacker, et. al.)
  
  Unless you're alleging theTrent is secretly Nick Denton...
- johngault, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0/nevermind
- johngault, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0like self promotion is SOOO acceptable here.
  
  probably for the best it died.
astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just send Jay and Silent Bob..
** Jay and Silent Bob knocks on ebays sellers door **

Jay -"Are you *looks at paper* EbayDude3... and did you sell my friend here an xbox which he did not receive"?
EbayDude3 - "Yeah what are you gonna do about it?"

** Jay and Silent Bob kick his nerdy ass **
wuvt3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ok - ignore my previous post about the fishiness. Turns out my account got banned due to digg thinking my coworkers accounts were actually fake accounts (because they appeared to digg as the same IP address since we are all behind the same firewall, sharing one external IP address). I would hope digg could account for this in the future.... My initial posting got marked as 'lame' too which explains why it vanished.
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Beat an EBay Scammer: Call His Mom

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