Ebay Apple Macbook Scam

[humaakht]

Many thanks for registering me


i was the victim of ebay fraud on 31/12/2014


i bought an apple macbook pro on ebay from an ebay user from my hometown but completed the transaction off ebay for £990. The seller corresponded off ebay via an email message and as soon as i had transferred the money via online transfer completely disappeared disconnecting his/her phone and not responding to any messages
After 48 hrs and no communication i checked their ebay account and noticed 2 negative feedbacks where prospective buyers had stated that the seller was indulging in fraud and only requesting online bank transfers



By some stroke of luck i managed to track the seller down via their email address after putting it into facebook where their entire profile page came up. Using 192.com led me to their address and i knocked on the door on saturday morning.


I was met by a woman in her 60's who informed me someone had hacked into their ebay account and they had informed ebay of this in November (I contacted ebay and they said if this had been the case the account would have been taken offline). interestingly her husband stayed upstairs. I am 99.99% certain these are the perpretators and they tried scamming me. I advised them to put the money back into my account by midnight. They denies having anything to do with it.


The police have been informed. Interestingly i received an email yesterday at 12:01 am, 1(1 minute over the deadline i had given them) apologising for the confusion and telling me its a long story and offering me a refund. I said yes i would like the money putting back into my account but again the person has not responded at all and on calling them by phone (yes i have their phone number via facebook) has said they have nothing to do with it.


I have emailed Julian Siddle with the Barclays Account no and name.



I rang ebay and reported what happened. they told me they hadnt received any info prior to my morning visit about the account being hacked.

Any ideas if im able to recove rthe money

[Tools]

Re: Ebay Apple Macbook Scam

Hi and welcome

I have replied to your email, if you can pass on any emails or "invoice" you may have please.

[ComputerGuru]

Re: Ebay Apple Macbook Scam

Sorry to hear you have been scammed. Well done for your detective work. Mostly the bad guys are too clever to get caught that easily but definitely worth a try.

It is unhelpful but the most important lesson for anyone reading this is not to attempt to complete transactions off-eBay. Yes it saves the seller the eBay fee, but just removes what little protection eBay offers the buyer. If you use eBay, follow their rules!

Good luck with your hunt!

[Tools]

Re: Ebay Apple Macbook Scam

This is being looked at off forum and isn't what it first appears to be. Will update everyone when things have been cleared up.

[MrSandman]

It was very interesting to read this story but unfortunately it didn't come to an end. At least here. We didn't get any message from the author of the post. It's a long story for a MacBook. It's an expensive PC and no one would like to lose that amount of money. If it would have been a Windows laptop, I would have been forgotten a long time ago. You know, Apple has such devices that sometimes you can't find how to convert PNG to JPG and vice-versa, JPG to PNG, but other times you feel like you'll hack the Pentagon servers.
By the way, I had the problem of converting image types and found the solution on https://osxtips.net/how-to-convert-png-to-jpg-on-a-mac/.

[humaakht]

Hi, i was the original poster and author and victim of the fraud

i did quite a bit of legwork on this and didnt achieve a satisfactory response unfortunately

barclays bank who i transferred the money to didnt really help and the police apparently picked up the person whose account it went into and interviewed her under caution. Her response was she thought a long distance uncle had sent it into her account (all the money was withdrawn within 1-2 days rapidly). she was let go because of insufficient evidence to convict her

the police then told me they would no longer proceed with the investigation as i guess a crime to the tune of 990 pounds isnt deemed worthy to try and spend resources on and possible ‘staffing’ issues

if you’re the victime of fraud this does make for depressing reading im afraid

i put it down to life experience

best wishes

[Charper]

Hi, i was the original poster and author and victim of the fraud

i did quite a bit of legwork on this and didnt achieve a satisfactory response unfortunately

barclays bank who i transferred the money to didnt really help and the police apparently picked up the person whose account it went into and interviewed her under caution. Her response was she thought a long distance uncle had sent it into her account (all the money was withdrawn within 1-2 days rapidly). she was let go because of insufficient evidence to convict her

the police then told me they would no longer proceed with the investigation as i guess a crime to the tune of 990 pounds isnt deemed worthy to try and spend resources on and possible ‘staffing’ issues

if you’re the victime of fraud this does make for depressing reading im afraid

i put it down to life experience

Very poor show by the police. Pity you couldn't take out a civil action based on police information/evidence.

[Guest]

Have you thought about small claims Court? Money Claim On-Line ? At least you may not win but it will give them some grief. If you do win and no payment follow it through with debt collectors.

[Guest]

Have you thought about small claims Court? Money Claim On-Line? At least you may not win but it will give them some grief. If you do win and no payment follow it through with debt collectors.

[humaakht]

I havent as the police didnt give me the details of the other person. And barclays werent helpful either