Craigslist, Ebay and other online buying/selling scams.
#807 by majorpea Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:02 am
Hello.

Like the many people i have been reading about, i too have been a victim of a scam.

while i completely understand that i stand virtually no chance of getting my money back, what can i do next to try and prevent other people from getting scammed by this guy again.

i have bank details and correspondence from the company i was scammed by, but have been informed by my bank that even if i phone the receivers bank and tell them that one of their customers is involved in fraud, there is absolutely nothing they will do.

the company i was duped by is www.latest-digital.com

short of signing up their email address to every known junk mail service, and sending them abuse, i cannot think of anything else to do.

any advice on the next step would be extremely helpful.
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#810 by ColinWarrins Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:12 am
Welcome Major...

Terribly sorry to hear of your loss. If you have the bank account information and related emails from the scammer, please pass them along via Private Message to me (or if you prefer a Moderator). We may be able to report that account to the authorities, provided that you can substantiate the fraud.

Importantly, we need to make sure that this is a scam operation as opposed to a merchant, for whatever reason, failing to honor an order. While either way you lose money, there could be non-fraudulent reasons why they did not ship you a camera (again, not that it makes you feel any better).

Based on a WHOIS look-up, it appears that the website is only a few months old and emanates from China. Looking at their "About Us" and "Service" section, it is very poorly worded, but again, that doesn't necessarily tell us anything.

So, any details you can provide will be most helpful.

#811 by majorpea Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:38 am
Hi, thanks for your help.

The reason that i believe that this is a scam is that some very similar websites appear on the aa419.org fake bank database.

http://www.digtalit.com/
http://www.digitaltradeworld.com/
http://www.supply-digital.com/



in fact i would not be surprised if they are all from the same person or gang.

to be honest i am not too concerned with the recovery of funds. it was not a huge amount, but still a kick in the groin.

But i would like some retribution ( i am assuming it is quite hard to get these people arrested)

But more importantly to make more people aware of this so that others don't get scammed by them. i took me almost 3 days to realise i was being scammed.


( i have heard of people losing huge amounts of money to these fake companies, in fact whilst on the phone to my bank this morning the operator told me that i was the third person to call up about some china related scam today)

#812 by majorpea Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:44 am
oh, and also i would like to ask how is it possible that the websites listed in my previous post are still active.

surely if they have been identified as fraudsters there should be a way of shutting them down?

#814 by ColinWarrins Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:55 am
Yes, those sites are also brand new and correlate to similar owners.

Not all ISPs respond to abuse or scam notifications equally. Some simply don't care as long as they get their monthly check. Others are quite diligent in responding to these claims.

#816 by majorpea Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:17 am
do you have any suggestions as to what to do next?

i will be away from my computer for the weekend, but would like to try to help to bring them down, if this is at all possible.

#817 by ChrisSmith Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:29 am
Hi Majorpea.

If the sites do prove to be scam sites, they will be put somewhere where they will be dealt with.
As Colin says though, if you could supply him with some sort of information that shows that they are scammers rather than just useless merchants, it would be helpul in getting them closed down.

#818 by majorpea Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:32 am
thanks, sent him all i have.

will look forward to seeing what happens.

if you need any more info just let me know. i will check back after the weekend.

#821 by ColinWarrins Fri Jul 27, 2007 12:52 pm
IP resolves as:

IP address: 125.41.247.153
Reverse DNS: hn.kd.ny.adsl.
Reverse DNS authenticity: [Could be forged: hostname hn.kd.ny.adsl. does not exist]
ASN: 4837
ASN Name: CHINA169-Backbone (CNCGROUP China169 Backbone)
IP range connectivity: 2
Registrar (per ASN): APNIC
Country (per IP registrar): CN [China]
Country Currency: CNY [China Yuan Renminbi]
Country IP Range: 125.32.0.0 to 125.47.255.255
Country fraud profile: Normal
City (per outside source): Beijing, Beijing
Country (per outside source): CN [China]
Private (internal) IP? No
IP address registrar: whois.apnic.net
Known Proxy? No
Link for WHOIS: 125.41.247.153


I'm in contact posing as a buyer, but so far, they are acting legitimately.

#965 by ColinWarrins Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:35 am
I've sent the info along to Alan already with supporting evidence of the scam. That should do the trick.

#999 by Emma Jones Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:02 pm
Nice one, Colin. :)

Learn about scammers' fake sites at aa419. Report scams to the Internet Crime Complaint Centre at IC3.

#1052 by ChrisSmith Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:22 pm
Hindsight is a great thing majorpea. If we all had it, the scammers would be out of business. Unfortunately, people aren't like that. We see a good deal and we go for it. Even when we make some preliminary check-ups we can still be fooled.
So don't kick yourself over this. You weren't the first to fall for this type of scam and you won't be the last.
But this will be the last time that you get scammed. :wink:

#1429 by davel Tue Aug 07, 2007 10:11 pm
Well the same guy, latest-digital.com, apparently hijacked my E-bay account. He was sending the following email out as me via Ebay:

Hello friend,
How are you? We are an international trade company. We wholesale and retail electronics online, such as iPhone: 245 EUR, Nokia n95 360 EUR, XBOX elite 240 EUR, DELL XPS M2010 640 EUR, Sony ps3 290 EUR. Our company agent some famous electronics, SONY, APPLE, SAMSUNG, CANON, NOKIA, NIKON, ALIENWARE, LG, DELL…. All the products are brand new and original sealed up with factory warranty. Our company offers you one month return Policy, which allow you return the products in the first month if there is something wrong. The more you order, the higher discount you will get. No matter you are reseller or buyer, our products and our service will satisfy your contentment. If you want to learn more, contact us by windows messenger: [email protected] or send email to [email protected] <mailto>. We will give you the right information that you want, and you also can visit our web latest-digital.com


I haven't got a clue as to how he obtained my password for ebay. It was actually ebay who caught this and sent me emails notifying me of what happened. The password was relatively secure and not shared. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know!

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