Eew, that's a tough one to swallow!

Oh, the www.lawranceandersonisathief.com website is NOT mine. It belongs to Skyward1, he was the one that was ripped off.

At least you got a bargain on the second attempt at the camera!

My bad. Skyward1...four words. Base Ball Bat, Guido. Seriosuly, good luck, file a complaint with the FBI Internet Fraud Division as well.

An Interesting Article...
 

...in the Washington Post regarding auction fraud.

Hooray!
 

For those who might be interested in the "closure" part of the story about the eBay seller who cleverly scammed me out of $2400 after I won an auction for his Canon XL-1S camera, long ago...

...he was finally arrested, charged with Grand Larceny, and sentenced to 48 months in the pokey!

Justice prevails. Sometimes it just takes a while.

(See LawrenceAndersonIsAThief.com for the whole story.)

Excellent! Wow, it sure did take a while. That's got to feel good.

It's amazing that they got around to catching the guy... took nearly 4 and a half years?

Rule #1 of online transactions - USE A CREDIT CARD!!!! In case of a fraud, they typically can do a chargeback. It's a hassle, but at least you don't end up losing $$ you can't afford.

FWIW, Paypal is now (I guess they feel like they've fixed enough of the loopholes the scammers use to do this...) covering MOST transactions fully. And eBay is pretty much prohibiting ANY other method of payment (lots of complaints about that, but never been an issue for me). They've closed the system so that pulling off a scam is much harder than it used to be, and as long as you don't go "off reservation", you are pretty safe.

They've made it tough for new sellers and anyone with even the possible HINT of a scammer profile (which means just about anyone who hasn't done significant biz on eBay in the past...) to pull off a scam - anyone with a "new" account can't get the $$ out unless one of three things happens - 21 days pass (meaning they can lock the account before the scammer can withdraw, thus keeping your money safe, at least in theory...), you post positive feedback, or (and this one is sort of worrisome, as I'd suppose a scammer could send you a brick in a box) they must provide trackable proof of shipment (and I'm guessing delivery?).

I know it's probably too late for many who got scammed at one time or another, but this info about the CURRENT state of things should help if you're thinking about using eBay....