Here's the original story, and it's quite humorous. I copied these posts from SOCALSVRIDERS.com...
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After seeing a CBR 600RR for 4800.00 on CycleTrader.com I quickly called the phone number listed and sent and e-mail. The phone call went unanswered but the e-mail was responded to. Below is his reply to me.
-----Original Message-----
From: j k [mailto:eshop2324@blaiteng.net]
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2003 2:01 AM
To: gtp@***.***
Subject: 2003 HONDA CBR 600RR!!
Dear Aaron,
My bike has NEVER been down or dropped. Bike is in
perfect shape. NO ACCIDENTS. NO DENTS. NO SCRATCHES.NO
CRACKS. NO DEMAGE. Kept inside. I do not know any
problems. All service on time.Runs FANTASTIC . BIKE IS
ROAD READY.
The bike is crazy fast and handles like a dream.I will
provide you all the papers you need for the bike !
Please let me inform you that I'm a private seller and
I'm from London ( U.K. ).The shipping will be made
from here .Because it's a long way as a
carrier we can use the UPS ( I have a nice discount
here).The shipping costs will be supported by me.For
this transaction I'm willing to use an escrow
service.This is a 3th part service. They will protect
your money and my bike.You will have to make the
payment for them. They will keep your money in their
custody till you will receive and inspect the bike.
The service is Autotradesecure ( it's safety, cheap
and fast ). I'm sure we can proceed this way. You will
find more info about the service here :
www.autotradesecure.com
Thank you for your prompt respond and great efforts
!!!
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After doing a little investigative work here's my response to him.
Hello Joseph,
Before I forward your information to the authorities I'd just like to explain how incredibly stupid you are.
First mistake:
Listing a cell phone number to someone who never picks up or returns phone calls. The cell phone is registered to a AT&T wireless customer that does not match your name.
Second mistake:
Wanting to use a third party escrow service that’s not real.
Lets take a look at some things here.
First your e-mail address and display name.
J k
eshop2324@blaiteng.net
The domain blaiteng.net domain forwards to a simple and lame geocities website registered though Yahoo domains.
Third mistake: The autotradesecure.com domain.
The contact page is unavailable. What kind of business do you think has international transactions and has a down contact page? Not likely. The "History" partition of the website claims it was started in 2000 yet the website according to Network Solutions has only been active since Aug 3rd. And the website is registered with a contact address of
business@best-e-shop.com
Fourth mistake: The best-e-shop.com domain has another lame geocities redirect to of all things, Ebay.
Seeing your e-mail address like I mentioned above "eshop2324" it wasn't surprising to lookup that domain and find it registered to none other than YOU!
Organisation Name.... Joseph Kispo
Organisation Address. 3485 Creek Drive
Organisation Address. Douglasville
Organisation Address. 30135
Organisation Address. GA
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES
Pack your bags and close shop Joseph. Your day is done. This e-mail as well as all documentation has been forwarded to Cycle Trader, Yahoo, FBI High Technology crimes div and my local authorities.
Have a nice day
P.S. That was me who just called you on your phone and asked if Joe was around, thanks for confirming your name with me it made my day. You're also unlucky enough to live close to a relative of mine in the Armed Services in Douglasville. Shall I send him a knockin?
Aaron Lephart
Just a heads up for people who might have been lured to this type of scam.
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I held off following up as long as I could. Mostly because I did'nt want anyone who might have felt sorry for him to clue him in that I was serious about someone taking a drive to his house.
Get your popcorn ready cause this is long. I'm going to refer to the person making the trip to Joseph's house as the "visitor" to protect his identity. Don't think i'm talking about a person from another planet.
This morning I checked e-mail before work and found the following reply to my e-mail.
-----Original Message-----
From: j k [mailto:eshop2324@blaiteng.net]
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 1:39 AM
To: gtp@***.***
Subject: 2003 HONDA CBR 600RR!!
Importance: High
hehehe!!!
I'm so scared!!!!
So you think you're so smart?
that's not even my credit card,the domain you
mentioned is no problem,I'm not even from the US
THAT'S IT!!!YOU'RE OUT OF THE HERD!!!
Adding fuel to the fire I decided to give a call back East and have a visitor make a road trip. At first I decided maybe a couple pictures of his house e-mailed to him might scare him away. Then I starting thinking it over and thought either way its been reported to the proper people so it might not be a bad idea for a knock at the door. I left everything in his hands and let him make a judgement call on how far he wanted to go with this.
After talking to him after the visit he explained things to me over the phone. Here in short is what he said between the laughter.
After the short 9.2 mile drive to Joseph's house the visitor arrives at about 4:50pm local time and finds the address is a nice house with some mountain bikes out front and a garage door open with an old Chevelle being turned into a hot rod inside. He yell's "hello" and gets no response and pounds on the door 3 times. He waits and wait and noone answers. Off to the left he see's a curtain close with the face of a young man briefly viewed. He waits a while longer and noone answers. Undeterred he gets back into his car and parks it into the driveway. Clearly giving anyone inside notice that he was there for the long haul. He bangs on the door once again and finally someone answers the door. It was a young man that could'nt be more then 15 years old. He asks to speak to a Joseph and unbelievably replys with a "thats me". The visitor then starts explaining why he was there and Joseph proceeded to deny everything. As the conversation is going on he asks the visitor to leave and Joseph was trying his hardest to slowly close the door on him. The vistor knows exactly whats going on because we had planned it this way. The parents obviously worked and either 1 or both of them get off at 5pm and start the trip home. Before Joseph closes the door he shouts back "I'm coming back to talk to your parents".
This is perfect. From his e-mails I had assumed he was at the very least immature and best case scenario a minor. What better to stir your mind up then the thought of a rather large Marine who just confronted you coming back to visit you and your parents.
It worked! The vistor arrives at 6:00pm to find a minivan in the driveway (perfect) and a new E class Benz next to it (also fitting).
He parks and makes the trip to the front door. Before even getting to the door it opens and a man appears with a woman beside him. The welcome he gives is "I know why your here". He invites the vistor in and explains that Joseph and a friend of his admitted to using his computer to lure people into transferring money into a person's paypal account. The man then leaves the room and gets Joseph. Joseph comes in the room weeping with his dads arms on his shoulders. Joseph then begins to do the crying/hicupping thing where your trying to talk but keep getting shortwinded and can barely get a word out. The vistor is doing all he can from busting up and laughing inside. Halfway through some sort of incoherent apology Joseph is sent back to his room. The parents where EXTREMELY KIND and the visitor got the feeling they where really going to do something about it. They where also not overly upset to learn that I had already forwarded all the information to authorities. He left the house at about 7pm and got back into his car. He pulled away about found the nearest place with good cell reception and called me like an excited school boy. Between the static and the laughter I got most of his message and got a more detailed account of the situation when he called me at home.
2 lessons learned.
1. Just like in real life don't think your ever unaccountable for your own actions online. There is always somebody bigger and stronger then you are, mentally and physically.
2. Meet and befriend as many people as you can in life. You may end up doing allot of favors for people and not think you will ever be repayed or appreciated but then things like this come along and make it all worth while.
I keep a file that has things I have done and learned in life. It sounds weird because most of the things I cannot repeat or tell anyone for different reasons. I mostly do it to keep a hyper accurate account of memorys and things I have done in life. This incident will find its way into the file.
Aaron Lephart
