Teenager Living The eBay Scam Good Life

from the like-that'll-last dept

You would think, by this point, that people would realize that the most basic eBay scam, selling something that doesn't exist and then just taking the money and running, isn't likely to get you very far. It's usually not all that hard to track down the scammer in question, but they just keep at it. Here's the story of one 17 year old kid who claimed he had to keep scamming people because he was addicted to eBay and the buzz it gave him to scam people. Yeah, that's right, blame the website. Meanwhile, the kid took the cash and flew across the Atlantic with some friends for a vacation, and later hired stretch limos to take him and his friends around town (he can't drive yet). And he didn't think he would get caught? To top it all off, he started emailing his scam victims and telling them what he did with their money.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    aNonMooseCowherd, 12 Oct 2004 @ 9:11pm

    DSM

    Any bets on how long it will be before this "addiction" is added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Andy, 21 Oct 2004 @ 4:02pm

    EBay Scam

    At least in UK the police took action and catch that con artist. In US, I have filed several complaints with police about 2 scam on E-Bay, called police many times, no result. The police in US don't even bother to track down the con man. I even have the con man home address and phone number tracked down myself. All the police had to do was to pick up a phone and call him to help me get my money back... No action from the police internet fraud department. All they do here in US is to fill out a form of your complain and that is the end of it!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.