I'm an idiot, ended up getting frauded. Ideas?

[jay1097]

Check this site out
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071210105538AAL3I8h
It has info on how to track someone based on there email address and IP. I works on live mail, yahoo and others but I don't think it works on gmail.

Oh and it might give you the location of the ISP office for DSL connections

 

[akm3]

My sympathy to you.

Thieves should be burnt to death.

 

[Sun Baked]

My sympathy to you.

Thieves should be burnt to death.

Nah, the burning hair smell is almost as bad as the though of shaving them hairless to prevent the stench.

And lead pipes are getting harder to find, and we all know about how easy the maple bats break -- somebody could get hurt with those things.

 

[jpcody]

Wow, this thread came back fast. At this point I've done a bit of cutting my losses. From time to time, I check back on the person via Google as I have their name and email addresses used. The only new information on them really is that they've joined some porn social networking site. I'll try and respond to those who posted recently.

@six.four Yeah, no one was very interested in helping. Moneygram wouldn't give me any information as far as exact pickup location unless it was an official speaking with them. They gave me a city and state, so I filed a police report in that city and state, and then they wouldn't give him any info without a warrant. The officer wouldn't pursue a warrant because he was worried that after the time and effort of pursuing it, he would be unable to get it if the situation was ruled to be out of his jurisdiction (and in the jurisdiction of the location the money was sent).

@consultant They do read that sort of thing, but they get greedy. I realize that I was guilty of that and was a victim of greed primarily an a victim of fraud secondarily. But it is good to have those sorts of things mentioned whenever possible, so thanks for the link.

@coogee But it's a fun load of bollocks! If you feel it's more representative of my being a load of bollocks than the service, I'm always up for suggestions on personal improvement.

@radicalcentrist Even with an address, I wouldn't have anywhere to go from there other than to their home for some scare tactics. The cops don't want to pursue a warrant in the event that it might be out of their jurisdiction. A search, however, does lead to some traffic violations and a couple other violations. Just nothing to do with that information now.

@skye12 I can't believe they haven't tried again. It really blows my mind, but I do keep my eyes on it.

@jay1097 I'm fairly sure AOL masks IPs. A lookup just leads me to Sterling, VA, where AOL is located.

@akm and @sunbaked Burning would still fail to get my money back, although I would like to communicate the message to them that they can't do this whenever they would like.

This has inspired me to dig back in my files and re-investigate. It looks like they are posting things for sale, just with a different email address. It's an awful feeling to know I could show up and meet the person who took $1600 from me, but I can't do anything to retrieve the money from them.

 

[alFR]

It's an awful feeling to know I could show up and meet the person who took $1600 from me, but I can't do anything to retrieve the money from them.

Well, there would seem to be a couple of options:

1. Call the detective who dealt with the case originally, inform them that the scammer is active again, ask if they'd be interested in reopening the case before someone else gets scammed.
2. Pose as a buyer, turn up then get all mediaeval on their ass:

3. Any way you can scam them in return? Surely an inventive person should be able to think of some way to do that.... Shady, yes, but you can see how difficult it is to get law enforcement to pursue this sort of thing and they're unlikely to have any more success with the police than you did.

(Disclaimer: 2 & 3 may be illegal in your state and may not get your cash back if they've already spent it on crack)

 

[coogee]

@coogee But it's a fun load of bollocks! If you feel it's more representative of my being a load of bollocks than the service, I'm always up for suggestions on personal improvement.

Ha! Please know I was talking about twitter in general not you personally jpc, you keep right on twittering away


I'm a definite believer that what goes around comes around and I sense that the scammer will get something they didn't expect some day soon, it could even be today!

And I think your good grace as shown in this thread will surely see you come by some unexpected good fortune one of these days! The world is a mirror!