News for Saturday, 28 February 2004

For information, and due to the high importance of the news, we decided to publish Augusto's message as we got it:

Hello, There is currently a group of swindlers acting on eBay users, and Mac/Apple products are particularly targeted. (for an example see our forum (in French) :http://forum.macbidouille.com/index.php?showtopic=62406 ) Their method is based on the misusage of the Western Union system by the Post service. Indeed, the latter one ensure to its consumers a full pay back if they can provide the MNTC (Transfer number), prove its identity, and only in the country mentioned by the sender. Normally a test question is used for additional safety: the money is not delivered without the correct answer to this question. But the reality is (much) different: The MNTC is never required to deliver the money, the money can be obtained from any place, and the famous test question is NOT working or even NOT proposed for any deal over 500 Euro!! And on the top, it seems that this group of swindlers is using false ID cards and/or false names in case of the senders would block the money. To start, swindlers identify eBay accounts harboring a really positive profile, and then contact their corresponding eBay users, so potential buyers/victims, using false offers. Then they win victim's trust, they speak English, mentioned being from UK, Italy, Spain, Netherlands... and OF COURSE propose to use a Western Union money transfer, with a UPS shipment. If the victim/buyer does not have confidence in their offer, they will 2 things (keypoints of their cheat system due to the particularities of Western Union money transfer) . perform the money transfer while keeping the MNTC so far we did not receive any shipment (this is NOT safe at all as we described it above) . or they will propose to send the money to a "false" name, that way nobody can be trapped or sue (and it seems that they have quite good skills with false ID cards/names...) Then, of course later on they can still cheat the victim by providing false UPS shipment numbers, since it seems that UPS accounts are or have been hacked!!! Dozens and dozens of eBay users have been abused, an association has been created, but while you are reading those lines, there are new victims among eBay and even Aucland users. The main problem is the money transfer which is supposed to be blocked until the buyer received his shipment, giving him the confidence that he is performing a safe transaction, but in reality the money is NOT blocked!!! to get more info (in French) (but if you know the equivalent in your country of consumer protection associations fighting this type of problem do not hesitate to send us the web site address we will update the news) http://webarnaques.free.fr http://bibikirt.forum-gratuit.com/