Buy It Later: A Short Story - Part 3

Here it is, the third and final installment of "Buy It Later", where you'll hear me say "My moral compass doesn't swing that far."

I decided that the chances of this complete stranger living in New York knowing anything about my situation was pretty remote, so I decided on the good Samaritan approach and told her someone was using her eBay account to run a scam. Her shocked stutter confirmed that I played the odds correctly.

I hung up and within 30 minutes our phone rang and caller ID showed it was Meri from New York calling me back. This made me a little suspicious about how she was able to get my number, but I later found out that despite using a calling card in an attempt to mask our caller ID, it didn’t work and the result of my ignorance was Mia’s husband calling back to let me know that a few months ago someone hi-jacked his eBay account and he’d just gotten control of it again last month. I believed him as much as I could.

The next morning the bank called to let us know that they were working on it and the first good news was my 10% litmus test was passed. She felt we had better than a 10% chance of getting our money back.

My wife then called the Heinz County Sherriff’s department to file a report with them and as the story was retold to the Sergeant he answered in his Mississippi accent by sighing “Awww Sh&%”. It wasn’t exactly the words I might have chosen, but it definitely conveyed my feelings.

He instantly became our greatest asset in Mississippi as he got subpoenas for the email account, the bank account and about anything else he could think to subpoena. He then told us that one of the managers of the fraud department over at Trustmark National Bank used to work at the Sherriff’s department and he would go over there and make sure things were being handled properly for us.

Following his instructions, my wife called the bank and asked for the deputy turned banker. She was instantly assured that Sergeant Lofton had already called and was on his way over at that moment.

Whatever impressions I might have had about Mississippi being a bunch of backwoods, lazy and slow, rednecks just got thrown out the window and sunk in the delta. This Sergeant Lofton was on the ball and the ball was rolling fast.

Not much else transpired for a few days. Well, unless you count the 4 additional emails from the scammer assuring us that our car would be on a truck shortly and we’d have the tracking number as soon as he had it, but he’d gotten caught up at work and wasn’t able to take care of it. Then it was parked at the shipping company’s garage, but it wasn’t loaded on a truck so no tracking number was available. Last we heard was, “It’s a beautiful vehicle and you need to take good care of it when it arrives.”

My wife had a hard time keeping him on the hook with the hopes that it would somehow help the Sherriff’s department with the investigation. It made her feel weird communicating with a criminal. My moral compass doesn’t swing that far so I fed her lines to type in response. I even set up a bogus hotmail account to try to lure the criminal back in to trying to sell my newly established hotmail alias the van with hopes of being able to then turn it over to the Sheriff’s department and letting them reel him in.

Shortly after, the email stopped coming, hope diminished and thoughts of losing $8,000 began to shrink. Saturday came and we knew it would be Monday before we would hear anything from anyone about it as we served our weekend prison sentence without knowledge one way or the other.

We never did get a nibble on our fake hotmail account.

Monday morning came and we told and retold the story a dozen times to friends, family and anyone who would listen. It was a kind of therapy going over and over our story, so when we heard from the Sergeant that things were wrapping up, we were delighted.

Arriving home Monday, listening to the machine I returned the call to US Bank and heard the sweet words that “there was a problem with our wire transfer and for some reason the money had been returned to our account.” Thinking there had been some kind of glitch in their system; the poor banker must have been quite confused at my joyful response.

“That’s great!”

“It is?”

“Yeah, thanks for letting us know, we’ve been working on getting the money back in our account.”

“Oh, uh… okay.”

What we eventually learned is that the seller / slimy criminal is somewhere outside the United States, most likely in Asia somewhere. He went phishing for eBay account information and caught Mia’s account in New York. He used that information to set up a fraudulent auction. He then took out an ad to hire a “Transfer Manager” who would be responsible for opening a bank account and then monitor account information. When money was transferred into their account they would follow instructions provided via email and wire money to an off-shores account, retaining a 7% commission for their efforts.

Mr. Cathy, the “Transfer Manager” who had our money was very quick and willing to transfer our money back to our bank account after Sergeant Lofton had a kind and gentle conversation with him about his obligation as a good citizen who wants to avoid a night in jail.

Mr. Cathy, come to find out, was also a previous employee at Trustmark National Bank, had been fired or laid off or something and was not flat broke. Making another good decision he decided to break into his ex-girlfriends place, steal the computer and toss it in a ditch while she was in the shower. I’m sure it had something to do with wanting to make sure his Spider Solitaire record wouldn’t ever be beaten. Or maybe it was because he had some evidence on his computer that he didn’t want subpoenaed by my new hero, Sergeant Lofton. I’m going to go with my gut and stick with his Spider Solitaire record.

Where do we go from here? Well, we could press charges against Mr. Cathy, but we’d have to go to Mississippi and then return for court, which his attorney would most likely file a continuance 3 times meaning we’d have to travel a total of 5 times to Mississippi to make it all happen.

Probably not going to happen. Summer in Mississippi doesn’t sound like that great of a proposition.

The moral of the story is this: If you’re going to get scammed and then get your money back and want to press charges, make sure the criminal is in Hawaii or Southern California or some other great place worth visiting five times.

So with our money back, the criminal in some other country and the pawn in the scheme visiting every Best Buy and Circuit City in Mississippi to hone his Spider Solitaire skills, we headed back to our computer to find a suitable vehicle to buy; A little wiser and a lot more cautious this time, but still on the look. This time, I think we’ll wait on the Buy It Now method and look in person. There’s nothing wrong with buying it later.

There you have it folks, my true life story of being scammed and getting our money back. Hope you enjoyed this short story more than I enjoyed living it. To my mom and dad, you can quit worrying, start sleeping and quit calling to get all the details.

Buy It Later: A Short Story - Part 2

Here's the much anticipated part two of our adventures. Enjoy!

5 short minutes after she sent her inquiry to eBay, they replied to my wife confirming her “women’s intuition” by saying this message had not come from them and we should not follow the instructions to wire the money into an account.

She contacted US Bank, but they said that they couldn’t do anything for us because once the money was wired, it was gone. They gave us the information for the bank where the money had been sent and wished us good luck. If we had that kind of luck, we'd be in Vegas, not stressing about this.

A call to Trustmark National Bank in Jackson, Mississippi led us to the manager of the fraud department, who after hearing my wife’s explanation and near panicked tone, said if the money was still in that account she could freeze it until things got sorted out. However, she couldn’t confirm for us if the money was there or not. She also couldn’t tell us if she was able to freeze the account because that would indicate that the money was there and she couldn’t divulge that information. She suggested we file a police report.

My phone vibrated again and I flipped it open waiting to hear what was going on. I said I’d file the police report and got the number for the police. I left a voice mail with a detective in the financial fraud department of the CSPD but wasn’t satisfied so I called back. After speaking with the lady who answered the phone, she agreed to send an officer out to take the report. I called home and said I was on my way. I wanted to be there. I had to be there.

The drive home might have taken forever, but was made bearable by the detective calling me back. I reviewed what we knew so far in hopes of triggering a response that might lead to an easy solution, but all he could tell me was to file the police report and if the officer taking the report was at all hesitant, let him know that I spoke with the detective and he said a report should be filed. I asked what he thought our chances were of getting our money back. After rewording the question a couple of times so I wouldn’t be able pin him with liability if we didn’t get the money back he thought our chances were less than 10%.

I got home and found my wife stressed to the point of fracture. I hugged her and the stress broke as she cried in my arms. I reassured her that money can be saved again and we still had our family so everything would be fine no matter what happened. I'm not sure it helped much, but it got me a few brownie points for being a sensative husband. Expensive points if we lost the money, so I made a mental note not to screw something up later and burn them before I could spend them.

The officer arrived shortly after, and we retold the story again and provided him with copies of the email correspondence we’d had with the seller / con artist. Thankfully he didn’t give any resistance to filing a report, but he didn’t give us any better chances than the detective did. “About 10%.”

Later that evening, we put our heads together and started tracing down leads since we weren’t sure the police would be much help beyond filing a report. We started by calling the bank in Mississippi again to see if by chance they were working late. They weren’t, so after hearing “Leave a Message” I gave my best victim voice to the machine and began hoping she would get in early.

Next we looked up the seller’s account that came with the spoofed eBay email, and did a quick search to find previous auctions they’d been involved in.

I still find it amazing that someone would put their phone number on eBay.

The anxiety was building as I was contemplating what I was going to say to the person who answered the phone. How would I get them to divulge that they were a con artist, or that they knew nothing about what had happened and doing all of this without tipping my hand that I suspected them to be a criminal?

I dialed the phone, still unsure about what I would say.

A lady’s voice, “Hello”

“Is Williaim there?”

“Who?”

Was the game of deceit on, or was her question honest?

Come back tomorrow for the exciting conclusion of "Buy It Later".

Buy It Later: A Short Story - Part 1

The following several posts are my attempt to cross the last several weeks of our life with a shor story format. I'll write a section each day and post it like a normal blog, but will try to keep your attention with clif hanger style endings. I hope you enjoy my story I've titled "Buy It Later".

I got home from work last night later than normal. It was about 6:00 and I rushed to preheat the oven to 450 so I could put the frozen french fries in and the grill started before my family got home. I spoke to my wife on the way home and she was having a rough day with a headache and two boys who always seem to find ways of annoying her. I was glad to hear that they found a bicycle for my oldest son Jake. Though he was getting close to outgrowing his previous bike, we weren't replacing it because of a sudden growth spurt, instead we were replacing it because with the garage door left open for a couple of hours one evening, someone walked in our garage and walked out with the bike.

There were certainly better things in the garage to steal than a kids bike, but it still made us feel a little unsafe for a few days. I was just glad to get dinner going and was looking forward to watching a movie with the family. I was so preoccupied with everything that I forgot to check the 2 messages flashing on the machine. When everyone got home I remembered the flashing number two and hit play while my wife and I leaned over the counter listening for the message we hoped would be there.

"Hi this is (someone) from US Bank. I need you to call me right away. I'll be in the office until 7:30 tonight so please call. This is kind of an emergency, so please call."

I half grinned at my wife as I dialed because I could somehow tell by the confusion and urgency in her voice that the emergency wasn't as bad as she thought it was.

It was a couple of weeks ago that we began talking about selling our 4Runner and buying a newer vehicle. True, the Toyota only had 70,000 miles on it, a mere teenager as far as Toyotas go, but a 1990 Toyota was pretty old regardless of low mileage, so we agreed we'd try to sell it privately, take the money we got and look for a steal of a deal on a low mileage, 2-3 year old vehicle.

We'd talked at length about a Chevy Uplander, and my wife had been tracking several eBay auctions hoping to catch one that didn't sell in the auction so she could negotiate a good deal afterward, so I was surprised when she showed me a Toyota Sienna she liked. Regardless, the price was incredible so I said follow it and see if you can get it for that price.

Buy It Now said $12,500 for a 2006 with 30,000 miles and absolutely loaded, but when she went back to find the auction a message appeared that said the auction had been removed by either the seller or eBay. But then she got an email from the seller answering a few of the questions she had earlier asked and a note saying that the auction was pulled because someone was going to Buy It Now, but then was unable to put together the money, so he was still interested in selling it. The vehicle was in Texas, but he would ship it to us if we didn't want to drive to get it.

Tuesday, a few more questions and answers were exchanged and phone numbers and a phone call to solidify the deal. We would run the sale through eBay so we could both be protected.

Later that evening, we got an email confirming from eBay that we won the auction from the seller and it gave us instructions on how to proceed. We were to wire money into an account that eBay would hold in escrow for us for 30 days. We would have 15 days from when we received the car to evaluate it and make sure it was what we thought we were buying, then we would wire the balance of the money into the account to complete the transaction and the seller could then withdraw the money.

Wednesday morning came with some excitement as we were anticipating getting a great deal on a great vehicle. We both agreed the price seemed almost unbelievable, but the seller confided in us that he was selling it because he needed the cash bad to help a serious cash flow problem with a restaurant he owned that was failing and he was about to lose. “Sounds like a lot of my clients”, I thought. Maybe after business was done, I’d refer him to his local SBDC office, but first, I want his car.

My wife went down to US Bank to wire the money off to this account with eBay’s corporate address on it. It seemed a little odd that it had some guy’s name attached to it, so she asked the banker if it was normal for a business account to have an individual’s name on it and she was assured it was.

“I’d hate to be the guy with my name on the account for eBay” she remarked as the details of wiring the money were settled.

My wife returned home and started going about the rest of her day when she had a strange feeling that something wasn’t right. She went upstairs to our office and started poking around eBay’s site. She saw mention of an email address that you could send an email you believed to have come from eBay, but weren’t sure and they would verify it for you. She forwarded the “you won the auction” email and waited for the reply.

At the same time, I was down town shaking hands and passing out business cards at the Small Business Outreach. Shifting my weight back and forth as my legs were starting to hurt from standing on the hard floors all day, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and excused myself from the conversation I was in to answer it. It was my wife. She sounded like she was about to cry.

“I think I lost $8,000” she said as her voice quivered.

“What?”

“I’m trying to get a hold of the bank, but I think our money is gone. The email didn’t come from eBay. It’s a fraud. I’ll call you when I know something.”

Come back tomorrow for more of "Buy It Later"