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Dateline NBC Investigates: To catch...

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Thanks for the bump, ended up watching most of it.

Surprised they didn't try to actually get any of those guys arrested. Evidence against them seemed pretty strong.
 
Originally posted by: lupi
Thanks for the bump, ended up watching most of it.

Surprised they didn't try to actually get any of those guys arrested. Evidence against them seemed pretty strong.
Click to expand...

The only charge I could even remotely think of is "mail fraud". But that is only to protect the states. This all seems legal to me.

<---not a lawyer or knowledgable on federal law (because it sure isn't the state law here), just giving opion. Once you are out of country, our laws no longer have any meaning whatsoever.
 
There will never be a law that can prevent stupid people from willingly giving their money to a con man. This has been going on since the begining of time, and as long as there is some sap willing to give away his money it will continue
 
Interesting. However, if it was me, my response would be "Yeah I con the hell out of dumbasses. I mean gawd damnit people we only got computers here 5 years ago. How the fudge are we the ones scamming you?"

I'd laugh at the interviewer. Then go roll around in my money.
 
bah. that was stupid. I thought they were gonna catch one and then hang him upside down and have the kids swing their clubs at him.
 
Did anyone see the show this week? It was "To Catch an ID Thief".

It was hilarious, kind of depressing, and pretty scary. The first part of the show had them working with a company who infiltrates ID theft rings. They looked to be operating in IRC. They got a credit card company to issue them a bunch of accounts with $1000 limits, then they went into the IRC channel and started selling the numbers. At the same time, they were on the line with someone at the credit card company, who'd tell them in real time what was being charged to the card.

They had cards maxed out in under 20 minutes, usually less. It was scary how fast they'd hit the cards.

The next part of the show was trying to track down the stolen goods. They set up a fake website and advertised it in the IRC channel as "cardeable" (ie: they don't go to great lengths to verify credit card information). They got a bunch of orders and shipped them with their fake delivery service (CH delivery). Chris Hansen was the deliveryman. The first two people he talked to were single moms. They both said they had met a guy named Paul online and he proposed to them. They were accepting packages for him and one of them was re-shipping stuff overseas (the other one had stopped re-shipping and was refusing packages because a fraud investigator had tipped her off to the scam) They both showed Chris Hansen a picture of their boyfriends - and it was the same picture for both women. While they were talking to the second woman (who was still reshipping things), DHL came to pick up a computer that she was reshipping somewhere overseas.

They noticed a lot of their packages were going to a particular address. They went to that address and found an older guy (and his wife) doing the same thing. They'd accept packages and ship them "to Africa". This was the depressing part for me, because the guy thought he had a business partner named Wendy, who was also in love with him and was going to marry him (mind you, he's still married to his wife). It turned out he was shipping stuff all over the place, not just to Africa. They got him to come to their "warehouse" (a rented room in a warehouse somewhere) because they had a bunch of packages for him. He told Chris Hansen how he met "Wendy" online and fell in love, but he warned Chris Hansen about meeting women that way because "They have that show Dateline where they trap guys who try to have sex with 13 year olds". He went on to talk with him about the show and how much he liked it - the whole time oblivious to the fact that Chris Hansen was sitting across from him.

They finally broke the news to him and he looked pretty upset by it. He claimed he had spent his entire savings reshipping things (the scammers weren't paying for shipping), although that may not have been true (he told Chris Hansen that they had deposited $18K into his Paypal account, then later said that was a lie). They asked him if he'd work with them to track down the guy at the top, and he agreed.

It looks like next week, they're going to Nigeria to track down the scammer. It sucks, because they probably won't arrest him, or even if they do the guy won't be punished. I was hoping for them to track down a scammer here in the states so they could arrest him.

The common denominator in all three reshipping scams was a lonely person who was duped into thinking they were in love. It's pretty sad what people will do when they don't know any better. It looked like these people had been doing this for a while, I can't believe the police were never there to arrest them for receiving stolen property. Maybe the police just don't care?
 
Originally posted by: MrBond
Did anyone see the show this week? It was "To Catch an ID Thief".

It was hilarious, kind of depressing, and pretty scary. The first part of the show had them working with a company who infiltrates ID theft rings. They looked to be operating in IRC. They got a credit card company to issue them a bunch of accounts with $1000 limits, then they went into the IRC channel and started selling the numbers. At the same time, they were on the line with someone at the credit card company, who'd tell them in real time what was being charged to the card.

They had cards maxed out in under 20 minutes, usually less. It was scary how fast they'd hit the cards.

The next part of the show was trying to track down the stolen goods. They set up a fake website and advertised it in the IRC channel as "cardeable" (ie: they don't go to great lengths to verify credit card information). They got a bunch of orders and shipped them with their fake delivery service (CH delivery). Chris Hansen was the deliveryman. The first two people he talked to were single moms. They both said they had met a guy named Paul online and he proposed to them. They were accepting packages for him and one of them was re-shipping stuff overseas (the other one had stopped re-shipping and was refusing packages because a fraud investigator had tipped her off to the scam) They both showed Chris Hansen a picture of their boyfriends - and it was the same picture for both women. While they were talking to the second woman (who was still reshipping things), DHL came to pick up a computer that she was reshipping somewhere overseas.

They noticed a lot of their packages were going to a particular address. They went to that address and found an older guy (and his wife) doing the same thing. They'd accept packages and ship them "to Africa". This was the depressing part for me, because the guy thought he had a business partner named Wendy, who was also in love with him and was going to marry him (mind you, he's still married to his wife). It turned out he was shipping stuff all over the place, not just to Africa. They got him to come to their "warehouse" (a rented room in a warehouse somewhere) because they had a bunch of packages for him. He told Chris Hansen how he met "Wendy" online and fell in love, but he warned Chris Hansen about meeting women that way because "They have that show Dateline where they trap guys who try to have sex with 13 year olds". He went on to talk with him about the show and how much he liked it - the whole time oblivious to the fact that Chris Hansen was sitting across from him.

They finally broke the news to him and he looked pretty upset by it. He claimed he had spent his entire savings reshipping things (the scammers weren't paying for shipping), although that may not have been true (he told Chris Hansen that they had deposited $18K into his Paypal account, then later said that was a lie). They asked him if he'd work with them to track down the guy at the top, and he agreed.

It looks like next week, they're going to Nigeria to track down the scammer. It sucks, because they probably won't arrest him, or even if they do the guy won't be punished. I was hoping for them to track down a scammer here in the states so they could arrest him.

The common denominator in all three reshipping scams was a lonely person who was duped into thinking they were in love. It's pretty sad what people will do when they don't know any better. It looked like these people had been doing this for a while, I can't believe the police were never there to arrest them for receiving stolen property. Maybe the police just don't care?
Click to expand...

Awesome recap....I totally forgot it was on and missed it!
 
MrBond,

Awesome recap and I can't wait for next week's episode.

I really want them to find "Paul" and "Wendy" and confront them.
 
I missed the first part, but caught most of it. Awesome show and I can't wait to see what the people do when they meet face to face.
 
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