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Articles > Scamming the scammer: P-P-P-PowerBook!
Shipment:
Off to the post office I went. I have to admit that this is where I started to get very nervous. Would he look me up through the return address?
Would customs come bring the smackdown for the over-pricing? What if? What if? What if?
I managed to choke down my fear, though I'm sure I looked very nervous.
As I filled out the form, I could feel my face turning red and my body temperature rising.
When the lady at the counter asked me the value of the package, I replied, "Um, $2000 will do." (I was trying to hold it, but I was smiling from ear to ear.)
She looked at me, confused. "You know they will have to pay a lot for tax on customs."
My smile grew even wider. "I know."
Roadblock: It turns out, when you send something to London from the U.S. through FedEx, they want a phone number.
No big deal. I said I would go email him, and call them to ship it off.
From: MyNameIsJeff mynameisjeff@bootsix.net.
Sent: Wednesday, April 28
To: 'Gianluca'
Subject: Problem with shipping
Hello, I took the package to the post office, but FedEx requires a phone number for the recipient if the package is being sent internationally.
As soon as you reply with that I will call them and tell them so they can send it.
Thanks! Jeff
I began to wonder at this point . . . Obviously, this guy wasn't going to give me a legitimate number.
I got my receipt and they told me it would send after I called with his phone number.
For those of you who can make it out, the tracking number is 846563452310.
Again, It's not going anywhere until I get a phone number.
It took way to long to find an angle where that shit all showed up!
In the mean time, a member named Pipski makes history.
Pipski becomes our first undercover agent in London, and makes the first recon mission into the scammers address.
Before Pipski could get home, I received another email from the scammer:
From: Gianluca scont06@yahoo.com.
Sent: Wednesday, April 28
To: MyNameIsJeffSubject: Re: Problem with shipping
OK no problem, this is my phone number 00447940667511.
Please email me soon.Please send the package gift or small value and send EXPRESS SHIPPING.
Regards
I immediately called and had it sent. Once I posted the number, I think everyone on the site called.
And of course, it was a false number. Just in case, I later removed it from the post, in case he somehow noticed the hundreds of calls.
We didn't want to scare him off now do we?
Once I had his number, I sent him his tracking number:
Here is your tracking number. 846563452310. The package ID is 17913. The lady at the post office said that FedEx comes at 4:00pm to take shipments.
So in about 2 hours it will be scanned in the fedex thing I guess and you can start tracking it.
I shipped it express, so it should be there in 2 to 3 days.
Also, the post office lady asked what it was, and I didn't want to lie, so I said laptop computer.
When she said how much it is worth, I said, it is a family gift, but she said I couldn't do that.
She said I had to tell her how much I paid for it. I don't want to get in trouble for mail fraud, or evading taxes or anything so I told her $2000.
I am sorry if that means you have to pay more. Since I screwed up, I will share the cost with you.
Please let me know how much it was, and just have the escrow service refund you half of the amount.
Can they do that? If not I will gladly send you how ever much you spent on it.
You can even have the escrow hold my payment until I send you money for what you pay.
I hope this doesn't make you want to cancel. As I'm sure you noticed, no one ever bid on it and it didn't sell.
I really need the money, so I am willing to work with you how ever to complete the transaction.
Thank you my friend!
Jeff
As soon as Pipski got back from the drop site. He posted the details of his findings. This gave us all a really good idea of the shop:
OK, so, the shop itself. Two barber chairs, four or five very cramped terminals downstairs and, I think, some upstairs too.
Big window, easy visibility inside from without. Under the window (on the outside) is a mailbox for '9B' but there is no way on Earth our man is going to get a laptop-sized package in it.
Were I the delivery guy I would take one look at that and then go into the shop and ask. Oh, the shop also sells toy guns for some inadequately explored reason.
The owner, or at least the guy in charge while I was there, is a black guy in his mid-20s (estimate).
Credit where it's due, the haircut he gave me was of a pretty good standard (not a bad barnet, for Barnet).
Not the sharpest knife in the box and he has some odd ideas relating to the police.
I am a notoriously bad judge of character but I have my doubts that this is our man.
He doesn't strike me as a scammer, for all his other faults. That isn't to say that I couldn't well imagine him taking a cut (no pun intended), but I don't think he's the real culprit.
No-one else turned up there for a haircut. When I arrived (and when I left) a big black guy (who looks just like the cook who has a heart attack in Crimson Tide) was listening to banging choons on one of the PCs and a pasty, ginger sort was on one of the others.
While I was there a rather skanky looking Kappa-slapper came down from upstairs - she was clearly a regular btw, a bunch of schoolkids arrived and went straight upstairs - also well known to the owner.
In fact, now I come to think about it, everyone there but me seemed to be a regular. Oh, and a dude in a red t-shirt (photo'd - badly) also came d'stairs and left the place.
The street itself is - well, it's the Edgeware Rd. Rub-a-tug shops, takeaways, pool halls, minicab firms and dodgy boozers.
There is a Wetherspoons pub right next door to the shop.
The scenario that presents itself as plausible - although it is arguably pointless to try and predict these things - is that UPS man (or whomever) will end up going into the barbernet cafe, with his delivery.
If I was our scamboy, I would make a point of heading for the place - assuming I didn't own it - when tracking suggests delivery is imminent.
That would be ideal for our purposes because a goon watching the front, one watching the back and one inside, all with mobile 'phones, could pretty much sow that location up.
Pipski also posted his photos. A little blurry, but excellent work none the less:
Also you can download movies:
Movie one:http://www.newssocket.com ... erbook.avi.
Movie two:http://www.newssocket.com ... movie1.avi.
Movie three:http://www.newssocket.com ... movie2.avi.
While we waited for our ringer to be delivered, we had to keep busy, so we started to look at the internet headers of his emails.
Return-path: <scont06@yahoo.com>Traceroute wrote:
Envelope-to: mynameisjeff@bootsix.net
Delivery-date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:32:01 -0400
Received: from [66.218.93.77] (helo=web41411.mail.yahoo.com) by h-2.properhosting.com with smtp (Exim 4.24; FreeBSD 4.8) id 1BIweu-000CLR-WC for mynameisjeff@bootsix.net; Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:32:01 -0400
Message-ID: <20040428213158.18228.qmail@web41411.mail.yahoo.com>
Received: from [81.196.100.243] by web41411.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 28 Apr 2004 14:31:58 PDT
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 14:31:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gianluca <scont06@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Problem with shipping To: MyNameIsJeff <mynameisjeff@bootsix.net>
In-Reply-To: <001001c42d64$3186e4c0$70c9a8c0@STEALTHBOOK> MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-770428758-1083187918=:17958"
12 90 ms 121 ms 90 ms ge-2-1.hsa4.sanjose1.level3.net [209.245.146.25]
13 30 ms 40 ms 31 ms so-2-1-0.bbr2.sanjose1.level3.net [4.68.114.157]
14 90 ms 100 ms 101 ms so-0-1-0.bbr1.newyork1.level3.net [64.159.1.41]
15 160 ms 171 ms 160 ms as-0-0.mp2.london1.level3.net [4.68.128.105]
16 * 180 ms 180 ms so-2-0-0.mp1.frankfurt1.level3.net [212.187.128.93]
17 180 ms 170 ms 180 ms so-10-0.hsa2.frankfurt1.level3.net [195.122.136.162]
18 170 ms 171 ms 170 ms fra2-cr2-p6-1.rdsnet.ro [62.231.127.41]
19 200 ms 201 ms 190 ms buh1-gsr1-p6-1.rdsnet.ro [193.231.252.229]
20 190 ms 201 ms 190 ms buh1-htb-ge0.rdsnet.ro [62.231.74.30]
21 370 ms 311 ms 280 ms buh1-cr1-vlan4.rdsnet.ro [193.231.252.73]
E-mails were sent from a hijacked connection/proxy in Romania: http://dnsstuff.com/tools ... .196.100.2.
We noticed, as soon as he had confirmation, that obviously trustworthy escrow site went down!
But not before Sejanus archived it! Download it: http://www.newssocket.com ... et-ltd.rar
While we sat and waited for the delivery of the P-P-P-PowerBook, we all just posted different ideas and other funny things that would be funny to do.
Nothing really relative to this.
The time was ticking, and we were getting closer and closer to our delivery time. At this point, Starbucks, and Rhig joined the stealth recon with Pipski.
They were going to be at the shop during the time of the original delivery. Starbucks took his USB key with several tools to gather even more intel.
As soon as they all posted to let us know when they were going, and their plans, we had a problem:
Not knowing what this means at the time. . . I began to PANIC.
All those things I was worrying about, came back 10 fold. Begin hyperventilate.
As you can see this did not set well with me.
That's me breathing into a bag hoping I don't pass out. Or have my heart explode.
With our operatives already on the way, we had to just hope that it changed fast, and got delivered while they were there.
Starbucks was our first man to post from the shop:
It was not long before Starbucks saw a Fedex truck and posted this:
Basically, everyone in the thread went fucking ballistic. We had all thought that FedEx had sent it out for delivery, and just didn't update the site.
After we thought it arrived, our men left. Before Starbucks left, he set the screen savers on the computers upstairs to scroll: "P-P-P-POWERBOOK!":
Even more pics of the outside of the building were posted.
As I was unsure, and grew impatient, another email was sent.
Hello!
Today is the 3rd day so you should be getting your new laptop!
I saw on the FedEx site and it is delayed! Does that mean it is still waiting to be delivered? I don't know what time it is there, but I hope it gets there today. Or did you get it and FedEx just didn't update their web page?
Did you pay for the taxes? How much did you end up paying? I am sorry again for that. I didn't mean to cost you extra money. But like I said in my other email, we can work it out.
How long will the 'ok' process take? I am eager to receive payment!
Thank you!
Jeff
