Comments on: P-P-P-Powerbook

P-P-P-Powerbook

holloway — Thu, 13 May 2004 19:41:41 -0800

An American Ebay seller realises a European bidder is trying to scam him out of a Powerbook (fake escrow site, hijacked ebay account), so he sends him something far better, a P-P-P-Powerbook! Now, for you non-techies here, a factory model p-p-p-powerbook weights half what it's competitors weigh, comes with an A4 screen, the latest in internet adventure software, zero boot time, a fullsize keyboard (often with Key Redundancy^TM) and a state-of-the-art laser bluetooth mouse. This is technology. The seller posts to a forum and amongst the chatter people follow the package via the the Fedex tracking page and some even visit the delivery address (a barbershop/internet cafe) and take photos, video, and a seat for their hair cut. The duty tax on this particular p-p-p-powerbook is around £350 (paid for by the scammer) before he sees the package, and a few days later it's released by Customs as they watch in anticipation. A forum member arrives at the internet cafe, takes a seat and soon the package arrives. The scammer opens the box and there are angry raised voices heard. The barber doesn't understand what's wrong and asks... "Is it broken?"

By: holloway

holloway — Thu, 13 May 2004 19:45:58 -0800

The 28 page story [MS Word, 500K] with the emails between them, and a PDF version linked on this page.

By: Zonker

Zonker — Thu, 13 May 2004 19:51:40 -0800

Thanks, holloway, this is fantastic!

By: keswick

keswick — Thu, 13 May 2004 19:53:52 -0800

Sheer genius. This is truly the best of the Web.

By: tapeguy

tapeguy — Thu, 13 May 2004 19:55:26 -0800

Heh. The keyboard spells out 'U FAG', 'LOL'. Good old somethingawful.com.

By: Stan Chin

Stan Chin — Thu, 13 May 2004 19:57:42 -0800

Dude, that touchpad has two buttons. Anybody have a sharpie? I wish to upgrade my Powerbook.

By: nasim

nasim — Thu, 13 May 2004 20:03:54 -0800

His name is Kk-k-en and cc-coming to Kkk-k-kkill you!

By: fillsthepews

fillsthepews — Thu, 13 May 2004 20:08:07 -0800

God Bless the Intarweb.

By: jeremy

jeremy — Thu, 13 May 2004 20:12:22 -0800

Holy sweet heaven. That was absolutely the most fun I've had in weeks. And all I did was read read read. Whee!

By: amberglow

amberglow — Thu, 13 May 2004 20:22:24 -0800

that's hysterical--very well done turning of the tables. : >

By: mikojava

mikojava — Thu, 13 May 2004 20:45:45 -0800

OMG I laughed my ass off

By: palegirl

palegirl — Thu, 13 May 2004 20:49:53 -0800

awesome!

By: Vidiot

Vidiot — Thu, 13 May 2004 20:53:32 -0800

[this is very good]

By: MegoSteve

MegoSteve — Thu, 13 May 2004 21:10:00 -0800

Ack, I started getting ye olde forum payment nag at page 25. Now I'm partway in and can't finish! I even kicked in the ten bucks!

By: anastasiav

anastasiav — Thu, 13 May 2004 21:26:06 -0800

For what its worth, here's the original auction. Great post!

By: GriffX

GriffX — Thu, 13 May 2004 21:40:57 -0800

Oh, that's priceless.

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Thu, 13 May 2004 22:00:03 -0800

Rad. Just freaking rad.

By: joedan

joedan — Thu, 13 May 2004 22:08:25 -0800

excellent! great post!

By: riffola

riffola — Thu, 13 May 2004 22:11:47 -0800

Someone should pass this on to the fine folks at Apple's design department! "A1 outsscamming! Will check the site again!!!"

By: prodigalsun

prodigalsun — Thu, 13 May 2004 22:36:52 -0800

Pentel inside

By: LinusMines

LinusMines — Thu, 13 May 2004 22:51:39 -0800

Toxic levels of good!

By: dobbs

dobbs — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:10:00 -0800

For what its worth, here's the original auction. Looks like the final bidder was also a scam as eBay has killed the person's account.

By: skallas

skallas — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:27:47 -0800

Good to see that ebay didnt even both to help this guy or do anything other than plug escrow.com. No wonder people get ripped-off, ebay is slacking on helping them purchase and sell safely:

While waiting for his response, I decided, that because it was my original sale, I would report the account to eBay. I went through all the hoops, filled out all the forms. To sum it up, I let them know what we discovered, and asked them to take some action. This is what I get: Hello, Thank you for writing to eBay's Customer Support with your concerns. My name is John and I appreciate the chance to answer your question. I'm happy to assist you further. An Escrow service allows the buyer to send their money to the Escrow Company, and the Seller then ships the item to the Buyer. Once the Buyer approves the item the Escrow service then pays the Seller. eBay recommends escrow for transactions over $500.00. The Escrow service affiliated with eBay is called Escrow.com. eBay encourages members to take advantage of the assurance that escrow services can provide. For more information on escrow, please see the following eBay page: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/escrow.html I wish you the best with your future transactions. Regards, John W. S. eBay Customer Support WELL THANK YOU JOHN! MY CUP RUNETH OVER! Let's see. . . someone is reporting an obvious scam and fake escrow site. Obviously he has no idea what escrow is. BETTER SCHOOL HIM! This just plain pissed me off. Can this be their response to other reports of scams? Perhaps this email was a little too angry: Hi John, Not to be rude, but I know quite well what escrow is. I also happen to know that this is an obvious scam attempt. Had you actually read the form I filled out on your site, and not replied with the canned response: Escrow 101, you would notice that I did not ask what escrow was. I was reporting someone wants to settle the sale outside of ebay, through an escrow site he referred me to. A site that claims to be a VeriSign secure site, but then you click the logo, he is hosting the VeriSign page -the page that should take you to the verisign site. This is a text book rip off. This can't be your answer to everyone who reports these types of things can it? I really think you should take some action against this person. Jeff

By: mikojava

mikojava — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:27:51 -0800

Here is a Jean Climax Pro Afro-Carribean hair stylist commemorative shirt

By: skallas

skallas — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:30:25 -0800

Also, someone else on SA forums proposed the "notebook" computer idea. Kudos for pulling it off, but its like this was a forum activity more than a personal one. scary.

By: phyrewerx

phyrewerx — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:34:57 -0800

Now I'm badly waiting to see if the buyer will actually respond to the last email.

By: pemulis

pemulis — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:53:28 -0800

This is wonderful.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Thu, 13 May 2004 23:56:33 -0800

Me, I'm waiting to see if eBay respond to his last email. They have a huge, responsibility - which they are attempting to automate & dodge. That deserves wide dissemination too.

By: Salmonberry

Salmonberry — Fri, 14 May 2004 00:01:13 -0800

That's hilarious. Good to see a scammer getting scammed. eBay does need to get it's act together, it truly isn't proactive enough in taking down scammers. Thanks for the link, holloway!

By: brism

brism — Fri, 14 May 2004 00:14:00 -0800

That was wonderful! Thank you!

By: chunking express

chunking express — Fri, 14 May 2004 00:16:25 -0800

holloway has restored my faith in this site. that was pure posting gold.

By: gen

gen — Fri, 14 May 2004 01:48:55 -0800

It's easy to dismiss SA, but when you get right down to it, they host some of the funniest/silliest stuff on the web...

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Fri, 14 May 2004 01:51:28 -0800

Pretty ballsy for a law-abiding citizen to send a package internationally claiming to be a thing of value when it's not. He's pretty safe since the scammer is not going to complain. The only other party that might have a problem is British Customs and Excise as they handled a package with a bogus valuation and levied duty accordingly. But I'm sure they wouldn't complain either -- it netted HMG a couple hundred quid from an unpleasant character, which is surely a good thing. But in our hero's shoes, I wouldn't have done it -- which means I'm either a lot less nervy than he is or I think too much, and probably both.

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Fri, 14 May 2004 01:54:59 -0800

I should add that he did it in the sure knowledge and belief that he was never going to see any money -- and can document the fact of that belief with his ongoing correspondence prior to the act, which presumably means in law that criminal intent can't be shown -- which is a lot more than the other guy can say.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Fri, 14 May 2004 02:56:08 -0800

I wish that I had more nerdy friends to pass the pure, webby goodness of this story to. Even so.... pure comedy gold - like candid camera, with balls.

By: matteo

matteo — Fri, 14 May 2004 03:06:01 -0800

classic. thanks

By: matteo

matteo — Fri, 14 May 2004 03:33:49 -0800

oh, I forgot: I don't know why but the part where the James Bond intel guy writes "a big black guy (who looks just like the cook who has a heart attack in Crimson Tide made me laugh uncontrollably, I don't know why

By: substrate

substrate — Fri, 14 May 2004 05:16:46 -0800

If he settled the auction outside of eBay then how is eBay responsible? Somebody did something that eBay tells everybody never ever to do because there's a good chance it's a scam (and eBay probably loses money but they don't mention that) and somebody tries to scam them. Gosh. It's a hilarious story and I'm glad to see a scammer scammed but there's nothing eBay can do. Somebody recently attempted to scam me and both eBay and PayPal came through and it didn't cost me a dime. But then I, you know, actually used eBay to complete the auction.

By: mischief

mischief — Fri, 14 May 2004 05:22:41 -0800

That guy really needs some xanax if shipping something like this really upsets him so. They key to deviltry is to not let the excitement turn to anxiety.

By: asok

asok — Fri, 14 May 2004 05:43:22 -0800

Off topic - your mefiswap mix has always been a favourite, holloway. Jesus I was evil, Different Worlds. Keep up the good work holloway!

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 14 May 2004 07:43:04 -0800

This is good stuff, scamming scammers is the sweetest revenge there is.

By: ODiV

ODiV — Fri, 14 May 2004 07:53:08 -0800

substrate: He didn't settle it out of ebay. He saw it for the scam it was and decided to screw around with the guy. He then reported the guy to ebay for trying to scam in this fashion.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 14 May 2004 07:58:13 -0800

something awful sucks. i'm blocking all referrers from them. the members link to my sites constantly (particularly my mirrors), gobbling up my bandwidth, and when i backtrack to the referring page i am always informed that i must fork $9.95 to view the page. well, good. when they all send me $9.95 each, i'll allow them to link my site from there. apparently, when a good opportunity for self-promotion comes along, as with this ebay scammer, he allows free access to that particular forum. well, sorry jeffy, the free ride on meepzorp is over.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Fri, 14 May 2004 08:14:28 -0800

It's dead now. Anybody got a mirror?

By: das_2099

das_2099 — Fri, 14 May 2004 08:36:11 -0800

pdf link here as well

By: etc

etc — Fri, 14 May 2004 08:36:17 -0800

This is good stuff, scamming scammers is the sweetest revenge there is. I liked the one a while back where someone followed up on a 419, got the scammer to meet him at Dubai Airport, and got a couple of mates to stake him out and take photos (couldn't find a link, sorry). Like this one, a little anti-climactic, but funny when you imagine the look on the scammers' faces when they realise they've been had..

By: dobbs

dobbs — Fri, 14 May 2004 08:43:40 -0800

Pretty ballsy for a law-abiding citizen to send a package internationally claiming to be a thing of value when it's not. It's not the value that's the problem, it's lying about the contents. Theoretically, he could have called the binder a work of art and put any value on it he saw fit. eBay certainly has its share of problems with getting on top of things, but outside of the initial canned email i would say that they weren't in the wrong here. The second email certainly is more to the point. The thing that bothers me most is that they refuse to do anything about bootleggers. This guy has sold hundreds of bootleg copies of a DVD and I personally have reported him at least 10 times (he makes it very difficult for people with legitimate copies of the dvd to sell it) and eBay has done jack shit about it. I'm still in shock that anyone thought it a good idea to call a business New Jersey Chicken or Jean Climax. And they're on the same block! As for scamming scammers, I love the one where the guy got the FBI and local police and FedEx involved and they actually caught the guy and sent him to prison.

By: Vidiot

Vidiot — Fri, 14 May 2004 08:54:08 -0800

I loved the "James T. Kirk" 419 scammer.

By: scarabic

scarabic — Fri, 14 May 2004 12:07:14 -0800

Particularly pleasing for me, as I was once scammed in a similar way. Overseas sale... buyer demanded escrow... claimed box arrived empty.... It sucked. Insurance covered me, fortunately. But it's nice to see the sting point the other way.

By: bingo

bingo — Sat, 15 May 2004 19:11:32 -0800

A forum member arrives at the internet cafe, takes a seat and soon the package arrives. The scammer opens the box and there are angry raised voices heard. The barber doesn't understand what's wrong and asks... "Is it broken?" Where is this passage from? The file I got ends while they're waiting for him to open it.

By: holloway

holloway — Sat, 15 May 2004 20:21:33 -0800

Why it's 2896 posts into that thread, of course:

Rhig came out of the closet to say... "He paid the fee and there was a lot of rustling, he was opening one of the boxes, there was more angry raised voices and the barber said something like "is it broken etc", the guy said something like its wrong/mistake I don't think he really understood the joke right away. There was more raised voices but not real arguing, the guy didn't suspect the barber of anything and didn't as far as I know explain what happen to him. Probably to keep his post office box if the barbers not in on it."

By: holloway

holloway — Sat, 15 May 2004 20:31:18 -0800

Mirrors, The site: HTML #1, #2, #3 The story: In HTML, PDF #1, #2, #3 Cafepress: Jean Climax Merchandise

By: holloway

holloway — Sun, 16 May 2004 13:50:10 -0800

Made it to Slashdot. (Google lists 373 sites with the term P-P-P-Powerbook, some just because they're showing Mefi's RSS feed. Doesn't appear that Google has caught up with Slashdot's news yet.)

By: holloway

holloway — Mon, 17 May 2004 00:53:04 -0800

A mirror of some of the more interesting photos. There's some misunderstanding about who the photos circulating are of (slashdot comments saying the guy with the hat during the second delivery is the scammer, which they aren't). So far as I know there are no photos of the scammer, or the package once delivered. There are blurry photos of the barber, but they're not enough to identify the guy. There were people in the barbershop but they didn't get a clear photo of the people involved. (Google now lists 1130 sites with the term)

By: holloway

holloway — Mon, 17 May 2004 22:16:23 -0800

P-P-P-Powerbook store (Google lists 2130)

By: holloway

holloway — Tue, 18 May 2004 14:52:42 -0800

The scammer might have responded but it's a virus generated email, so either the scammer is trying to infect Jeff's machine, or the scammer's machine has been infected and he's passively attacking Jeff, or someone else is forging emails and hoping to infect Jeff. The first email comes from an IP address in London, and the second has the same h-2.properhosting.com smtp server that the scammer used earlier.

Received: from [82.42.50.228] (helo=paul-rlmc0c0snw.net) by h-2.properhosting.com with smtp (Exim 4.24; FreeBSD 4.8) id 1BPmqw-0005E1-Th for mynameisjeff@bootsix.net; Mon, 17 May 2004 14:28:43 -0400 From: scont06@yahoo.com [mailto:scont06@yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 12:29 PM To: mynameisjeff@bootsix.net Subject: Re: Thank you! See attach. For security purposes the attached file is password protected. Password -- 27735

and the next one

Return-path: <scont06@yahoo.com> Envelope-to: mynameisjeff@bootsix.net Delivery-date: Mon, 17 May 2004 19:02:40 -0400 Received: from [24.112.90.26] (helo=8103g) by h-2.properhosting.com with smtp (Exim 4.24; FreeBSD 4.8) id 1BPr82-0008D0-VJ for mynameisjeff@bootsix.net; Mon, 17 May 2004 19:02:39 -0400 Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 19:04:04 -0500 To: mynameisjeff@bootsix.net Subject: E-mail account disabling warning. From: support@bootsix.net Message-ID: <rkfhawahmfqmluaeaiy@bootsix.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="--------qpfmbvnmtvvjaccuaqvi" From: support@bootsix.net [mailto:support@bootsix.net] Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 5:04 PM To: mynameisjeff@bootsix.net Subject: E-mail account disabling warning. Dear user of Bootsix.net, Our antivirus software has detected a large ammount of viruses outgoing from your email account, you may use our free anti-virus tool to clean up your computer software. Pay attention on attached file. Attached file protected with the password for security reasons. Password is 03581. The Management, The Bootsix.net team http://www.bootsix.net

By: holloway

holloway — Wed, 19 May 2004 22:29:56 -0800

P-P-P-Powerbook.com is back with updates after running out of bandwidth for a few days and then suffering a DDoS attack (syn flood). P-P-P-Powerbook.com has used 40G of traffic in the last week and other mirrors with counters have have had 1 million visits. The original Something Awful thread has had 2.3 million views (half of those in the last two days). Fascinating!

By: holloway

holloway — Mon, 24 May 2004 17:16:59 -0800

P-P-P-Powerbook.com is now moving over to EasyNetworkNYC but the DNS is slow to move. There hasn't been any further talk of it on SA so I think we can assume this story is dead. Google now has 27,500 results