Fraud Help

April 21, 2008 5:57 PM

How the heck can I get money back after I was an idiot and a victim of fraud?

I know there's been some posts along these lines before. Up for discussion is not my own stupidity. I'm less stupid than this simplified version of the story makes me seem, but I'm slightly more stupid than someone who would not have done this. I'm completely aware that I should not have done this, but here goes.

I paid for something on Craigslist with a money order.
The person never showed.
(I swear, they were good. I deal with people like this for a living.)

Now, here's what I have.

A phone number we have been corresponding with.
A name that they used to retrieve the money order, so they had to show an ID to retrieve it (although it could have been a fake).
Two email addresses (aol.com and live.com) we have been corresponding with.
A hunch that they are actually fairly local with their knowledge of the area.

I'm really looking for something in the vein of this guy who just hunted the folks down himself. I'm not going to hurt anyone, I just think I can be a bit quicker than any law enforcement help. I have fairly little trust in the law and their speed.

Any advice on where to go from here?

I have a reverse phone number lookup in the works, as we've been communicating on a landline. But what else can I do?

posted by jpcody to technology (8 comments total)

If any junior detectives are looking to cut their teeth and help a brother out, email me at joshcody (at) gmail (dot) com
posted by jpcody at 5:58 PM on April 21

Did you at least file a police report? Most people are embarrassed by their stupidity and don't which simply lets these scumbags continue to prey on trusting people.

PLEASE file a police report, even if they tell you there is little to no chance of getting your dough back
posted by Mr_Chips at 6:23 PM on April 21

You should go file a report at the Internet Crime Complaint Center, too. Unfortunately, there really is very little chance you will get your money back.
posted by LightMayo at 6:55 PM on April 21

POLICE, POLICE, POLICE. ASAP! With a landline number (I don't understand how you paid with a money order, but they needed an ID...and you don't have their addy...was this western unon), the authorities should be able to track them down.

This wasn't via western union, was it? If so, they might have a camera. Go to the police station, and file a report. Talk to a detective, and hopefully they will bump this up since it would be so easy for them to track it down since it JUST happened.

Good luck.
posted by hal_c_on at 7:57 PM on April 21

Great advice hal_c_on...it was actually with Moneygram, but I'll see if I can get it figured out tomorrow and talk to Moneygram, see if they can tell me where it was actually picked up.

Essentially with Moneygram they go to a Moneygram location, show their ID, give a reference number and get the cash.

Idiot me.
posted by jpcody at 8:04 PM on April 21

oh, wired money. i was thinking a real-paper money order...
posted by gcat at 8:16 PM on April 21

is this in the US? I have had some luck tracking down people who screwed me on ebay and craigslist and convincing them to step up. One thing that I would suggest is searching on the email addresses you have and if that doesn't work then just the part before the @ sign - in other words maybe they used the name before, before they decided it was going to be the throwaway asshole account. Using that search maybe you can start finding others who know the bad guy but don't know he's a bad guy. You can use them to get bits of information to lead you to him. Same thing with each and every other bit of information you have/get about this person. With the ebay person I ended up getting as far as the landlord of the building that rented space to the bad guy when he had a store and I was able to find information by talking to the landlord. I even called the chamber of commerce in the town where this store was to find out what if any business registrations were documented when the guy setup his store. I built a file of information that in the aggregate not only led me to the guy but allowed me to freak him out about how much information I had. The idea I wanted to convey was, in the words of Col Nathan R. Jessup: "You f'd with the wrong Marine!" lol - other advice, do some of your searches outside of google, before google there was lexis nexis and that site has LOTs of info. Go to your local university library, they probably subscribe.
posted by Barrows at 9:07 PM on April 21

I was shocked how much info Spokeo could find when fed an email address.
posted by TheDukeofLancaster at 2:37 PM on April 23