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A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

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Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#61

Post by tempestn »

mhluongo wrote: post #32
shkkmo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who did the author pay in bitcoin? The author received bitcoin from the scammer only after threatening to out the scammer to his parents. Your half-assed attempt at self-promotion is not contributing to HN

My mistake, I reversed the payment direction. I'm obviously a scum-of-the-earth shill and not someone who's deeply interested in the space commenting lazily. Go through my profile and tell me I'm not a contributor.

Regardless, bitcoin had nothing to do with it. It's the fact that he sent the item before being payed that allowed him to be scammed. Method of payment was irrelevant. I have to agree with the parent that this seems like self promotion without bothering to more than skim the article.

Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#62

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dragontamer wrote: post #6
greenshackle wrote: post #4

I don't do these sort of trades but if I did I'd try: Buyer sends 1/4 of the BTC Sellers sends 1st card Buyer sends 1/2 of the BTC Seller sends 2nd card Buyer sends 1/4 of BTC That way the risk is shared, and both parties stand to lose at most 1/4 of the value (if seller defects after receiving the first payment, or buyer defects and fails to make the last payment).

Or use an escrow service / middleman that people trust. Bitcoin transfers aren't the problem here. Its transferring money to a trusted 3rd party, and then that 3rd party transferring the money forward (or back) once the items are confirmed to be transferred. The problem then becomes dispute resolution. Even priority mail can be faked. Close the envelope with fake cards or whatever... so no matter what, dispute resolu…

Which are the best ones?

Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#63

Post by eggy »

loeg wrote: post #47
hoodoof wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have kids? My experience of kids is that they are greatly influenced by how their parents see their behaviour. Unless of course the parents have not built good relationship with their children, in which case the kids might not care a hoot what the parents think.

He's 22, not 9.

Exactly this. Kid? At 22? I left home at 17, and knew full well when I was doing wrong before that. He is an adult, and the sooner he is treated as one, the sooner he might straighten out. Definitely tell the parents. If the parents come back with, "Mind your own @$!%ng business!" then I would inform the police.

Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#64

Post by mhluongo »

tempestn wrote: post #61
mhluongo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mistake, I reversed the payment direction. I'm obviously a scum-of-the-earth shill and not someone who's deeply interested in the space commenting lazily. Go through my profile and tell me I'm not a contributor.

Regardless, bitcoin had nothing to do with it. It's the fact that he sent the item before being payed that allowed him to be scammed. Method of payment was irrelevant. I have to agree with the parent that this seems like self promotion without bothering to more than skim the article.

I've copped to making a mistake, and reread the article for good measure. What else do you propose I do to make you happy? We use paid acquisition to promote the site, and an HN comment certainly won't make a difference to our monthly numbers- I brought it up because I thought it was relevant, and don't think I need to apologize any further for that.

> Method of payment was irrelevant.

As someone who does trades like this all the time- of course the way the exchange went down is relevant. In fact,the most salient thing when exchanging digital goods wrt fraud is the difference in settlement time between the two. In this case, since the author sent Apple gift cards, he could've just called Apple, said he was scammed, and had the cards zeroed and replaced by the merchant.

Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#65

Post by Artoemius »

ufmace wrote: post #52

Yeah, I'm not buying that apology for a second. Probably the first thing any con artist learns is how to fake being really sorry as well as they faked being legitimate anytime somebody manages to turn the tables on them. I bet you can get your money back and then report him to the police too. He's way beyond being corrected by his parents, and he probably threw that in just to make you think there's an option besides…

I agree. Begging is a skill, and this scammer is already a professional in that respect.

If he was 16 or 17, it probably wouldn't be too late to tell his parents, although that depends on the family. 22 is way too old for that.

In addition, I think the author should at least release the details of the eBay account to the public to make them googleable in connection with the scam. Since it was the eBay account that convinced the author to go first, it can convince other people too.

Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#67

Post by bbcbasic »

Wow! Why not just spend the gift card at Apple?

I only sell stuff face to face for the reasons mentioned here.

eBay/PayPal is flakey as they side with the buyer and lost a couple of times there. I then lost as a buyer buying services using Paypal as they only help the buyer if it is a physical product. Fortunately in aggregate lost a lot less than this dude. Let alone sending stuff to some random address on the promise of some bitcoin.

Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#68

Post by vkou »

nck4222 wrote: post #40
hoodoof wrote: post #11

Tell his parents is precisely what you should do. That's what would lead to possible behavior change. Letting him get away with it validates the behavior and teaches that it's OK and he will be able to talk his way out of such things again. It does everyone a disservice to not tell his parents. The author got manipulated twice. First convinced to hand over his money and then convinced not to tell the parents. The sca…

The message he sent to his brother was also sent to his mother, she just hadn't read it yet when the blog post was made. The author wasn't manipulated twice, he didn't let the scammer get away with it. Although he should probably call the police.

Police involvement is unlikely to make anything better. For every person who is scared straight, how many end up getting chewed up by the system, and coming out worse then they came in?

Telling the parents would probably be more impactful - especially given that he really wanted to prevent that from happening.

Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#69

Post by kbart »

bbcbasic wrote: post #67

Wow! Why not just spend the gift card at Apple? I only sell stuff face to face for the reasons mentioned here. eBay/PayPal is flakey as they side with the buyer and lost a couple of times there. I then lost as a buyer buying services using Paypal as they only help the buyer if it is a physical product. Fortunately in aggregate lost a lot less than this dude. Let alone sending stuff to some random address on the promi…

"Wow! Why not just spend the gift card at Apple?'

The author has specifically mentioned that he's not in US and these gift cards are "USA only".

Re: A scammer stole $500 from me and in the end begged me not to tell his parents

#70

Post by Symbiote »

nck4222 wrote: post #40
hoodoof wrote: post #11

Tell his parents is precisely what you should do. That's what would lead to possible behavior change. Letting him get away with it validates the behavior and teaches that it's OK and he will be able to talk his way out of such things again. It does everyone a disservice to not tell his parents. The author got manipulated twice. First convinced to hand over his money and then convinced not to tell the parents. The sca…

The message he sent to his brother was also sent to his mother, she just hadn't read it yet when the blog post was made. The author wasn't manipulated twice, he didn't let the scammer get away with it. Although he should probably call the police.

It's possible he has access to his mother's account, and has deleted it.

I don't think it would be unusual for a 22 year old student to visit home and borrow mum's laptop.

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