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Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

foxbusiness.com

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Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#11
post #9

“The report states the success of the alleged scam by Kwarteng, who has been released on bail, enabled him to create his own company.” That’s one way to get seed funding I guess...

This was my favorite part of the article. It honestly reads like somehow what he did was a brilliant business idea, but incidentally was illegal

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#12
The first article that reported this [1] has way more info on what he did with the money and how he fenced it and how he was caught (this is auto-translated so I have no idea how accurate it is since I don't speak spanish):

>The scam didn't end there. So many times they repeated the scam, which were made with a huge amount of electronics. They could keep them ... or they could further stretch the deception. And that's what they did. James set up an online sales company. A kind of Wallapop to which he named Kwartech, a fusion of his surname Kwarteng and the word tech (technology in English). They founded a Limited Company that served to sell the merchandise online. They offered unused products, but without a package (which was back in Amazon full of land, a fact that they did not tell their customers) and at a very reduced price.

>The Barcelona police began the investigation, which immediately passed to the Group of Technological Crimes of the Upper Balearic Headquarters. Agents arrested them both last week. They have passed to judicial disposition and have left free with a deposit of 3,000 euros. They are on the street, waiting for the final trial ... and with their Amazon accounts closed. And is that between James and Juan have hit the biggest stick that has ever been given to Amazon in Europe.

[1] https://www.elespanol.com/reportajes/20190723/estafo-james-a...

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#13
Things must have changed lately. I returned a set of DVDs and forgot to include the cover and got dinged for over half the cost of the item almost as soon as it was received by the warehouse. I guess I got lucky since they could have charged me for the whole price. But now a guy is sending dirt and he gets full credit. Wow!

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#14

This is so bizarrely stupid, but it does lead to some questions: 1. What did this man think was going to happen? That Amazon would never open the boxes he returned? Certainly after 370k worth I'm surprised he didn't get flagged much earlier. 2. What normally happens to Amazon returns? The article makes it sound like they are rarely opened. That seems bizarre to me. I would have thought they'd have a system for proces…

Not applauding his fraud (although a part of me always enjoys stories like this), but I bet it started like, “hmm I wonder if this would work,” on one package, and then a few hundred thousand dollars later...

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#16
post #4

Wow, this is brilliant.

Well, it _was_ brilliant, but the alleged perp got caught. Good luck now.

By this logic, everything is brilliant until it's not. That's not a good way to define "brilliant". Actions that eventually net undesirable consequences are stupid, not brilliant.

E.g. Being a petty armed bank robber isn't brilliant until you get caught.

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#17
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it _was_ brilliant, but the alleged perp got caught. Good luck now.

By this logic, everything is brilliant until it's not. That's not a good way to define "brilliant". Actions that eventually net undesirable consequences are stupid, not brilliant. E.g. Being a petty armed bank robber isn't brilliant until you get caught.

> Actions that eventually net undesirable consequences are stupid, not brilliant.

I think it depends on how predictable the consequences are (it may be brilliant, or at least smart, to act in a way that offers a small possibility of an undesireable consequence in return for a large possibility of a highly desireable one), and on how long the time horizon is (it may be brilliant, or at least smart, to act in a way that offers certain undesireable consequences much later in return for certain desireable consequences for a long time before that). To overstate the objection, all actions eventually result in death, which is presumably undesireable.

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#18

Things must have changed lately. I returned a set of DVDs and forgot to include the cover and got dinged for over half the cost of the item almost as soon as it was received by the warehouse. I guess I got lucky since they could have charged me for the whole price. But now a guy is sending dirt and he gets full credit. Wow!

Amazon, I believe, checks for the weight of the package to ascertain if the contents are what they were supposed to be.

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#19

This is so bizarrely stupid, but it does lead to some questions: 1. What did this man think was going to happen? That Amazon would never open the boxes he returned? Certainly after 370k worth I'm surprised he didn't get flagged much earlier. 2. What normally happens to Amazon returns? The article makes it sound like they are rarely opened. That seems bizarre to me. I would have thought they'd have a system for proces…

2. Amazon kind of sorts them onto pallets that they eventually auction off, blindly. A lot of sellers buy these, like prepackaged storage lockers. They then sort through the junk, see what they can make a buck on, and resell on eBay or elsewhere.
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