OT: Final Four Scam, and my sad story

Submitted by Willhouse on

So, I was on here bragging about great seats that I got for a good price the other day.

Found out yesterday I was scammed.

Long story short, it was a phishing scam started on CraigsList. They claimed to be a travel agency in Canada with tickets to the Saturday games that were part of a larger travel package, but the couple who bought the package could not do the trip, and they were looking to get rid of the tickets and were taking offers. I jumped on it and offered money, and they responded. They had me set up accounts with Flash Seats and a shipping company called Parcels Please. I asked twice about PayPal, but they said they did not trust PayPal, as they had bad experience before and they knew someone that worked for a company (Parcels Please) that can do the same thing, and we could use that. I was to send money via Western Union to Parcels Please and they would hold on to the cash until I received the tickets through Flash Seats. Once I received the tickets through Flash Seats, I was supposed to log into Parcels Please and okay the money transfer to the seller.

Well, I found out yesterday that they had actually CLONED the Parcels Please website and had my "login" information for the site. So I sent money to the site, and they took it, leaving no traces.

Parcels Please got wind of this yesterday and posted a note saying their site was being used by a scam based out of Canada dealing with sports tickets. They said they are not liable since their site was cloned, and no money was every actually delivered to their site.

My bank says its my fault since its a debit transaction. Western Union gave me the heave-ho. The police basically scoffed at filing a police report.

My only hope is that my friend who investigates wire fraud can come up with something based on the information I was able to provide him. But I am pretty sure I will never see that 500 bucks again, and these assholes will get off scott free.

Can't tell if I am more mad about losing the money, more sad about not being able to go see the games live, or more embarrassed that I did not connect the dots and Final Four Fever overcame me and was duped.

That's my "cool/shitty story, bro" for the day.

Go Blue....and beware.

Magnus

April 5th, 2013 at 9:13 AM ^

Wow, man.  That sucks.  I guess it's a good warning to other people.  Good luck recouping your money and finding the bastards who do things like this.

Mattinboots

April 5th, 2013 at 9:15 AM ^

As much as I hate stubhub fees, I will only use them or ticketmasters ticket exchange as they take the effort to protect the buyer.



Sorry to hear your story. Hope you find a way to recover it.

sdogg1m

April 5th, 2013 at 9:21 AM ^

Paypal is a reputable company and it is one location to store your sensitive account information. If someone is unwilling to use it then the problems is THEM and not paypal.

Never use Western Union or any money transfer service where you exchange CASH. Once you exchange the cash the money is gone!

I am sorry that this happened to you. Being the victim of theft is a horrible feeling.

Willhouse

April 5th, 2013 at 9:19 AM ^

Yeah, looking back at the process and all the little holes, it seems so easy to see the scam in it all. But hindsight is 20/20, and I fell for it.

Appreciate the kind words, guys.

Everyone Murders

April 5th, 2013 at 9:20 AM ^

It's never easy to admit you got scammed, but this is an object lesson that very smart folks can get ripped off.

Thanks for sharing the story, and thinking of others similarly-situated.  That takes some guts.  Good luck getting the money back (sincerely), and hopefully the team's performance this weekend will take some of the sting out of your experience.

thosewhostay8

April 5th, 2013 at 9:49 AM ^

The proper investigatory agency is actually Homeland Security Investigations. They should be able to work with their attache offices in Canada and the proper financial institutions. The office in Atlanta covers South Carolina and should be able to put you in touch with special agents in Charleston.

 

Special Agent in Charge Atlanta Office

1100 Centre Parkway

Atlanta, GA 30344

Main Telephone Number: (404) 346-2300

Main Fax Number: (404) 346-2374

Blue in Yarmouth

April 5th, 2013 at 9:24 AM ^

I feel bad for you sir. It always pisses me off that people like that, who obviously have creative minds and a certain degree of expertise with technology choose to use their time coming up with ways to screw honest, trusting people out of their money instead of making an honest dollar. 

I had a similar thing happen when trying to purchase a boat last year. Almost exactly the same M.O. (not trusting paypal and my money wouldn't be released until I received the boat and inspected it etc etc). Fortunately I smelled a rat after a few conversations and didn't send the money. 

I hope somehow you will be able to get something back from this and the assholes playing the scam get their asses caught. 

MaizeNBlu628

April 5th, 2013 at 9:26 AM ^

That really sucks man, I'm sorry. It's situations like this that made me nervous about buying tix through Craiglist because of the flashseats. That's why I ended up just using the NCAA ticket exchange (primeseats.com) to buy my tix, even though I knew I would have to pay a service fee. 

MaizeNBlu628

April 5th, 2013 at 9:33 AM ^

O word of advice for anyone still looking for tickets on the primeseats.com site. If you have the time, just go to the session you want, and refresh the page every 10 min or so, people are constantly posting tickets at lower prices ($150-250, instead of the $300 thats the norm on there). But you have to be ready to act fast. On Wednesday morning, there were tickets that someone was selling for $150 a pair, but I wasn't fast enough. I went back in the afternoon and just refreshed every 10 min for like an hour, and I was able to get some 200 level tickets at a very reasonable price when it popped up.

Sinsemillaplease

April 5th, 2013 at 9:30 AM ^

I really do, but had you not heard of Craigslist before this visit to the site? Given those details, the scam should have been blatantly obvious. You can't use Craigslist without receiving 1 of those scams per every real inquiry, imo. The site warns you to be skeptical of Western Union requests. Gotta assume your excitement just got the better of you.

LB

April 5th, 2013 at 10:44 AM ^

Off with his head. Some of the kindest people I know are a bit naive. I love them for it, while at the same time I try to protect them.

Combine a bit of innocence with the excitement of procuring FF tickets and you have something that was set up by a criminal who knows that people can be preyed upon. I am glad that you are worldly enough not to fall for scams.

Gameboy

April 5th, 2013 at 11:01 AM ^

Naive, innocence.... whatever. The fact is, with his naive actions and lack of education, he just made the Internet just a tiny bit worse. With this successful scam, the perpeturator is now motivated to do even more. He is probably located overseas based on the story, and he is probably recruiting others to engage in this fraud as well based on his success. By not educating himself and avoiding such on obvious scam, he is ensuring that other naive people later will face even greater scam offers. If people stopped responding to these kind of scams, they would go away. Because people like OP fall for them, they won't.

Willhouse

April 5th, 2013 at 11:23 AM ^

Well look at you on your high horse. I'm sure you've never been duped before, or been gullible, or got caught up in the excitement of an event and used emotion rather than your head. Hell, you've probably never even made a mistake in your life. Your shit probably smells like roses and you poop rainbows.

Look, its definitely my fault. I should have connected the dots better, heeded the CL warning about Western Union, should have used my credit card and not my debit card for the transaction.  There are a lot of things I could have done to prevent this from happening. Unfortunately, I did not do them.

Now its my fault if someone else gets scammed on the internet?

lbpeley

April 5th, 2013 at 1:20 PM ^

I am so glad I'm not you. That's a really stupid way of looking at the world. I wish you weren't such a douche bag. All you're doing - because of your douchebaggery - is encouraging other douche bags to be douche bags. It's a vicious cyle. People should stop being douche bags.

UMGooch

April 5th, 2013 at 9:28 AM ^

Avoid money transfers with Western Union like the plague. For future reference, you should suspect a scam anytime a wire transfer is requested. If you are to agree to wire money to someone, it's basically irreversible and your fault. :(

A friend of mine's grandparents fell for the old, "it's your grandson, and I'm arrested in Mexico and need $4000 wired to bail me out. please don't tell my parents" scam. That really sucked.

Sorry about your $500. Hope it doesn't break you like it would break me.

Blazefire

April 5th, 2013 at 9:37 AM ^

Western Union. If you are a travel agency, you take all major credit cards. There's just no two ways about it.

Just don't use craigslist for business transactions. I nearly got scammed when there was an ad for someone to recieve PC's from a reseller distributor, format them and install an OS, some software and prepare them for a network. It was all pretty on the up and up, seemed. They were paying ME by check, didn't want any of my banking info, etc. Just a shipping address.

Then the check arrived a lot bigger than what I had quoted, and there was a letter explaining the procedures. I was to cash the check in total, and then cut a check myself for the difference between my quote and the total recieved and send that to the distributor so he would release the computers to me. They said it simplified a lot of paperwork becuase then there was just one seller, and one buyer. I would become their contact for ordering computers, and I would then contact their person down there to place orders.

Glad I realized that seemed stupid quickly. Rather than cash the check, I just asked my bank if they could trace the account. Surprise! It doesn't exist.

Bb011

April 5th, 2013 at 9:38 AM ^

I'm sorry for your loss. But this is a good lesson for everyone so its a good post. Also, a tip when buying things online NEVER USE WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFERS!! It's almost always a scam, if they won't budge at all and won't use anything else then its most likely a scam.

joeyb

April 5th, 2013 at 9:44 AM ^

I'm not trying to throw this in your face; I'm just taking this opportunity to educate the masses.

Before you ever put personal information into a browser ALWAYS check the url. Make sure it is using HTTPS and that the domain is what you think it should be, e.g. paypal.com. Also, try to navigate to the site yourself in lieu of clicking links provided to you. This document pertains to email, but a lot of it is still useful.

http://helpdesk.bradley.edu/documentation/SocialEngineeringRedFlags.pdf

OP, I'm sorry this happened to you. This happens more often than you'd think, it's just that most people aren't brave enough to admit it like you did.

Willhouse

April 5th, 2013 at 9:47 AM ^

Yeah, I mean, this was pretty elaborate. My gf and I were both skeptical, but did some research and felt it was safe. I mean, they cloned a legitimate shipping business, hacked into the email server of a travel agency, and traded 30 emails with me during the whole process. That's a lot of work and dedication.

The Parcels Please contract I was sent looked legit, even had a forged signature and a disclaimer saying I would be given the right to send the approval over to transfer the funds from their company to the seller.

Like I said. Hindsight is 20/20 and its easy to connect the dots now. Lesson Learned.

thisisme08

April 5th, 2013 at 12:54 PM ^

You would be suprised at the dedication criminals have.  We've had scammers call into our bank and we've literally told them we know your not our "customer" and they just say alright, we'll call back later and sure enough in a day, a week etc. they just keep trying to get in. 

..if only they would put that effort into a real job. 

TexanGOBLUE

April 5th, 2013 at 9:55 AM ^

That's some serious BS! Just like the craigslist superbowl scam that happend. That jack wagon got busted but that was a domestic issue. Best of luck to you and I hope they get busted but.......

mrmarvin

April 5th, 2013 at 9:58 AM ^

No snark here. I am sorry and I know you must be super disappointed and probably a little embarrassed. Smart people get drawn in by this stuff all the time. Enjoy the game in splendid high definition with friends and family.

Vader

April 5th, 2013 at 10:12 AM ^

Same scam happened with my friend and I except for $350 each. Same exact scam. Soon as the agency stopped responding after payment I knew I wasn't getting the tickets. How do they clone a website and how do you check if its real or not?



Definitely never using Craigslist again.