posted on March 4, 2002 08:50:07 PM new
eBay,Inc.
2145 Hamilton Avenue
San Jose, CA 95125
Hello,
The eBay Legal Fraud Investigations Team has been in contact with the US
Postal Inspection Service concerning a former eBay User that is under
investigation for their activities on eBay.
This investigation is not complete at this time, and your cooperation will
be appreciated. Please keep in mind that these are allegations only, and
that no charges have been filed nor should you draw any conclusions as to
the outcome of the investigation.
If you WON an auction posted by these User(s) through eBay, AND if payment
was sent and the item was NOT received, NOT as advertised, or a refund was
NOT issued, then the US Postal Inspection Service would like your assistance
in their investigation. Here is a list of the Name(s) and User ID's that are
currently under investigation:
On behalf of eBay, I hope that you will take a moment to fill out the
information below, and mail this information to Postal Inspector xxxxx
xxxxxxxx of the US Postal Inspection Service in order to help with this
investigation.
US Postal Inspection Service
P.O. Box 68999
Indianapolis, IN., 46268-0999
ATTN: Postal Inspector xxxxx xxxxxx
Please take a moment to fill out ALL the information below, and print and
send this copy. Also, please be sure to keep a copy for your records.
This information is imperative to this investigation.
Seller Information:
Surname, First name:
Mailing address:
City, State, Zip:
Telephone number (day):
Telephone number (evening):
Pager number:
Cellular number:
E-mail:
Your Information:
Subject:
Bid number:
Describe auction item:
Amount of loss:
Type of payment:
Date of payment:
If you paid by check or money order, do you have a copy of the cancelled
portion:
If Yes, please send a COPY of the check or money order.
Method of sending payment (mail, FedEx, wire, etc.):
Address where payment was sent:
Screen name of seller:
Any additional identifying information on seller or methods of contact:
E-mail address (seller):
Telephone number:
Address (complete):
BRIEF narrative of incident(s):
For future reference, this email address is intended for information
collection purposes only. Responses to this email may not be made. Please
direct all other inquiries to:
Thank you.
Regards,
Legal Fraud Investigations Team
---------------------------------------------
Got this e-mail late this after noon. Looks interesting. Just wondering if anyone eles had received something like this before. For once this does not look like a scam.
posted on March 5, 2002 03:35:24 AM new
Yep, I received one of those letters about 9 or 10 months ago. It stemmed from a seller that I bought a piece of software from. At the time of my purchase, I had filed a complaint with Safe Harbor regarding excessive shipping charges ($1 and they charged $9 for shipping). I got the canned response from SH that $8 was not excessive and I forgot about it. My brother also purchased software from this same seller but did not file any complaints.
I guess they really do keep copies of these complaints, because this seller had quite a number of eBay IDs that they were investigating. It was interesting to note that my brother (who did not file a complaint) did not receive a letter.
posted on March 5, 2002 11:13:37 AM new
Well, talk about illegal!!!! The only people in this country allowed to ask for information about another in a criminal case are police and a prosecuting body. Neither eBay nor the Postmaster General are prosecuting bodies in this country. I would not answer this email.
posted on March 5, 2002 11:32:23 AM new
I think the letter you received actually came from another eBay'er who got burned by this seller who is "under investagation".
I can't believe for one minute that eBay would inform any other eBay'er that another eBay'er was under investagation. That would open eBay up the possibility of a multi million dollar lawsuit.
"Neither eBay nor the Postmaster General are prosecuting bodies in this country"
The U. S. Postal Inspection
Service would be sorry to hear you deny their existence. They do have Police type Powers re the mail service. Now, whether this is legit or not,I might question that.
posted on March 5, 2002 09:42:20 PM new
Do you feel now thinking back to that sellers auction that maybe you are in reciept of STOLEN GOODS???
Scenario........
Rich couple's house gets robbed. Rich lady has some unique jewelery and has photos of her wearing it etc etc custom designed stuff.
Robber's computer savy friend puts it all up on Ebay. Robber makes a killing selling all these jewels. Collects payment and ships the goods........or maybe he doesn't which gets the investigation started.
Rich lady's friend notices these jewels on Ebay and calls the cops.
Cops tract down the seller, Ebay is obligated to cough up the sellers identity and those of the bidders.
Ebay has to cooperate in a legal investigation or gain severely damaging press by protecting crooks or their own legal troubles for not cooperating in an investigation.
Even though the bidders paid..... since they are in reciept of stolen goods they have to return the stuff to the cops.
My question is why would they expect you to respond by email. The letter looks pretty serious........there should be a fraud department phone number for all recipients of this email to call.
please direct all inquiries to [email protected] yah ok let this serious responce get lost in the mix of 1,000's of other lame emails safehabor@ebay gets every hour.
posted on March 6, 2002 10:47:25 PM new
Sorry everyone I have been under the weather this week with flu. Had to get those orders out befor I could come play.
Well I just send safeharbor a copy and ask if this is legit. Here is the headers for those that asked.
Return-path: <[email protected]>
Envelope-to: [email protected]
Delivery-date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 17:54:40 -0500
Received: from electron.corp.ebay.com ([209.63.31.39] helo=sjc-exs-04.corp.ebay.com)
by host8.dnsdomain.net with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1)
id 16i1Ls-0002Fc-00
for [email protected]; Mon, 04 Mar 2002 17:54:40 -0500
Received: by sjc-exs-04.corp.ebay.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
id <1L9QG8Z0>; Mon, 4 Mar 2002 14:54:31 -0800
Message-ID: <9A17FB0972A9E049A22B5B43B649B8530148E8D8@sjc-exm-15.corp.ebay.com>
From: Pub-StopFraud <[email protected]>
To: Pub-StopFraud <[email protected]>
Subject: USPIS IN Investigation
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 14:54:26 -0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Yes this is a real letter from eBay. This is the letter from our legal
department requesting further information regarding a member you may
have had a transaction with.
If you do not recall any interaction with this member then you will not
need to respond. If however, you had a difficult experience with this
seller then please provide them with information that they have
requested.
Ok, I guess it is the real thing. Never heard of it though.
