#3 - All Hail the Mighty Scammer

Where I’m about to go may not be in the direction in which we are supposed to take our blogs. However, I’ve had some things bouncing around in my head, so I’ve let the research lead me forth to unknown territory in my discovery of a blog topic. Surprisingly, I’ve sort of made it up as I’ve gone and my Point A musings have combined with Point B for a conclusion that I did not foresee at the beginning of my journey. If this sort of material is not appropriate for said blog, I understand, but I was nearly the victim of a scam, so I’m going to talk about it.

This summer my family and I moved. We left my comfort zone of suburbia in lovely Elk Grove Village and headed northwest to beautifully bland Huntley, Illinois. We were downsizing and my bedroom furniture just wouldn’t fit appropriately in my new room. So we decided to do what millions before us had done and post a classified ad on craigslist.com. The furniture was sturdy, attractive, and in great shape. I spent a few hours snapping some truly breathtaking photographs of the furniture and crafting a rather appealing advertisement. The asking price was a steal, but we so desired to sell the piece before the move. I must admit, I was nervous. For those of you unfamiliar with craigslist, familiarize yourself. It is a really crafty invention. Craigslist allows people to post free ads on a website for seven days. Ads can be sorted by location, type, or asking price. This is geared toward 450 cities in 50 countries and boasts a whopping 14 million self-produced advertisements a month [1]. My mom’s best friend had wonderful luck with the website and recommended it to us fervently. I’m naive, I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for nearly everything. So when I received this e-mail, my initial reactions were not of concern:

“Hello ,
Thanks for your response,am ok with the price and the conditions..I
would have love to come and look at it its just that time wont permit
me cos am very busy woman ... Just to let you know that i will be
paying through a certified or cashiers check and i will be
responsible for the shippment ok and the pickup.As soon as you receive
the payment and it clears in your bank you will be deducting your
actual fund and send the remaining amount to my shipping agent via
western union money transfer.They will be the one to do the pick-up
at your place ok..I hope i can trust you with my balance.
Do get back to me with the following details that will be on the payment:
1.Name to be issue to...
2.Contact Address(City,State,Zip code,Country):
3.Contact telephone number:(home,cell or work...)
Do get back to me as soon as possible with this details for payment
to be made out to you immediately.In other for the payment to be sent
to you on time.Also i will want u to remove the item from the site u
posted it so that no one will contact u for it.Deduct $50 from the
check for compensation.
Hoping to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Hilda”

Score! It hadn’t even been up for a full day and I already had legitimate business! I forwarded the e-mail to my mom to see what she thought. When she called me back, she was laughing. She knew from the get go and I still thought the ad was real. Opps! She told me it was a modern day version of the Nigerian Scam.

(Thank you for sticking through to this point, you’ll see in just a moment why such in-depth background information is warranted.)

In the SPJ notes I found an article from Editor & Publisher concerning an experience similar to my own. A man, Paul Rozendal, posted an advertisement in an Oregon newspaper selling a wooden trunk and a radio. Leaving his phone number for contact information, he soon received a telephone call from a special service. This service is geared toward those with hearing or speaking impairments. The dialer goes to a website that allows him to type what he would like to say into a chat. A translator then gets on the phone and dials the correct number and says to the receiver of the phone call the messages that the dialer typed. The translator will also type the receiver’s comments back into the chat box for the dialer to see. It’s a really neat service and I’m honestly sickened that people are using it to do their scamming.

“Scam artists operating from foreign countries have started using the service in order to disguise their foreign accents and foreign phone numbers. Rozendal thought the potential buyer for the chest was hearing impaired. In the relay call, the buyer provided an e-mail address and began communicating with Rozendal online” [2].

Similarly to my encounter, “The retired school teacher was contacted by a potential buyer for the chest and was led into an e-mail exchange which ended with four separate money orders totaling $3,320 to pay for the $500 chest. The buyer asked Rozendal to cash the money orders, keep the $500 plus $50 for his trouble, and send the balance back to him via Western Union.

The object of this scam is to get a person to cash a fake check and wire the money to the scammer. When the check turns out to be phony, the bank customer has to pay the bank” [2].

Luckily, Rozendal was quick to catch the scam and all correspondence to the scammer was stopped.

I honestly thought my experience was rare. But my frolic through the internet brought me to countless pages addressing this same exact scam. Craigslist.com has a site explaining the different scams, ways to avoid being scammed, and what to do if you’ve been contacted by a scammer [3].

Unfortunately, “The scam is repeated over and over all across the country. All the scammer needs is access to a newspaper and a printer to make the false checks” [4].

My original blog consideration was going to be a declaration to why people are protected to post their classified ads and should be able to do so without being taking advantage of. These scams are commonly done on elderly people that may not been as keen to new trends. Just because they aren’t up to date, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the right to sell something without the possibility of punishment. I understand that there is no clause in the First Amendment saying something along the lines of, “the right to sell goods and services without the hindrance of scammers.” However, the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press allow that advertisements receive protection, albeit a bit minimalized, under the First Amendment.

Edenfield v. Fane declared that, "The commercial market place, like other spheres of our social and cultural life, provides a forum where ideas and information flourish. Some of the ideas and information are vital, some of slight worth. But the general rule is that the speaker and the audience, not the government, assess the value of the information presented. Thus, even a communication that does no more than propose a commercial transaction is entitled to the coverage of the First Amendment” [5].

Therefore, as long as the ad is not false, individuals are protected to advertise, with reason, what they would like to advertise.

In the Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, the court decided to protect the rights of the listener from indecent material [6]. Shouldn’t there be a clause to protect the sellers from fraudulent buyers?

“So what is there to be done about this problem? Consumer awareness is certainly a critical factor. If the victim does not cooperate, the scam fails. But, unfortunately, there will still be victims…The current laws have not stemmed the tide of fraudulent schemes proliferating over the Internet. Most of the current issues and cases in the United States have focused on the First Amendment and intellectual property laws, not on consumer fraud. Regardless, the debate about the need for more government control or interference with the Internet versus the ability of the Internet community to police itself is still ongoing. Either way, there will be people who will be unsatisfied with the outcome of this debate. Until there is an effective way of enforcing and preventing fraud, the average surfer should be very cautious and informed before entering into a substantial transaction with someone he or she does not know at least by reputation” [7].

And so there we have it: The internet and all its free reign glory. I believe that it was originally meant for the advancement of society through easy access to knowledge, quick communication with near and far friends and family, and general entertainment. But through that process, it's become a hot bed of hacking, scamming, stealing, stalking, and other countless crimes. Where are the e-police? Should there even be such people? Or should individuals just be suspect of everyone and understand that posting ads will gain the attention of scam artists? But then again, scamming is a crime, shouldn't it be treated as such? New technology is making it even harder to "quality control" the internet. At what point does regulation of the internet become an infringement on the First Amendment?

"Information Superhighway is really an acronym for 'Interactive Network For Organizing, Retrieving, Manipulating, Accessing And Transferring Information On National Systems, Unleashing Practically Every Rebellious Human Intelligence, Gratifying Hackers, Wiseacres, And Yahoos'."

-Keven Kwaku

Oh, and in case you were curious, we never did sell the furniture. But that’s okay, it actually looks really nice in the new room.

[1] http://craigslistt.us

[2] http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/ad_circ/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003658249

[3] http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

[4] http://fileblogs.com/Senior-Scam-Alert-6-Newspaper-Ad-Scams&article_31934

[5] http://www.lawpublish.com/amend1.html

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission_v._Pacifica_Foundation

[7]http://www.fmew.com/archive/fraud/index.html

OTHER SOURCES

http://www.identitytheft911-sunj.com/alerts/alert.ext?sp=93

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october062007/nigerian_scam_10607.php