Seems to me that there is very little risk to the crook in putting these scams together. Not much effort, once the basic format is developed. And if you are exposed, as here, then so what? You can get some more pictures & descriptions and post them on another site.
There are probably literally a million scams on the Internet, with crooks selling all sort of stuff they have never owned, other crooks selling stolen stuff and other crooks buying legitimate stuff with stolen credit cards, etc.
Whoever is charged with pursuing these crooks, (and under what jurisdiction?) is probably overwhelmed with the sheer number of fraudulent transactions.
I was an informed bystander in the prosecution of one of these crooks. My wife was one of his victims. He went via Internet, phone & fax from our little town in rural California to Dublin, Eire; from Dublin (with the Dublin PD on his tail) to Malta, then to Crete, then to NYC and back to Dublin, where he was caught. Found guilty, sentenced to 3 years, he served 90 days. Was released because the prison was overcrowded. Two weeks later, he was running his scams again. My wife spent hours on the phone with the Dublin PD. Their final phone call told her that the crook was on the street again & that she should be doubly on guard.
Those who frequent this site are very lucky that all of you are on guard. bad publicity is probably your most effective weapon.
You can’t stop anybody from taking a photo from a web page. With screen capture software, if you can see it you can copy it. The only thing that works is watermarking your images. I have starting to do that on Ebay because I had problems with photos being reused for another auction. The only way to make it work 100% is you have to put the watermark over a part of the item, not in a corner.
Bob
WACA Life Member--- NRA Life Member---- Cody Firearms member since 1991 Researching the Winchester 1873's
Email: [email protected]
Just wanted to update everyone on the Armslist problem. I received a reply back from Armslist today. They have marked the listings by the person who lifted my photos as scams. They have also blocked him from ever using Armslist. I am sure he will no doubt just change his personal info and continue on with his crimes, but it is good to know they have responded and made the effort.
Stee
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