I busted a thief, should I let him know?
 

There was just something weird about the whole thing. The guy places an order for one of our larger hosting packages, but can't seem to answer basic questions. Combine that with the fact that his English sucked, and the credit card said he was from Idaho, I just had a feeling.

I called the number associated with the credit card and got the guy's voice mail. A few minutes later I get another email from him so I thought it was all good, even though the guy still did not come across as the sharpest tool in the shed.

I set up the guy's account give him his login info. The next day the guy is complaining that his site has still not resolved. All looks okay on our end, in that the IP is coming up, but it doesn't look like he has uploaded anything.

We do a little investigating and discover the domain the guy is complaining about is still available. In other words, no one owns it yet. Something is fishy. I call the phone number associated with the credit card again and this time get ahold of the card owner.

He had "meant" to call me back, just never got around to it. Turns out my suspicions were right and this was a stolen credit card. I canceled the account and refunded the rightful owner his money.

The thief continues to email me and I have been ignoring him. Should I let loose and let him know he is a fucking thief or just let him go on thinking he has pulled a fast one?

dont deal with anyone who speaks in broken engrish

roast him

tell him you appreciate the business and are sorry if he feels ignored. then ask him for his address to send him 2 tickets to Vegas. THEN contact the FBI.

~Ray

IGNORE him is the best thing to do. He would get tired eventually. Why waste time with a thief.

Pass his details on to the appropriate authority...its fuckers like him that make life hard for webmasters...tell him you will send out a tech to hook it all up from his end...get his actual physical address and then give it to the FBI.

Glad you got him in time before he fucked you over for anything major.

let me get this straight:

1. someone's CC got stolen and he knows about it but he doesn't cancel it (most probably because he doesn't mind other people spending his money)

2. the dude that stole the credit card uses it to buy hosting for his site but the domain hasn't been registered yet


well, now that makes a lot of sense

Let me reword it. The card was not physically stolen, but all the relevant information was. The thief had the CVV number and expiration date.

He was contacting AMEX after we finished our phone conversation.

He's a criminal on several levels, probably. My advice is to avoid any grief he might send your way by rescinding your offer to do business with him in a very matter of fact fashion and state that it's not open for further discussion.

Brad

sure , why not.. and while we're at it, let's let all of the criminals out of jail.

Try to get all the info you can about the guy, and then turn it all over to the locals.

prob an email spammer looking fo a host to hit & run on..

In the chatrooms people are often trading or selling stolen credit cards info to use for such things.. its suprising the feds dont monitor that shit a bit better.

We had this happen a few times last spring. Some dip shit from Indonisia was sending through fraudulent orders, but he too had all relevant info. He was using proxy's and what not and was putting through a few orders a day.

I might contact AMEX or your local authorities first before cutting off contact with him. You never know if you can be a help to them. My guess is that it won't be much of a help, but you never know.

Good luck!

I'd respectfully email him back and tell him he's not welcome to do business with you. Don't say why, just decline him like that. Last thing you'd probably want is for them to come onto a message board and say your support is lacking for ignoring them. I'd just end the business relationship you have flat out.
WG

:321GFY :321GFY :321GFY :321GFY

I'm not a thief !!! lol

Pardon my french

Apparantly he thought that as a host we would provide him with the domain as well.

I have to give goodgirl credit on that one. She had a feeling that was what he wanted and I never picked up on it until after we discovered the domain was still available.

If the domain name was something worth owning I would buy it and put a personal message to the guy.

Yea I wouldn't try and fuck with him . I'd just let him know his money have been refounded and he can go look somewhere else ... then report him

Lots of small hosts provide the domain name with the package

well, we did notify Netbilling so it is on the negative (don't accept) database.

Your have an obligation here BD! My :2 cents:

He committed a crime that really hurts all of us. If he's out of state, the FBI I think is the one to report it to. The Bank of the credit card company has a fraud department. At least get them involved. You prolly have him Id'd with an email address. So chances are high he can be found! Add the phone calls.....

Fry the MOFO. He's gonna fuck someone else soon. Time to stop him.

collect more info on him and then give that info to the card owner

I did not know that, probably a good thing to know though as I am sure we will eventually run across someone else that thinks that it comes with.

Thanks

Out of state? How about out of country. Like I said initially, he did not write like English was his native tongue.

The phone calls were to the card owner, not the thief.

I think I will call the card owner and see if he wants the guy's email address to give to AMEX

I hate fucking scammers.

Your call... Or leave to the card holder.

I'd at least involve the fraud department of the CC company.

FB**I investigations eat time. The CC fraud department is more to the point and they know when to call in law enforcement and who to call....

I've had to report an incident with hack attempts on a client's servers. Long story. The end result is the perp company paid my fees. Simple slap on the wrist. Ate a ton of time. Went with proof (server logs) to the local FB**I office.

Also had my card CC ID used at a toy store in the UK. I've never been to the UK and what was bought was outside of my spending history. Good news that after several phone calls I got a credit back. At least I can say the CC comapny in this case were just doing their job.

Hey.. whats going on with my server? my Domain name has not resolved yet.. you.. money back.. fast..

Didn't you get the email I just sent you?

Will see how sharp this guy is.

best idea so far :thumbsup
you should really do something with this fuck, if you don't he will continue to rip of other hosts, screw sponsors, etc...

Couple problems with his suggestion

1. Doubtful the guy is in adult. Most of out clients are mainstream

2. Unless I was including airfare I doubt the buy could come to Vegas.

1. It's irrevelant whether he is in adult or not
2. Use some imagination, tell him you are sending him a prepaid $25 visa card for his troubles, or something along those lines...

non adult isn't going to care about Internext

Guess you missed my post that I sent him an email asking for a mailing address so I can associate it with the domain I am sending him.

However, if he responds with an obvious bogus mailing address I will tell him I am going to send him an Xbox 360 or something.

What are you gonna do with a thief anyway?

funny story, i would mess with him saying the fbi froze the account and is tracing you

that's a good idea too.

the trip to Vegas wasn't about internext, I just figured anyone would want to visit Vegas. maybe tell him you are using some of your miles because you have a million.. so it's no big deal... or whatever.. you are clever enough... let's see if he is.

alalalalalallala
 

Might be fun to play with if you have the time, otherwise I'd just ignore him.

If you do have some free time, play some games wiht him like telling him to keep resending certian infoz etc., make up lame excuses as to why this or that isn't working or whatever...these creeps need some of their time wasted.

the best thing you can do is to report that case to the police so that thief won't be able to fool somebody else.

baddog, let him know you closed his account. Not answering emails or calling him a thief is a bad idea to me.

I think you should report him after getting more info from him.

no worth wasting your time..

I say, you have a responsability to report him.

If you don't stop him now, he might screw someone else over. Might be someone you love.

With great power comes great responsibility :)

Watch Spiderman mate! You'll understand what I mean :P Spidey didn't stop the bad guy when he had the chance and lost his uncle cause of it !

:helpme :Oh crap

A non adult can't enter into a contract (at least in the US). So less to charge him with...

You might want to read this thread again . . . he said "in adult" not "an adult."

I once ran into a similar situation.

I kept getting phishing emails from a certain domain so I did a lookup and called the number listed in the whois. At first when I called I was gonna call and tell the guy off, but apparently it was a stolen card, so I decided to help :) The whois info was the info of the credit card owner and I actually talked to his wife. She was a bit surprised and I told her what she needed to do and she was very thankful.