BOOK EM, DON HO [Author: wirehead]
Recieved another clarification about legal protection for eBay scam victims…
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After reading the email sent from Origins about the true ownership of accounts (quote: “the original owner of the account (the person who possess the credit card with which the UO account was opened) is considered the true owner”). However, OSI has made an official announcement in the past that selling your account on E-bay is a legitimate action in their eyes. This is unfortunately a legal contradiction, and, what I don’t think many people realize, is one which could really get OSI into a lot of trouble.
The most important fact to understand concerning this type of scam is that it is 100%, clearly, undeniably illegal. In fact, it is a Federal Offense if it crosses state lines, and being sold over the internet usually puts such a transaction directly into that category. A Federal Offense is deeply serious, one which has far greater punishments to it. And remember, this is a CRIMINAL act, not just a civil liablility for the perpetrator. I highly recommend that the person who was scammed do the following things: 1) Contact the FBI. Yes that’s right, Federal Offenses are investigated by the FBI. This is in the category of Mail Fraud. The FBI is what you pay your taxes for! Let them do their job and get this bad guy!
2) Go to a lawsuit attorney for a simple consultation (most of these types of attorneys have free consultations guys, and many will work for free and take a percentage of your winnings, or they will include in the lawsuit their attorney’s fees). You have a 100% viable case to sue the person who scammed you. This will give the attorney the power to get the person’s name and address (if you don’t already have that from where and who you sent the check to) regardless of any P.O. Box anonymities, or any other means of obfuscation. The attorney can also tell you if you have a case against OSI, because they gave the account back to the person from whom you purchased it legitimately
(remember, they officially announced that they legally accepted such sales as being legitimate — the attorney will take this very much into consideration).
3) Also, talk to your bank where you wrote the check from, they might have ways to go after this person for the lost money. PARTICULARLY if this was a certified check that was used. If you used a credit card with the person, all you need to do is call the credit card company and say that you did not get the promised goods. Their lawyers then go to work for you, and often they will re-credit you the amount.
Standing there and allowing this to go by unpunished hurts us all, both UO users and non-UO users. After all, this person will find it easier to scam the next time, and will not necessarily always use UO to do it. Next target: old ladies on social security and medicare. And look at those options I listed, many of them are free to you, so you can lose nothing by using them!
Thank you,
Tananda of Great Lakes, Tananda@stratics.com