Given the information from Roy Herold, I think it might be worthwhile for Tomas to communicate with PayPal regarding the apparent sale to see if they would not waive the 45 day limitation on filing a claim. He may have information that would enable better tracing of the theft through PayPal. The FBI hs been working at this problem for many months (according to my information), but it's very difficult because the trail goes through many "cut-outs". The last information is that the hacker's location is somewhere in Bulgaria or another Balkan country and keeps moving. PayPal does not want their system compromised and might have a way to compensate Tomas. EMailing them can do no harm and might help. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roy Herold" <rherold@yahoo.com> To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 2:07 PM Subject: Re: [pbs] Fraud > Bob, I believe you have hit the nail on the head. > > Everybody, do a little investigation of the situation before speculating > wildly. > > Just Google Scadoxus cyrtanthiflora, and you come up with some eBay > feedback from a member named 'cytisx' who purchased a bulb from > 'neonlemmy', the seller in North Carolina. Check out Neonlemmy's feedback, > and you will see postive feedback from two Scadoxus cyrtanthiflora > purchasers, the aforementioned 'cytisx' (who happens to be in Sweden) and > 'panamajoe7444' in the US. Seems like good references to me. > > More importantly, the second to last feedback entry reads: > > ------------------- > sale voided. sellers ebay &paypal accounts were stolen. sad for both of us > Member id lunchboxcharlie > May 06, 2010 16:20 > * > Reply by neonlemmy (May 11, 2010 19:57): > Buyer given full refund. > -------------------- > > Furthermore, 'neonlemmy' has cancelled the account, probably because of > this identity theft. > > Tomas probably received the second chance offer from the thief, not the > real 'neonlemmy', and jumped at the opportunity to get a rare bulb. > Complaints to Ms Harris may have been ignored because she was NOT the > recipient of the payment, and had not made the sales offer. > > I could be completely wrong, but it sounds logical to me. > > It's a cruel world out there. Be careful. > > --Roy > > > Bob Rutemoeller wrote: >> Tomas, >> >> This reminds me of a similar problem a few years ago when I was bidding >> for a new scanner for my office. I stopped bidding when it went beyond >> what I felt was reasonable. >> Later I received an email message that looked like it came from Ebay >> offering me a "second chance" for a similar scanner. The response was not >> through Ebay and that made me cautious. I later found out there were some >> fraudulent contacts with bidders and that this had nothing to do with the >> seller or Ebay. So please be careful when not dealing with a trusted >> source. It may just be someone trying to extract money or personal >> information that they can use for fraud. >> >> In your case it is possible that someone else miss represented themselves >> as the innocent seller and stole your money. The golden age of the >> Internet is over. One now has to keep up with anti virus and anti spyware >> as well as being suspicious of some email offers. >> >> Bob >> >> Bob Rutemoeller >> brutem@mcn.org >> _______________________________________________ >> pbs mailing list >> pbs@lists.ibiblio.org >> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php >> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >> > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/