A Canadian man get sucked into an ecommerce triangle of fraud

[thewayne]

I had never heard of this, apparently it's been going on for some time.

The man, Tim, worked for a First Nations tribe in Alberta as a buyer. It was almost the end of the fiscal year and they needed to spend some money before the year was out, so he and another work partner ordered $2,000 worth of children's playground stuff off of Amazon.

Then things got weird.

Shortly after placing the order, he gets contacted by a woman in Ontario, accusing him of hacking her Walmart card and ordering this gear. Which he had not done.

Then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police get involved and tell him he needs to come down to the station and answer some questions pertaining to an investigation. Which he says he'd be happy to do. He provides printouts of the orders in question, showing HIS credit cards, etc. And then he's threatened with arrest, his wife is harassed by the RCMP, and he is ultimately arrested. Because of the arrest, he loses his job.

The equipment arrives at his house with an additional oddity: a phone number in Mexico.

Here's what happened. An expert in "search engine optimization" in Turkey apparently stole the woman's credit card, or may have bought it from one of the numerous black market exchanges where you can buy such. He placed an ad on Amazon, where Tim bought the gear from him. The Turkey turkey never owned the equipment. He buys the gear from Walmart, using the stolen credit card, has it shipped to Tim. I have no idea where the Mexico phone number came into play, perhaps another layer of money laundering?

And Tim gets charged with a money fraud charge and can't get a job. Apparently in Canada, being charged with a crime - but not having been convicted - is enough to really mess with your employment opportunities.

Tim had a court date, but the Crown prosecution services decided to issue a stay on the case and defer prosecution, saying we're not going to prosecute at this time, but might at a later date. Apparently they have one year to bring the case back to trial, during which Tim is left hanging in limbo. Commentors on the Krebs article said it is likely that the case will be dismissed at the end of the year period, I don't know if this will erase the arrest mark on Tim's record.

Tim did nothing wrong, except getting caught in a fraud scheme. So be very careful buying things on Amazon if it is not 'Shipped by Amazon'.

*sigh*

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/01/canadian-man-stuck-in-triangle-of-e-commerce-fraud/

Comments

[kathmandu]

Argh, another layer of possible fraud to worry about.

[kathmandu]

Argh, another layer of possible fraud to worry about.

[thewayne]

Never ends.

[disneydream06]

I wonder what would happen if Tim went to the media and started spreading his story. :o
That seems so wrong on behalf of the police. :o
hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Apparently it's not uncommon for the RCMP to treat First Nations people kinda badly, makes sense that they might go out of their way to give the guy a rough time for an investigation.

[disneydream06]

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[darkoshi]

That's awful. And another thing to have to worry about.

[kaishin108]

One more reason not to use Amazon!

[silveradept]

That's an impressive fraud scheme to make someone else end up pinned with the crime that you committed, all because you were offering something they legitimately wanted to purchase.