Boards member is scamming us out of a grand

jimi_t

I'm far too angry at the moment to go into a huge amount of detail but the boards member Optikus (a 1,000+ poster) is currently taking myself and 4 or 5 other members for a ride to the tune of somewhere between e1,000 and e1,500. He advertised a pair of electric picnic tickets which he then "sold" to 4 or 5 separate users for the full face value - all of them via bank transfer AFAIK - and of course none of them have turned up after two weeks. No response to PMs from any of the people he sold them to or the moderator.

I am aware that this is a naming and shaming, but I've already been in contact with the moderator of the FS:Tickets forum and he's aware of whats happening. It's better that this **** is exposed for what he is.

Now I have his real name and bank details, whats the next step?

chern0byl

Ten Paces At Dawn. Or is that 50 paces with everyone involved present?

Ticketmaster and the Gardai...

okidoki987

If you have his name and address, why not visit the house?

jimi_t

As appealing as that sounds, genuine advice would be appreciated. I didn't post this for a moan, I posted it for advice on trying to get my money back and to warn other people.

aidan24326

Maybe you should post this in the legal forum.

Not sure there's much you could do though.

okidoki987

Ticketmaster

Wouldn't be interested it's nothing to do with them.

jimi_t

okidoki987 wrote:

If you have his name and address, why not visit the house?

Have his name and bank details, not an address - and banks genuinely don't give out that kind of information unless ordered by a court to do it.

Miguel_Sanchez

Go to the Gardai.
Go directly to the Gardai.
Do not pass Go.
Do not collect 200.

okidoki987

If you have his name and account number, it shouldn't be too hard to get his address. I'm sure you could find somebody who works in a Bank and ask them
to get the details for you.

Spitfire666

go to the gardai with his name and bank details. they can get his address from the bank. dont need a court order. either way its fraud so shouldnt let it slide.

homeOwner

Isnt it basically scalping, to buy tickets from a third party? I am pretty sure most "event" tickets have some small print on the back to say you have to buy them from a designated dealer? So the gardai might not have any sympathy for you, even though you were buying them for face value......I could be completely wrong there....

Dunno what else you can do, you've named and shamed. Maybe get on to the other mods of boards he visits and try to get him banned? I dont think you are going to see your money or the tickets again. The most you can do is warn people. Can you post his real name? Is that allowed?

Hard luck but thanks for the warning.

okidoki987

Isnt it basically scalping, to buy tickets from a third party?

Scalping is selling tickets at above face value.
The point here is he never got the tickets so that's FRAUD.

scojones

I'm not quite sure AH is the best place for this thread OP. You may not get the help you require from this forum, as can be seen by some of the replies in here already. To prevent this thread from deteriorating into nonsense, and in the hope that you can actually get the help you need I'm going to move it to Feedback, as that is what you are looking for. I've never ventured into the FS forum(s) so I'm not sure what action can be taken against something like this, if indeed any action at all. What feedback have you recieved from the moderator of the forum? Maybe the person who sold you the ticket has become ill or is otherwise engaged?

Best of luck with this and keep us all updated.

seamus

After Hours is not the place for this.

While boards.ie provides the for sale service, there's very little that can be done in the way of dispute resolution/refunds, however the Moderator of the for sale forum, us Smods and the Admins will do our best to mediate a dispute between parties arising out of the Adverts.

boards.ie is bound by certain rules pertaining to data privacy, just like the banks are, so information that boards.ie has (if any) about this guy can't just be given to you.

I'm aware that time is of the essence, so me telling you to "wait" for the other people to respond may not be what you want, but it's what I would advise. In the meantime, if you'd like to PM me, or start a thread on the Help Desk we can at least look into it to give you a hand. Add in links to the thread where the deal was arranged, and any other info which may be pertinent. If you start a thread on the Help Desk, be aware that it's a public forum, so anyone can see what you post.

jimi_t

seamus wrote:

boards.ie is bound by certain rules pertaining to data privacy, just like the banks are, so information that boards.ie has (if any) about this guy can't just be given to you.

Well aware of it, and this thread wasn't set up in an attempt to obtain that information - more to warn people away from this seemingly respectable user and to also ask for some informal advice on what the best course of action is. Needless to say that the guards have been approached but weren't exactly forthcoming. If you'd like to get the admin view on the story then PM Redshift - moderator of the FS:Tickets forum - and he'll explain, I'd rather not post or forward his PMs to me without permission.

CuLT

It is already being looked into in detail by the administrators and moderators.

Understand, that, as serious as fraud is, libel and slander are also pretty serious.

seamus, see here and here.

LundiMardi

no offence man, but what the hell were you thinking transfering money to an account of a complete stranger? Do you trust all strangers or just the ones you send money to?

Cuddlesworth

Thats not fair to say, I'v done many dealings with boards users and have never had a problem. But I'm waiting to see how this will be resolved.

whatsupdoc?

Lundi
The original seller had over 1,000 posts and was therefore deemed to be a "long time member of boards and would considered a person of good character and have a history".

LundiMardi

There is no chance in hell i would transfer a couple of hundred euro to someone who A. I've never met, and B. See A.

Dont get me wrong, it's a ****ty thing to happen, but jesus, a bit of cop on would be nice.

I have over 2000 posts, would you send me 200 euro? Cos you can have my bank details if you want.

Supercell

As others have said, go to the Gardai, they can no doubt find this persons address or request that the bank gives them it and arrest them.

This is a internet board mate, for real life stuff contact the real life mods - aka the Gardai.

Supercell

LundiMardi wrote:

There is no chance in hell i would transfer a couple of hundred euro to someone who A. I've never met, and B. See A.

Dont get me wrong, it's a ****ty thing to happen, but jesus, a bit of cop on would be nice.

I have over 2000 posts, would you send me 200 euro? Cos you can have my bank details if you want.

I dunno, if the poster had been on board for a while and I'd read their post i'd feel pretty confidant about trusting them or not.

If its a newbie with 1000 posts in the last year in a gaming forum then wouldnt touch them with a bargepool.

Then again i'm old and probably senile by now

gamblingIRE

okidoki987 wrote:

If you have his name and account number, it shouldn't be too hard to get his address. I'm sure you could find somebody who works in a Bank and ask them
to get the details for you.

I am sorry, but I cannot resist stating that this is such an idiotic reply. Nab a guy who breaks the law by breaking the law, and getting others to do so. have some respect for the data protection laws, and they might have some for you.

kaimera

iirc, there were a number of tickets being sold in town over the Picnic weekend last year.

Take a chance. If ya don't get them, enjoy the atmosphere in town

okidoki987

have some respect for the data protection laws, and they might have some for you.

If it was a couple of hundred Euro coming out of your pocket,
what would YOU do?

jimi_t

Longfield wrote:

As others have said, go to the Gardai, they can no doubt find this persons address or request that the bank gives them it and arrest them.

This is a internet board mate, for real life stuff contact the real life mods - aka the Gardai.

The Gardai, as mildly interested as they were, basically said that it wasn't their problem - to contact the Ombudsman or the department of consumer affairs. Even if they did, banks can't give out information without a court order and an arrest is hardly likely.

As to the question of why I transferred the money? Basically I've had 30+ transactions through boards for concert tickets, lots of music equipment, computer hardware and other general stuff. I've spent maybe a grand and a half through the FS:Forums on this site in the last year and a half and, without exception, everyone I have dealt has been very friendly, honest and generally on the level. I presumed a 1,000 post user wasn't going to pull a fast one and I also reckoned that at least a bank transfer was traceable - it wasn't like I sent him a load of unmarked bills in a non-descript envelope or anything and I did try and pay via paypal first.

Either way, I'm not going to let this one bad experience scare me off. I think boards has a great community and is a unique resource - I even got delivery of a computer and an old vintage synth only yesterday evening through the for sale forums here - I'm just trying to root out a bad egg and hopefully get my cash back

Peace

Maybe the poster died?

jimi_t

CuLT wrote:

It is already being looked into in detail by the administrators and moderators.

Understand, that, as serious as fraud is, libel and slander are also pretty serious.

I'm au fait with libel and slander laws so I'm trying to stick to established facts - backed up both by administrators and other users of this website. I'm sure if there were any serious legal issues with what I was doing I would have been contacted by an Admin/Mod at this stage and told to stop. The worst thing that could probably be done in this situation is to stay quiet.

I've offered every opportunity for Optikus to respond or explain himself but all the PMs have gone unanswered. I certainly entertained the possibility that he was sick or incapacitated, but his last PM to me was that the tickets were in the post (registered post btw) - this was a day before Redshift posted publicly asking him to PM him and locked the Electric Picnic Ticket Thread, and two days before I found out that he had "sold" the same 2 tickets advertised to more than a few other users on boards and that none of them had received them.

iirc, there were a number of tickets being sold in town over the Picnic weekend last year.

Take a chance. If ya don't get them, enjoy the atmosphere in town

That's the sad thing. I got my own ticket for my 18th but I was buying for two good friends of mine who were supposed to be going in our group of 20 odd but got badly stung when Ticketmaster announced that the picnic was sold out. I'll have to give my own ticket away to one of them now as I won't have the readies to pay both of them back - which is doubly annoying as that weekend was basically supposed to be my leaving cert 'holiday'.

Vexorg

Hi Jimi_t

Did the Guards say why "it wasn't their problem". I would thought fraud of any sort especially where you have paid money to a bank account and where a number of people have had a similar experience would be of interest to them.

Do we have any freindly guards that we could talk to, do any of boards users know this guy?


Vex

WizZard

Maybe the resident legal eagles could help, or have they already been contacted?
The Gardai have a special Computer Crime unit which this may be relevant to this - they are based in Phoenix Park HQ IIRC.

I can understand the reluctance of an average stationed Garda to get involved, although I would have thought it would be policy to refer these types of affairs to the Computer Crimes unit.