whitebirch
Posts: 1
Joined: 9/14/2006 Status: offline
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I realize that this is an old thread but I have been working for almost a year to get the seller of the fake boarding weapons shut down and/or prosecuted. It was brought to my attention then that these were being sold on Ebay and since the listing indicated that they were from a Maine shipwreck it was decided to investigate. Maine waters are protected to the Federal limit and pot hunting and salvage of materials of the alleged age is illegal without the proper permitting. Part of our investigation included purchasing a few items (for a hefty price) from the seller. When they arrived it was clear that they were not what they were said to be and the seller was guilty of felony fraud. After the sale, there was no communication with and no receipt of the items from the seller and since I purchased the items as a private party and paid for them, I filed a complaint with Paypal per their process. Finally, after filing my complaint, the seller filed a counter "non-paying bidder" complaint with ebay which should have been impossible since Ebay had the records that I had in fact paid. In the course of the email conversation that followed, the seller passed himself off as a practicing attorney. In checking with all of the possible jurisdictions where he could possibly be practicing, it was learned that he is not licensed in any jusrisdiction, thus he committed another felony. Additionally, I trakced all of the recorded sales of the "glass boarding weapons" by the particular seller on Ebay and the total, when I turned my information over to Ebay and the FBI was over $17,000 at that time. Ebay has continued to permit the seller to sell these items as something they are not and there is evidently no action on the part of the FBI internet fraud investigators (granted they are very busy folks). Unfortunately, still more people are going to get burned before this guy gets shut down. All that can be done for now is to just spread the word.
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