My interaction with a Hyacinth scam artist (term used loosely)

plax · Jan 19, 2013

I was reading some YouTube comments and I noticed an offer for "macaws" from an obvious scammer. Just for fun, I decided to pursue the individual. I created a web page on one of my domains where I posted false contact information and a false name, then directed the scammer to that web page. From my domain's access log I was able to get the scammer's true IP address. Below is my email exchange with the scammer (photos included). If I get another reply I'll post it as well.

plax (mobile) <*****@gmail.com>
Jan 16 (3 days ago)

to deborakellins

Hello,

I found a post from you on YouTube (it's about 1 month old) indicating that you have macaws available for adoption. Do you still have these birds, and which type of macaws are they? How many do you have and are you a breeder?

Thanks kindly,

Tony

debora kellins
Jan 18 (1 day ago)

to me

hello tony thanks for getting back to me regarding my hyacinth macaw
parrots. i have two of them male and female.
so where are you located
when do you want them
your valid phone number
are you financially ready for these birds
waiting to hear from you asap

plax (mobile) <*****@gmail.com>
Jan 18 (1 day ago)

to debora

Hello Debora,

Your birds are beautiful! I would love to purchase them as soon as possible. But I would first like to be sure that your asking price for them is fair and that the macaws are healthy. Will you please address those two concerns of mine? And if you would, please tell me where you and these amazing parrots are located? I'll be anxiously awaiting your reply!

I've put my personal information on a website for you. My home address and phone number (and the best times to call) are included there. The website address for my personal information page is: http://s91586483.onlinehome.us/tony_macsitna/

I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Thank you so much!!!

Cheers,

Tony

debora kellins
8:35 AM (8 hours ago)

to me

Hello Tony
Nice to hear from you well to tell youi am giving out both birds
at $800 and this price is because you are far from me i am in
Mississippi and so i will have to ship over the birds to you but if
you know you will take care of the shipping then the price for the
birds will be $500 and they are very healthy and are up to date with
all vaccines. okay so get back to me asap so that we will see haw we
can do to get them over to you.get back to me with any questions.
waiting.

plax (mobile) <*****@gmail.com>
4:55 PM (27 minutes ago)

to debora

Debora,

Thank you for the reply.

I actually do have one important question for you. My question is: why are you telling me you are in Mississippi when the truth is that you are in Cameroon? I'm sure you had no idea that I would be able to easily see your IP address (which is: 41.204.79.40) to determine your actual physical location. Well, obviously I am able to do that and your IP address is allocated exclusively to Cameroon, Africa. This fact in conjunction with your dishonesty in telling me that you are in Mississippi confirms what I already knew about you. That is, that you are attempting to steal money from US citizens by offering them nonexistent Hyacinth Macaws. You are using someone else's photos of real birds and pretending to offer them for sale at an extremely low price. I have to say that I think your behavior in this regard is shameful!

There is one further question I have for you, Debora (I'm sure that's not your real name, by the way), which is: how can you personally justify stealing money from people for nonexistent expensive birds? I simply want to know why you think it's acceptable to dishonestly impose such hardship upon others for your own selfish gains.

Please reply to this message. I'm very interested to learn what you now have to say.

Sincerest sentiments,

Tony

sonja · Jan 19, 2013

I'd love to see her reply! I've she's bold enough.

Birdlover11 · Jan 19, 2013

I always wanted somebody to do that. Instead of completely dropping the conversation when you find out the person is a fake you play around with them then scare them out of their wits when you say " imposter ! Everything is fake, I'm going to call the cops . " not the cop part but it would give them the scare they deserve

SandyBee · Jan 19, 2013

Good for you calling her ? on it. I'm sure they won't answer LOL

Turquoise · Jan 19, 2013

That is too funny! I mean scamming the scamming the scammer with fake contact info. Yours is for a good cause to try to eliminate at least one of many.

There are so many of those types of scams these days that it scares many to not trust good honest sales. Along with the animal/birds that miss out on a good home due to folks being afraid it might be a scam. I have done a lot of 'window shopping' on CL, but I don't trust any ad that I can't go check on in person due to my mistrust that it could be a scam. Therefore, I have yet to purchase anything off of CL to date. That hurts the honest people on there, but I won't take the chance.

plax · Jan 19, 2013

Yeah, those scammers make me sick

.

Oh, and I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but Macsitna backwards is "AntiScam"

94lt1 · Jan 19, 2013

My wife and I ran a crossed this when we first moved down here.. except it was a phony army corporal.. he was moving from Port Arthur TX to Pearl Harbor..

Well he was leaving in a few days, then we didn't hear from him for a few days, then he got in touch with us and said we could have the birds if we paid for them to be shipped from Hawaii to TX... I called bull $h!t. His number was a local cell number, so after a few favors, I found out he was in Houston, and sure as heck not military...
Too bad stealing valor wasn't a big thing back then....:thumbdown:

Customcasket · Jan 19, 2013

I love it when people call scammers out! I saw your post and went "ooooh! I love this stuff!" and sure enough, I wasn't disappointed to see you call them out.
My favorite time is when the scammer got scammed with a 'Dell Laptop' (cardboard Dell laptop, lol) Somebody posted it online a couple years ago and I still remember it! I laughed so hard when I saw it.

Nigerian Scammer Gets A Laptop From Me » RBCP's Archive of Stuff

HumanWings · Jan 19, 2013

Great work finding out they really were scammers!!

Might i make a suggestion? There are literally scam buildings in some 3rd world countries where people go to work everyday scamming Americans and the only money they make is dependent on how much they can scam us out of. I say this because it is run like a business and so i don't think it wise to tell them how exactly they were busted as it will only make them better at what they do and make it harder for other cautious american's to discover that they are indeed scammers. I don't like these operations or that they call Americans gullible and think it easy to get money from us through fraud.

But yes I think you did very well. I only wish our government had a way of protecting us from these scammers.

plax · Jan 20, 2013

While I understand what you're saying, and it makes some sense, I wanted to prove to this person that I wasn't just guessing at their physical location. Hence I showed them I had their real IP. But if you'll notice, I didn't tell them how I obtained said IP.

The reality in this case is that the way I obtained the scammer's IP address should be pretty obvious to those with just basic Internet knowledge. With that in mind, if the scammer already had enough knowledge to understand what I did once I showed them their IP, then they most certainly had enough knowledge to figure out how I could learn their location solely from my directing them to a web page and then telling them their physical location but not telling them I had their IP.

I guess it comes down to this: Would it have been better to merely claim that I knew the individual was lying about his or her location, considering that he or she could still easily determine how I was able to learn it? Or was it better to prove it? I vote for the latter.

HumanWings said:
Great work finding out they really were scammers!!

Might i make a suggestion? There are literally scam buildings in some 3rd world countries where people go to work everyday scamming Americans and the only money they make is dependent on how much they can scam us out of. I say this because it is run like a business and so i don't think it wise to tell them how exactly they were busted as it will only make them better at what they do and make it harder for other cautious american's to discover that they are indeed scammers. I don't like these operations or that they call Americans gullible and think it easy to get money from us through fraud.

But yes I think you did very well. I only wish our government had a way of protecting us from these scammers.

noblemacaw · Jan 20, 2013

I use to work in IT so I totally get where you are coming from. It is though this work and my computer forensics classes that have forever changed the way I use the internet, credit cards and debit cards.

Unfortunately stuff just keeps getting more sophisticated along with the scams. I use to mask my IP address whenever I used the internet. Unfortunately when I want to watch movies or TV shows via my computer the mask makes streaming buffer and that is very frustrating. Now I involk a very good firewall and system is locked down pretty tight. I am not as hung up that you can get my IP address anymore.

I also had so many alias on the net I had to pair that down to three. My oldest alias I have used since 1997. Never have I used my real name and I don't like to note my location. Watching Person of Interest does not help me at all with my natural paranoia of having a digital footprint. Mine is so small compared to the normal American citizen as I don't have a cell phone, bank account has not been used in 3 years and I don't use credit/debit cards.

Valentino does not have a RFID. I probably should look into getting him one since he is a expensive parrot but I am not sure I want anyone hacking into my parrot either.

NWQuakers · Jan 20, 2013

If you really want to get to people running scams it's possible to share the info to Anonymous and like-minded people. If they think it's actionable, they can do a lot of damage.

JJones1719 · Jan 20, 2013

Don't you mess with Plax.... Okay
Great job Plax, I too would love to see if Tony replies.lol.
I would love to turn the table on people like this to hurt them in their wallets.
I don't care what kind of life someone has or just how bad they have it. there are other means of making a dollar then to stoop so low as to steal. I hope tony gets everything they have coming to them. Like the old saying what goes around comes around.
Thanks Plax. Joe

plax · Jan 20, 2013

noblemacaw said:
I use to mask my IP address whenever I used the internet. Unfortunately when I want to watch movies or TV shows via my computer the mask makes streaming buffer and that is very frustrating. Now I involk a very good firewall and system is locked down pretty tight. I am not as hung up that you can get my IP address anymore.

Yes, proxy connections often result in significant latency. One thing to keep in mind is that most ISPs issue dynamic hosts. So at most the only thing a bad guy could learn from your IP is your general location. If you want a new IP, simply power cycle your router

.

noblemacaw said:
Valentino does not have a RFID. I probably should look into getting him one since he is a expensive parrot but I am not sure I want anyone hacking into my parrot either.

Perhaps I'm a bit on the paranoid side myself. I seldom reveal whether all, some, or none of my guys are chipped

. Not that I think a bird thief may try to remove a microchip if aware of its existence, but you never know. One thing I'm sure of, though, is that a bad guy "hacking into my parrot" would be far worse than an avian vet doing so

plax · Jan 20, 2013

JJones1719 said:
Don't you mess with Plax.... Okay
Great job Plax, I too would love to see if Tony replies.lol.
I would love to turn the table on people like this to hurt them in their wallets.
I don't care what kind of life someone has or just how bad they have it. there are other means of making a dollar then to stoop so low as to steal. I hope tony gets everything they have coming to them. Like the old saying what goes around comes around.
Thanks Plax. Joe

Thanks Joe. But I think you mean "Debora"

noblemacaw · Jan 20, 2013

I am not a big fan of the RFID trackers in the pets. There are talented hackers out there that CAN gain the information coded inside these things. I should of been more specific when I said "hacking into my parrot" I meant accessing the RFID though using code for malicious reasons not literally cutting into my baby parrot to get to the RFID.

Sorry for the confusion.

I remember when I went to get supplies for Valentino from a merchant who originally bred my Noble Macaw in 1995 and I was sharing the news about getting Valentino and he gives me this lecture of how people get scammed out of money for buying a parrot. It took some convincing on my part that Valentino's breeder was not a scammer but a real breeder who even my Vet has heard of. I am sure he still thought I was a fool for sending my breeder payments for Valentino.

wenz2712 · Jan 20, 2013

Good for you Tony!! It will be interesting to see if you get a reply.

SparkkiSparkS · Jan 20, 2013

That's amazing! I recently talked to one of these people but I tried to tell them I didn't care where they were (claimed to be in Ohio) I would come pick the bird up. I said I didn't like the idea of shipping. They ended up getting mad and saying "if you don't trust me then you don't deserve a macaw.. look elsewhere!" And that was the last I heard from them. Although I did respond with "scam elsewhere" these people need to be shut down!

plax · Jan 20, 2013

noblemacaw said:
I am not a big fan of the RFID trackers in the pets. There are talented hackers out there that CAN gain the information coded inside these things. I should of been more specific when I said "hacking into my parrot" I meant accessing the RFID though using code for malicious reasons not literally cutting into my baby parrot to get to the RFID.

Sorry for the confusion.

Ah, I see. Well, the information within the chips can be read by anyone who has one of the RFID scanners and is within a few feet. But I'm unsure what someone would gain by accessing the digital numerical code contained in such a chip, and that's all most of them contain. Each code is basically just a unique serial number that can be cross-referenced to a pet's owner, but only via a database maintained by the chip's manufacturer (e.g., a company like Avid). And these chips, of course, are inert in that they merely contain miniature, dead circuits which will only resonate when scanned by close-field signals on a correct frequency. So they're un-powered and can't emit any sort of signal on their own.

noblemacaw said:
I remember when I went to get supplies for Valentino from a merchant who originally bred my Noble Macaw in 1995 and I was sharing the news about getting Valentino and he gives me this lecture of how people get scammed out of money for buying a parrot. It took some convincing on my part that Valentino's breeder was not a scammer but a real breeder who even my Vet has heard of. I am sure he still thought I was a fool for sending my breeder payments for Valentino.

Yes, some people are so thrown off by the ubiquity of scammers these days that it fails to occur to them there are ways to determine/confirm the authenticity of reputable breeders

.

plax · Jan 20, 2013

WOW, wonders never cease! I just got a reply...

debora kellins

6:26 AM (6 minutes ago)

to me
hello
plax thank you for being hornest with me and am sorry for doing this.
well why i do this is that i am an orphan and i have no one to look
after me i actually live on the streets here in cameroon and i am a
student and i do not want to leave school so this is the only means i
have to use to have money for my up keeping. hornestly am sorry for
that.but i hope you understand why i am doing this be cause i even
spend days without somthing to eat. i am truely in cameroon and my
true names are numfor nicholas neba.please do not be mad at me.
stay blessed.
bye and i promise i will stop this okay.

My interaction with a Hyacinth scam artist (term used loosely)

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Thinking of getting a Macaw

We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! harness time!

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