Ben Haag arrested: Police act on scam complaints on Ebay
Photo by: Mark Coggins
Authorities from North Valley claim to have busted an online auction fraud by arresting Ben Haag, an old hand at eBay auction site. Merced county officials made the arrest on receiving several complaints of a scam on eBay against Haag. He is alleged to have duped at least half a dozen victims of a total amount of $3000.
Haag duped these victims under the alias 5150elite. But he has also allegedly worked under other aliases like Brian Haag, Ben Garza, Brian Garza, ClodRacer and ClodzillaIV.
Haag posted photographs of items to sell on eBay. He seldom owned items featured in the photographs. Interested buyers would be asked to send money orders to him. But instead of delivering the goods, he allegedly just vanished with the money.
This type of fraud is extremely common and a favorite with online fraudsters. Last year, in fact, it accounted for 50% of all crimes committed online. While trading in these sites, users would do well to watch out for fraud.
They should:
- Conduct a background check on the seller. Check feedbacks from past buyers to see if he has been reported for bad practices.
- Prefer to pay using PayPal or with the credit card. This gives you the option of withholding the payment in case you do not receive the goods.
- Also check whether the same product is not being sold by other sellers. It is easy to cut and paste photographs of products featured in auction sites and to post them online after changing the contact information. Many scammers use this route to con online buyers.
Performing this crosscheck before sending money across can save you from falling for such scams.
Source: abc30.com
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