Inside a Wine Scam, Part III: "It Ain't TV, Lady"

John Nelson sent us four Mastercard credit card numbers for his wine order. As I related here, they were all stolen.

"Identity theft is the # 1 crime in America today, even ahead of murder," said Angela of Sears National Bank as we went through the credit cards one by one.

Nevertheless, I contacted John’s shipping company, Alpha Trans, and these are the instructions they sent . . .

HERE IS THE INFORMATION FOR YOU TO GET SHIPPING PART OF THE PAYMENT SENT OUT VIA WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER.

NAME: Jeanette Springer
STREET :315 N Main St
CITY: Aline,
STATE:Oklahoma
ZIPCODE: OK 73716
COUNTRY: U.S.A

EXPECTING TO HEAR BACK FROM YOU SOON .

After some amateur sleuthing on Jeanette, I contacted the FBI regional office in Oklahoma. "What’s this all about?" snarled an agent. "Um, who am I speaking with, please?" I asked. "We don’t give out our names for security purposes," he said.

Thoroughly intimidated, I didn’t want to point out that I was looking at their website, which lists at least a dozen names—including first names, last names, and middle initials, presumably to prevent inter-cubby confusion. Moving on, I explained the scam and the fact that a front man was operating in their area, and we might like some help observing or catching him or her. "This isn’t TV, lady," he sighed. "We have legal issues."

He asked for all the details . . . and after trying my best to explain, I finally asked, with some degree of exasperation, "Do you have an email? I can simply send you a description of what’s going on, with all the correspondence, including email headers for tracing." "Oh, yeah, that would be good," he replied. "Hold on, I know this office has an email . . ."

In the meantime, a northern California law enforcement professional (who asks to remain anonymous due to jurisdictional protocols) agreed to an interview on these scams . . .

If someone feels they have been scammed, whom should they contact first? What can they expect to happen?

"Call the bank and the credit card company first to dispute the charges and get the ball rolling. More than likely the bank and credit card company will want a police report case number.

That would be step two…police report. By state law in California, on any type of I.D. theft or certain financial crimes ANY police department is required to take the case. Some larger agencies (LAPD is a great example) like to tell people they need to go where the crime occurred. This is not only impossible in most cases, as the suspects can be several states away, but also in violation of the state reporting laws. If this happens, ask for a 'Watch Commander' and explain the issue to them.

Once a report is taken, unless there are good leads, then nothing will happen. Sorry to be blunt, but if there are no leads then the case is dead in the water. Most of these frauds are so old, by the time people figure out they have been scammed the suspects are long gone.

Keep in mind that credit card companies and banks hate working with the police and most often times, flat out refuse to give us any help. They would rather write off the loss than have one of their internal investigators help us . . . it is very frustrating."

Is there a 'ring' in the U.S. that collects these shipping fees and then splits them with their friends in Nigeria?

"No 'ring,' per se, but most scams come out the Lagos, Nigeria area. Most of the time they use 'front men' in the states to collect the money. The front men keep a portion of the money and wire the rest to the actual suspects out of country (which is also why it’s hard to arrest them). "

Are these people dangerous? Or are they just internet predators?

"Generally not. I can’t recall anyone being threatened or harmed by the old Nigerian scam people. They are predators and only want your money without having to see or meet you. Of course, there can always be exceptions. (Gotta put that part in, as [we] can’t guarantee anyone’s safety 100%.)"

One winery was asked to charge $xx,xxx on a credit card--$xxK for the wine, $xxK for the shipper. They have already wired the money to the shipper. It's been over 60 days since the original transaction. What will likely happen next?

"The first thing is to call the bank and dispute the charge. The only problem is that the winery knowingly sent the money, so in reality the bank probably won’t help get the money back. Most of the accounts are just a temporary account that someone opened with false identification, usually across the country, so tracking down the person is difficult. The biggest problem law enforcement has with these scams is that the suspects are usually in a different state or region. Cooperation between law enforcement agencies is spotty at best, because everyone is overworked, short staffed, operating with cut budgets, and busy with their own jurisdictional case loads. However, the biggest problem is identifying who the suspect actually is, as the victim never sees or meets the person they are dealing with. "

What happens to the cases of wine that are picked up?

"It’s rare that they actually come for the wines, or whatever the goods are. What they are most interested in is the shipping money. That is why they charge so much. Hard goods (wine, etc.) are hard to pawn and sell. Money is all done by electronic transfers and easy to deal with.

If someone does pick up the wine or it’s delivered to an address, that gives detectives something to follow up on…a good thing. Once the suspects get the wine, it is often sold wherever they can sell it to make money. Again, once sold the money is split with the ring leaders out of country (or not, as sometimes it’s not a Nigerian scam, just someone here in the states)."

6. How many scammers are out there? Are they difficult to find and arrest?

"TONS, look at all the spam emails you get. Those are almost all scammers…scary, huh! You would be amazed at how many people fall victim to them.

They are almost impossible to find and arrest. Which is why there are so many internet scammers."

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Next, let’s visit the home of Jeanette Springer . . .