Caledonia Man Out $30,000 In Romanian Computer Scam

David Lloyd, of Caledonia, thought he was buying a Porsche Cayman from autotrader.com and was using Amzaonpayments.com to make the transaction, according to a report by the Caledonia Police Department.

Lloyd expected the car to be delivered in early May. But the car never showed up, the seller made all sorts of excuses as to why it wasn’t delivered and all of the $32,500 he paid, except $1,200, is gone.

Turns out, the amazonpayments.com and autotrader.com websites Lloyd thought he was using were mirror websites that didn’t belong to either business, even though they looked like the sites. Bank records showed the money transfer was made from Lloyd’s bank to an account with Bank of America, which security officials from the bank say is linked to an organized crime group out of Romania.

But this is what scam artists do, said Sgt. Gary Larsen.

“A lot of smaller ones end up in Africa, but the larger ones end up in Romania,” Larsen said. “It’s just that this is the biggest one (computer scam) I’ve ever seen.”

Here’s how the scam went down

The case was turned over to the detective bureau where Investigator David Malison tracked down email addresses, IP addresses and bank accounts.

“Everything you are trying to track is buffered a couple times and you can’t get to it,” Malison said.

Through his investigation, Malison learned the same car was listed for sale on EBay in Indiana, but listed under a legitimate owner’s name. The scammers had taken the information from the legitimate EBay account, transferred it to Autotrader.com, and used a Stevens Point woman’s identity as the seller. She told Malison her husband is a detective, and she didn’t give anyone permission to use her information.

The seller’s phone number was fake, but the seller’s fax number, which listed to Seattle Washington was temporarily out of service.

Malison started talking to a security official with Bank of America. He gave the official the suspect’s name. The official said he knew the suspect’s name well, which they had been working with the Secret Service on several similar thefts, and the suspect is linked to Romanian organized crime.

Two withdrawals -- $10,000 and $20,000 -- were made and then four smaller debit card purchases were made in Tennessee. The security official froze the suspect’s bank account with $1,250 left and told Malison he would add the case to list of others the task force is working on.

The investigation has been turned over to the FBI, Larsen said.

So what is the chance of Lloyd getting his money back?

“Probably not too good,” Larsen said. “You are dealing with international boundaries since the money is in Romania.”

Calls made to Lloyd were not returned, but Malison said Lloyd knew he had made a mistake.

“But this could have happened to anyone,” Larsen said. “The scammers now hire well educated people who can speak English very well to complete these transactions.”

Larsen offered this advice to people making online purchases: do not allow a seller to direct you to a site to buy goods and services.

“You should also be leery of sellers directing you where to go to pay,” Larsen said.