Kotaku: Scams

Alleged Blank-Game Scam Nets Almost $20K

ogood — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:00:00 MDT

This kind of story deserves its own new word: Chutzpidity. Because a guy in Minnesota had both in equal and voluminous supply for this particular scam. Over a full year, this guy bought nearly 200 games, worth more than $23,000, replaced them with blanks, got the refunds, then sold the real games on eBay. The re-sale netted him almost $19,000.

Now, while the alleged scammer was clever enough to forge a label on the blanks, and then repackage the games to make them look brand new (and also avoid an inspection that would discover the blanks) did he honestly think no one would notice 192 REFUNDS on a credit card and start asking questions? It takes enormous gall or a lack of brains, or both — hence chuzpidity — to keep going with this after getting $10K in tax-free ill-gotten booty and leaving a paper trail that stretches to Sioux Falls.

Someone finally did, and he was collared in October 2007. Best part? His 68-year-old mother is implicated too. She faces a single felony count of "theft by swindle," which is an awesome charge. If she was a dude I'd imagine her to look like Snidely Whiplash.

All of the above is alleged, not proven in court. Just to stay on the safe side.

Rural Albert Lea Man Accused of Video Game Scam [Post-Bulletin of Austin, Minn.]

Note, this is a very popular story for a small-town paper's web site. The cached text is here

Because Everything on Craigslist is For Real

ogood — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:00:00 MDT

I'm looking for an apartment. Haven't had to do this in about three years. So yesterday, I'm on Craigslist and I find the Cognitive Dissonance Bargain of a lifetime: Two bedrooms, 1300 sq feet, air conditioning, parking, cat-friendly, in San Francisco's white-approved Noe Valley, for $1300.

"That's a Nigerian 419 scam," my friend at work said. "They put these dream homes up and try to sucker you into placing a holding fee or deposit."

I was crushed. I could take the relentless fakery and heartbreak of trolling for online sex in the spam-soaked CL casual encounters. But housing? Was nothing sacred? And now there is this:

Know what I hate? When they want $100K but retail price is $99,999, like I don't know it's just a dollar's difference. Please. $50,000 or I walk.

Insider Documents Apple Nintendo Merger! - $99999 (cupertino) [craigslist, likely removed by the time you click it, but thanks to Eggy]

Man Swaps Garbage Filled 360 For Cash

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:20:00 MST

Wal-Mart has long been known for its liberal return policy, but one Xbox 360 owner took it too far. Probably wondering exactly what to do with the discarded chassis of his Xbox 360, presumably following a chromed out shell installation, the owner capitalized on a lazy returns department and walked away with cash, leaving his refuse in Wal-Mart's hands. Looks like he's a med school drop out or something, as the eviscerated console came stuffed with a used copy of Comprehensive Medical Assisting and some random cables. It's all terribly upsetting, the kind of deplorable behavior you wouldn't wish upon your least-liked local Supercenter employee.

So someone returned an xbox at our store.... [YouGamers Forums via CVG]

Toys R Us Forces Wii Bundles

Brian Crecente — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:00:05 MST

Yesterday our Consumerist bros reported on a foul little bait-and-switch FYE pulled on their Wii customers during launch.

Last night a reader wrote to us to point out that FYE isn't the only retailer bending their customers over to make a Wii extra money.

Yes, I saw the FYE bait and switch video. ToysRus pulled a quick one on us too. After waiting 5 hours in line for my preorder, I found out on launch day that I was required to buy one game and a 25 dollar warranty. The lady in front of me calmly negotiated with the clerk but was promptly rejected. No information about this requirement was made.
If I recall, Best Buy tried this shit with the Xbox 360 and had their collective asses handed to them by a collective of angry Attorney Generals. Let's hope Toys R Us gets introduced to this legal daisy chain too.

Help Kotaku Stop Xbox 360 Ebay Scams

Brian Ashcraft — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:31:53 MST

Beware. There are some real assholes out there, and a good chunk of them troll around Ebay. The Uber Review sent word of a coupla recent auctions that are suckering 360-desparate gamers. In one auction, it looks, seems and smells like a Xbox 360 is up for grabs, but wedged into a huge paragraph of text is a line that reads, "This auction is not for a Xbox 360 game system, but instead of a picture of one. I hope you enjoy this high-quality item." Final selling price: $823 US. In another, it appears like a Xbox 360, but instead the winner gets two hotmail accounts. Final selling price: $842.

Okay, Kotakuites, here's what we are going to do. We are gonna find these bastards and sniff them out. How? Say, you come across a bogus-looking auction or ad for a 360. Send that to us, and we'll post it, exposing the SOB seller. We'll of course repay you by giving you an invite and the adoration of our readers. Our goal is stomping out every last shyster by Christmas.

Full Story Here [UberReview] Thanks Vic!

Fake Girl-Gamer Sites

ataylor — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:33:46 MST

Someone out there has registered a slew of girls&games related domains: pcgamergirl.com, xboxgirl.com, consolegirl.com, etc - under which they're republishing Weblogs.inc & Gawker's feeds (Joystiq, Gizmodo), straight from the RSS!

These sites are a nasty, cheap fakes designed expressly to get people to click on the Depression and Insurance links at the bottom of the page. Elaborate spam, masquerading as girlgamer (and gadget) sites.

We've not made any of these links live so as not to give these sites googlejuice. If you have any of these in your RSS readers, you know what to do...

The full list that we've found so far:

ConsoleGirl.com
FemaleGadget.com
GeeksGirl.com
GirlsGadget.com
GirlsGamer.com
PCGamerGirl.com
PlaystationGirl.com
PodcastFemale.com
PS3Girls.com
PSPxGirl.com
SegaGirl.com
SonyGirls.com
T3Girl.com
XboxGirl.com
NintenGirl.com (this one has live commentors at it ! Poor sods)

Disgusting. And a real shame, there are some decent domain names in there, too.