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Comment by ufmace | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I'm not buying that apology for a second. Probably the first thing any con artist learns is how to fake being really sorry as well as they faked being legitimate anytime somebody manages to turn the tables on them. I bet you can get your money back and then report him to the police too. He's way beyond being corrected by his parents, and he probably threw that in just to make you think there's an option besides the police, assuming that you're too nice to put him in jail, where he belongs. Maybe some jail time will lead him to reevaluate his choices. Or at least keep him from stealing from anybody else for a little while.

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I agree. Begging is a skill, and this scammer is already a professional in that respect.

If he was 16 or 17, it probably wouldn't be too late to tell his parents, although that depends on the family. 22 is way too old for that.

In addition, I think the author should at least release the details of the eBay account to the public to make them googleable in connection with the scam. Since it was the eBay account that convinced the author to go first, it can convince other people too.

Scream 'doxx' if you want, but the right thing to do here would be to educate the public about this guy so the rest of us can steer clear. The rest is up to the wronged here.

I didn't write it in the blog but I sure as hell shouldhave looked up his account on reddit.

Later found out that the very user he made the deal with me was banned from most trading subs.. my mistake, glad it worked out for me though :D

Yeah, the idea that half the thread is essentially saying "leave him alone, he's learned his lesson", when he is making responses like, "Please leave me alone after this I won't do anything like this anymore I am having panic of attacks just thinking about this." is just crazy. This kid STOLE from someone and makes himself sound like the victim in almost everything he says. How on earth are people so gullible?

I see it as half this thread is all like "Yeah, tell his parents! That'll show him! Haha, we're all both fair and appropriately nasty and putting a poor misunderstood kid back on track."

This sounds like exactly what the scammer wanted to manipulate everybody into thinking.

To me, the scammer's message stinks to high heaven. I translate "Oh noes, I'm just a poor college kid, I'm so totally having panic attacks over this, pretty please don't ever tell my parents!" to "These guys aren't hardcore enough to want to get me in real trouble. If I just beg a little, pretend to panic, and pretend to be afraid of my parents, they'll exercise their sense of justice by telling them, and I'll slide for this one too."

IMO, a lot of people here are very sheltered and have never had to deal in an extended way with somebody who was a serious con man. It can be hard to comprehend people who have no respect at all for people and social conventions. You can be sure they won't stop until they face real consequences. People like him are why the admittedly flawed criminal justice system exists. Speaking of which, many would do well to keep in mind that at least some of the people in jail are very, very good at convincing naive people that they are just innocent victims of bad circumstances, have found Jesus, or whatever else will get them out of jail the fastest, and free to run more and better cons.

Gave you an upvote there. I have gotten taken advantage of - and embarrassingly, a bit too late in my life to use my age as an explanation... All the clients I've had before this first bad one were generally decent; the obvious idiots were obvious.

The second time around, for this nonprofit, I grokked he was a full blown psychopath (although not quickly enough) - the people who had been working with him for the previous 5 years had kept giving him the benefit of the doubt wrt his horrible interpersonal style and behaviour. They got me sucked into the mess because I trusted them over my gut.

In the dust-up over matters this summer, this clown kept claiming he was the victim to an outrageous extent despite the fact it was his actions that instigated the blow up of the organization. People with anti-social personality disorders are very good at social manipulation / PR / etc and it's difficult to get bystanders to really understand the whole thing w/o a lot of explanation, which bystanders are not terribly interested in listening to - e.g. "which person is the real victim?" I think a key factor in these sorts of events is that the scammer etc sets the situation up (or makes plans to) to be able to successfully play the victim from the outset when needed.

The police should have been contacted. "Poor me" talk from a 22 year old ... it all sounded really fake. There is something in the way language is "used" that triggers my warning bells. Then again, I am biased as I have been through this myself first hand in dealing with a 57 year old. I can now see how twisty his use of language was and how glossing over details and omitting facts can guide the reader into believing what is being said - not outright lies, but manipulation of the reader's emotions.

> he probably threw that in just to make you think there's an option besides the police

That's what I thought, too. For some reason, scammers often have high social intelligence. Maybe it's like with any other domain: if you understand how computers work, you are compelled to use computers a lot. If you understand how people work, you must be compelled to use people?

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