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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

Why do people do mail fraud?

While mail fraud crimes often involve the use of the United States Postal Service, or USPS, you can also commit the crime when you use any interstate carrier, such as FedEx, UPS, or other delivery services. Mail fraud is super easy to prove [prints on box, cameras at fedex offices, credit cards used for materials, amazon accounts, logged ips, bank accounts involved, federal authority] and carries ridiculous sentencing: 20 years. THIS is a bad plan for $1500. Most likely this person DID THIS MORE THAN ONCE so they could face like 10 counts - it is 20 years per count. Not to mention people doing the investigation are federal officers - they are on point. With 2nd murder you at least get parole and probably wont do 20 years or charged with multiple counts. mail fraud = bad times.

http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal...

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It's probably hard to track the seller. They can use a fake email, illegally obtained credit card to sign up, PO box or just some random address, drop off packages to FedEx drop boxes or just drop ship an item. They may never even touch the packages.

Uh. No. If I were a federal officer I would just contact amazon and find out where the money went. Paypal or Bank account - game over. Contact whatever bank he picks it up from get security camera details, address info, on and on. I would also grab all the ips, entered in info and the prints from the box. I bet he would be in my office by lunch. Plea dealed to 5 years by monday.

Put your money where your mouth is. Go provide your legal services to article's author.

I expect to see an article on Monday, from you, which bemoans exactly how easy it is to track thieves like this. Show us the face of the accused, too.

So become a federal officer by monday? I need an extension.

It sounded to me like you already had all of this figured out. Why do you suddenly need to be a federal officer?

> I would just contact amazon and find out where the money went

I like to think that Amazon won't give its users bank details to random people. A federal officer could force them give it up.

Maybe I'm Pollyannaish, but I'd hope Amazon would not give bank details to a federal office and instead hold out for a subpoena or search warrant or court order.

I bet the feds even have an api.

Yes, I intended "could force them to" as a description of a court order.

Are you a state bar? how can he practice being a lawyer and provide legal services. I expect to see an article on Monday, from you, which explains how you are able to confer the ability to individuals to act as a legal agent.

See how much that sounds like I am an asshole? Maybe read your comments out loud before posting.

Maybe he was commenting on the idea posted elsewhere in this conversation about getting USPS to investigate and explaining how one agent could do so. But your "understanding" may be the correct one.

It's very trivial to signup for a online bank account with a stolen identity. FBI won't get involved in the case unless it's over 150k in losses and local police don't have skills or desire to do anything online.

Source: work for an online bank

Yes. I agree. The best way to get away with mail fraud is to hope the feds don't care. I also believe it seems from a bank employees perspective is they all get away with it. However, the jails are full.

The problem is these guys repeat offend. If they just got $1500 - they would be fine. But they wont. They will repeat until they clear 150k. That is a life sentence. This is why the federal jails are full of drug traffickers. Drug trafficking is a lifestyle - they can't stop.

FBI doesn't have to get involved; the USPS has kick-ass federal special agents of their own.

Yes, do not mess with the investigative prowess of the Postmaster General. They are pretty amazing at what they do.

I would guess a large part of the issue is these sellers are often not even in the USA so probably a bit of legal hoops to jump through. There's also an issue of manpower to track all of these scammers down-- there's a lot of them after all.

I was on a jury that indicted a guy who did the same basic scam. He'd have packages delivered to addresses in the same zip code area, but pick up the packages himself. Felony.

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