Warning about scammer on DoA

Hello all, I am unfortunately coming with bad news.

 

As of recently there has been a scammer on DoA who has taken possession of several dolls of fellow members, and attempted to sell the same doll to several members as well. If you are wondering why I'm bringing it up it is because within the transaction he did also deal Dollfie Dreams. One mold particular was Saber.

 

Currently, the members who had money transactions with him are using paypal to hopefully get returns, so far, only two people out of the few have gotten physical money, but others traded directly for dolls and are now contacting the police in hope to get him because he has their dolls. (He is a USA resident which makes this a lot easier than dealing with someone who is outside of the country.)

 

For information check the paging thread: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?597375-Problem-Transaction-with-ShowaDreamer

 

The individual has been on regularly to see the outcome of what people are doing. All they know so far is his name is Elijah, and he goes by the name ShowaDreamer on DoA. He currently has in his possession a Mariko (He offered Saber in trade of said Mariko which the member shipped their Mariko, and now the member is out their doll and money) which MAY be sold somewhere else, while I don't think he'd come here I did want to put a warning up.

 

Scammers are known to use other forums for the sake of selling items that they have stolen, while we can't know for sure, it is best to double check. I'm sorry to hear this happened to several members on DoA, and I wish it not to happen to this community as well. Hopefully, I don't put anyone in a panic, but figured it was well worth mentioning. Best safe, than sorry, right?

 

I was unsure where I would post such a warning, so I put it here, please admin/mod move it where you feel it best fits.

i saw divinitaaria also posting one in seperate topic

If he is on this forum, he probably needs to get banhammered or something.

If he is on this forum, he probably needs to get banhammered or something.

or if anybody knows where he physically is.. organise a mob with torches and pitchforks

Hi all,

 

Actually wanted to add to this. He was also on figure.fm selling a split Miko and some outfits. He has since deleted that post, but if anyone bought from Eli/Hanakyukyu I am pretty certain it is the same individual (Non-track-able number starting with VE, willing to communicate but with vague answers, e-mail name is Elijah etc)

 

I received a refund recently for the body I never received thanks to paypal - so in case anyone also bought from that username anywhere, open a dispute ASAP!

 

He seriously didn't act like a scammer, but really, with all that has happened to others as well, I'm not sure we can label him anything but a scammer...

Hah, I posted it in the Questions subforum because I didn't know where it should go, but I'm glad you also posted this in the off-topic forum gets more attention.

 

If you see a suspicious Mariko, please not that it does not rightfully belong to him. It belongs to the DoA member Nightmareally.

 

I wonder if Nightmareally knows of any defects or spots on Mariko that sort of define her from the rest, so if anyone suspects they own that Mariko could check in with Nightmareally.

Whoops, sorry about that. I didn't even know where to start looking for this, so I figured I'd just do off-topic, and if there was one it can get merged/moved/whatever.

 

As a fun fact they do have most of this individuals information, from phone number to address. This is how they are getting in contact with his local police. They even have a case number for him currently, which is growing in size.

That's so scary I would be absolutely heart broken if this happened to me so my sympathy goes out to whoever got scammed. Thank goodness at least they're taking measures to stop this person.

 

You have to be very careful who you buy from though. Do your research and only buy from people who have feedback either on the forum or ebay. Typically if someone is really active in the community it's also a good indicator that they will try to maintain a good reputation. Not always true but it's usually a good sign.

I hope that when they get him, the next step is to draw and quarter the little creep! This just makes me sick! Why can't people get a real job instead of wasting their time thinking up ways to take advantage of other people? It makes me so thankful for all of the awesome people that I have purchased things from on this forum!! I certainly won't be buying anything from anyone unless they are members here!!

I hope that when they get him, the next step is to draw and quarter the little creep! This just makes me sick! Why can't people get a real job instead of wasting their time thinking up ways to take advantage of other people? It makes me so thankful for all of the awesome people that I have purchased things from on this forum!! I certainly won't be buying anything from anyone unless they are members here!!

 

This. You described the mind of a scammer perfectly. I believe this is the hivemind Milanoo and other scammer shops carry.

He is also claiming to have an Asuna. So be careful of that as well.

why is he still there.

why is he still there.

 

Well he's not conducting business on DoA anymore, he is literally incapable of doing that. This would mean he is going about on Figure.fm, or sites like that where he has yet to be banned.

 

Chances are that he just assumes he can't get caught? I dunno. Scammers are stupid as far as I'm concerned, especially if they think it is a good idea to conduct it the way this individual has.

 

They have a fellow member going to the address he had the dolls shipped to see if either they are there, or the person who claimed them is there so they can figure out where he actually lives.

 

They also have had contact made by the local authorities in his area so now they are actually taking this case seriously, which is good. Hopefully something will be resolved whether by him realizing he made a mistake, or by officers of the law.

i wanna see a gut old fashioned public whipping

 

This. You described the mind of a scammer perfectly. I believe this is the hivemind Milanoo and other scammer shops carry.

 

I understand that the Milanoo (is that short for Milano - or Milan?) is a shop which may be selling some copyright infringing outfits? If they are not misrepresenting these outfits they are not in fact scamming anyone. One could say ripping designs off is wrong but then one has to ask why is imitation so common in art and so acceptable? John Williams rips off Wagner and Prokofiev? It's OK. Volks rips off European folks costumes - it's OK. Someone copies a Volks costume and slaps own label - not ok? And add to boot, not all cultures believe in the Western concept of "intellectual property" too. Just my 5c.

 

I understand that the Milanoo (is that short for Milano - or Milan?) is a shop which may be selling some copyright infringing outfits? If they are not misrepresenting these outfits they are not in fact scamming anyone. One could say ripping designs off is wrong but then one has to ask why is imitation so common in art and so acceptable? John Williams rips off Wagner and Prokofiev? It's OK. Volks rips off European folks costumes - it's OK. Someone copies a Volks costume and slaps own label - not ok? And add to boot, not all cultures believe in the Western concept of "intellectual property" too. Just my 5c.

 

I don't understand how and why Volks is ripping off European folk outfits...It's just a general type of outfit like the Japanese Yukata. They aren't ripping off the yukata industry by making their own

I'm gonna put this here.

 

This was about an individual scammer, not a shop, not a website, but a single person who went out of their way to find multiple targets to steal money and dolls from. They have been unsuccessful so far in the money department, but they have claimed dolls.

This is a good reason why you never trade with someone without at least a good enough amount of feedback. If you sold something, or bought something, then just remember pay via regular payment so you can have the opportunity to claim back. Always do this with new sellers.

Lets face it, the chances of getting scammed are still rather low, but if you just take these steps of precaution you can easily avoid this. I.E. I never ship first in a trade, I will wait till I have a fully functioning tracking number, that I know for sure is heading my way before shipping. Why do I do this? Because I have enough feedback to claim I'm the better of the two parties. Most people don't have 12 pages on DoA, let alone most people don't also have a bunch of feedback on eBay, Myfigurecollection, and DDF.

 

The thing about the shop, let me point out the differences. Volks is merely taking a design that has been around for ages, but the issue with the store is that they are taking their personal designs and recreating them in poor quality and selling them without giving the proper credit. Volks does create a lot of their own clothing and so you should keep in mind that those designs belong to them. Yes, they make some clothing that is based off other cultures, and what not, but those aren't copyrighted. Those are old designs, things people have known for ages, and thus it isn't harmful for them to recreate those, it is only a issue when their individual designs, the ones their staff creates is taken for poor reproduction by an unauthorized company does it become bad.

 

I would like to point out that when I say "Scammer" I think of a single party individual who is going out of their way to personally take things from people. When it comes to a shop, they are selling bootlegs, and I just refer to them as that "Bootleg shop" or "recast shop" because all their products are fake, but at least they aren't personally going out of their way to get in contact with members to sell their items as real.

Old news but I just want to inform you of his/her resurfacing.

The scammer has re-appeared on 'Store envy', store by the name of Hana Kyu Kyu.

The person at the time of the scams lived in Stone Mountain Georgia. The Stone Mountain Police Department had been contacted about this but it seems they didn't take it seriously enough to get it sorted out (despicable if you ask me, since the person committed a felony). I came real close to trading for that Mariko and I would have lost my Nanami. Due to my brush with the scam, I took it personally and compiled all information in this case. It's too bad it never got anywhere and things weren't returned, but that doesn't mean that the thief can reappear on the internet with a blank slate. Just be careful and on the lookout since it looks like the person thinks he/she is free to resume all nefarious activities.

Wow that was a bad news, you should make a blog on myfigurecollection as well since they have a lot DD database there, and I've seen a lot DD transaction on the database as well, I've recently bought a doll from fellow MFC user, and glad doesn't get scammed, oh yeh I don't know if this appropriate to say but, how about we take a revenge to scammer by scamming him/her back, to help the true mariko owner got their lost doll? i hate useless people who taking advantage of someone thrust. ( Sorry for my broken english)

How do you know that is their store on Storenvy? If there's any sort of proof, I will gladly report them to Storenvy and I would suggest other people do the same. But I think they might want some sort of evidence before they did anything about it. I don't know if we can scam them back, or if that'd really be the right or best thing to do... But I think that something that can be done is do everything possible to keep them from scamming more people. Sadly, in reality, whatever dolls they stole are probably long gone. However, if anything relating to the Storenvy store is available for me (and anyone else) to report them and get their store shut down, post it here and I'll gladly contribute to getting them shut down.

Honestly when the person nearly scammed me, I kept it cool. I gave the person the benefit of the doubt (they kept claiming it was the post offices fault etc). I was texting this person back and forth via phone number (apparently their number was something accessed online, not sure). I tried to coax them into returning Mariko or Saber to nightmarereally as well as the other stuff. I honestly didn't believe the excuses being given but I played along, seeing where it would take us. Eventually I urged nightmareally to file with the Stone Mountain PD. I did talk to the detective but it seems the case wasn't taken seriously, maybe because they were dolls? People also filed with the IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center).

I spent a lot of time tracking info down.

 

It would not be very possible to scam this person back, because they don't ever in fact, send the dolls. They just pretend they have dolls they don't have, get into trades, invent tracking numbers and voila. When they sent me a picture of Mariko, it was indeed a 'legit' picture but he/she was trying to get me to send my Nanami by 'offering' a stolen doll. Sincerely the best way to avoid this nonsense is...be VERY cautious when you post 'WTB' threads. The majority of cases were answers to WTB. The person played on people's desire to get something.

 

If you add 'HanaKyuKyu' as a username in the address for store envy (sorry i don't have rights to post links yet), you can see that the owner of the Hanakyukyu store is Eli Norris. We know Showdreamer goes under the name Hanakyukyu as well and that his/her real name is Elijah K Norris or Elijah K Morris (I've seen it written both ways). The location also matches. The store envy boutique ships from Georgia, USA. All dolls were sent to Stone Mountain, GA USA. I don't think Store Envy would do much since it was a scam elsewhere due to 'trades' and not 'sales'. I personally wouldn't attempt scamming them. I don't think Mariko is recoverable at this point.

 

All we can do is inform each other of this person's whereabouts and then keep an eye out. If things occur again, we can file other police reports, but both in our own province/state and in the scammer's. Hopefully eventually we're taken seriously. *sigh*

 

What I have are files. My xls lists all the victims involved, the items they sent, the items they were supposed to receive, the fake tracking numbers provided. I also have pictures of most of the missing dolls Mariko is the only DD that was shipped to this person. They in return offered Saber to two different people, but I'm not sure that Saber even exists. I'm also not sure how Store envy would process this info.

 

We had a girl who offered to go knock on the person's door and stuff but it never happened. I have a friend in Georgia and he told me that area isn't exactly the safest neighborhood.