Tarkblog

Dateline, the popular NBC evening newsmagazine, has been showing specials called “To Catch A Predator” recently. This is where they go into chatrooms and try to seduce guys into thinking they are underage girls and then getting the guys to show up at a staged house to have relations with these girls. Then they bring out Chris Hansen, the host, and some cameras, and start asking questions. Then they arrest the guys.

The show is moderately humorous. I’ll catch it now and again when flipping, though I can’t say I’m a big fan.

However, a few recent shows have been about catching other types of criminals - like identity thieves. In these episodes, they give out “stolen” credit card numbers and links to an online store where people can “buy” merchandise using these fake cards. Then they set up a fake shipping company and track the shipments, taking them to the people’s houses who apparently are using the fake credit cards in order to try and “catch” them.

However, at least for the episodes I’ve seen, none of the people who are getting stuff delivered to them are the ones using the credit cards. No, they are “innocent” bystanders who just happen to be the shipping destinations that these criminals (mostly working overseas) are targeting.

Or are they “innocent”?

It turns out, no. Of the three addresses that Dateline has shown so far, all three have had some kind of connection to the “person” doing the illegal purchasing. What connection? Online lover.

That’s right. The scammers are now creating fake online identities (either man or woman..whatever is needed) and seducing what I would describe as “homely” people into thinking that they are interested in real relationships. They then get these people to accept these packages, and pay for NEW shipping to overseas addresses.

All of these people were “engaged to be married” to their online lovers. None of them had ever met in person. And in the case of two women, who live on separate coasts of the US, they were both “engaged to be married” to a picture of the exact same guy. And all the time they were receiving stolen goods and forwarding them overseas at their own expense.

By far my favorite part of the show was when the one really stupid dude, who had put his whole life savings into this “business”, all based on some chat and photos of some lady online, was talking with Chris Hansen about what he was doing. This is before the guy knew anything about the hidden cameras or that he was being scammed. Chris was asking him how he was ensuring he was being careful in the online world, and the guy retorted that you really have to watch yourself or you might “end up on that Dateline show..you know, the one where they catch the guys trying to have sex with the young girls”. That was awesomely funny.

All in all, I highly recommend watching the online identity theft show, especially if it boggles your mind (like it does mine) how anyone could fall for such crap. It happens, I suppose. Natural selection at its finest.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 6:42 am and is filed under Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.