I hope cyber crime police has improved their working in recent years. 5-6 years ago a Ebay seller defrauded me. I filed a complaint with all the information I had since everything is online and involved bank transactions there had to be a money trail. I never heard back from cyber crime cell. I don't know how many folks were defrauded by that person before and after the incident with me.
Doubtful. I got a call from someone about a month after my GF's iPhone was stolen. He'd bought it on eBay and asked if I'd got a new one yet - her phone gave a number to call and was activation locked.
He wanted to know so maybe I'd give the password so "he wouldn't be ripped off, too". I'll give him credit for having the balls to ask. But (as I later found out) he knew he was buying an "activation locked" iPhone.
I said a few things like how do I know you're not the thief, etc. He pointed me to the eBay listing which, sure enough even had the IMEI with two digits transposed (plausible deniability, I'm sure).
He contacted the seller and said "Tell me why I shouldn't give this phone to its rightful owner and then file a fraud complaint with eBay and get a refund?" Unsurprisingly the seller offered to take the phone back. So he sent it (I didn't care, and while I knew the insurance company was about as unlikely to care as the police were, I didn't want to do anything that might trigger insurance fraud questions - "This phone was reported stolen, unlocked using your credentials. Explain.") and got me the seller's home address.
I contacted the insurance company. They didn't care, just told me to file a police report and send them the case number.
Looked at the seller's profile, quite possibly the sketchiest thing I've ever seen.
Bunches of phones, all "activation locked, no charger". Tablets, no charger. Laptops, no accessories or charger. At least 50 or so.
Gave that info to my local PD. Their response, "We won't investigate. He probably bought it from someone and is selling them. Could have gone through a few people first."
I didn't want the original thief caught but this guy was openly selling stolen gear. Hell, the message on my GFs phone said "I don't care about stealing the phone. Will trade cash for it.".
They weren't interested. Bear in mind, this isn't someone complaining about their car at the impound lot in LA, a la Big Lebowski, this is town of about 40,000 with a well-funded PD (I work for Fire in the same town).
The urge to drive to this jokers house in the middle of the night and pour sugar in his gas tank was one I avoided, but only just.
