Beware:Jason Wolfgang aka jwolfgang1 and legal question

[pixie_princess]

As mentioned in previous posts here concerning ebay user jwolfgang1, also known as beta member jaw271 and the curator of Saiyan Pride on rubberslug, the man is rather poor at shipping off the items he accepts money for.

At the time that I bid on his cels on ebay I had no idea of his past on here. I just went by his feedback rating "100% in the past 12 months" and a strong belief that a person who had that high of a fb score, with over 300 transactions under his belt and an ebay account for several years, had to be trustworthy.

Foolish as I was I failed to check past the last year where he had a slew of incidences concerning unshipped items. There was another Beta member who posted a few weeks ago concerning the fact that they too were dealing with missing cel(s) in the form of an alleged shipment of Fedex to a PO Box.

The last I heard from Jason involved an Ebay message on July 9th where he said he was waiting till the funds were deposited into his account so that he could have money to ship them out. Previous to this I had no trouble contacting him via ebay and having him respond. I paid him on the 1st of July, so I thought it was a bit odd as Paypal only takes 4 days tops to deposit. This was also odd as originally he said he would be shipping all the packages out that same day he received payment.

After a few days I again messaged him through ebay asking if/when he sent them out yet. I received no response. After a few more days I contacted him again through ebay and through his gmail account. After receiving no response from either I decided to try to contact him by phone -the info was supplied through ebay. No responses to any of these methods were received. In each instance I left my contact info in the form of Cell number, email address, and ebay user id as well as what I was calling in reference to. My hope was that if for some odd reason he had no computer / internet access the very least he or someone at his residence could do would be to return my phonecall. My last round of messages gave him till the 30th of July to honor his word and to ship the cels that he had accepted my money for.

I called ebay and started the claims process early July 30th. In it, I stated that I wanted the items I paid for. The ebay operator was nice and helpful. I was told if I did not have the cels in my hands by the following week, that it would be escalated.

I think everyone by now knows that Jason Wolfgang never sent the cels that I won. He failed to honor his commitment. He failed to ship items that he accepted money for. He pretty much took over $700 and ran.

I posted about this in my RS blog but felt it only right to try and warn as many people possible about this person. Others may not be as lucky as I was and be out both cels and money.

The one thing that still eludes me is this:
Why accept money for items that you never intended to ship in the first place?

Even if lets say, Jason was without a computer/internet access -he still has his phone. He or someone else would have heard the messages along with what I was calling about and either have shipped out the package that he said was already packaged and waiting, or at least alerted Jason to the idea taking that much money from a person was a bad idea.

Heres my big question:
I was able to receive my money back ( $740 ) through the buyer protection program. I believe Ebay/Paypal is pursuing this guy right now to get back their money. Jason deposited the funds into his bank account weeks ago. Is there any way I can file an internet fraud report on him because of what happened?
I'll be completely honest. I am extremely dismayed at how he failed to come through and my misplaced trust in him. He's obviously done this before and who knows how many times he has kept other people's hard earned money. I want to make sure he isn't able to do this to anyone else.

[Killua]

Glad to hear that you got your money back.

The one thing that still eludes me is this:
Why accept money for items that you never intended to ship in the first place?

I am puzzled. How on earth does understanding this elude you? There are dissolute reprobates in this world who steal money for personal advantage. This is as old as humanity, probably older.

[ReiTheJelly]

http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

[sensei]

I think p_p's reaction is actually a sign of how relatively healthy the Japanese animation art collecting field is in general. Sadly, in many other fields, Jason Wolfgang would be the norm and it would take many such nasty encounters before newbies would develop a tough enough skin and enough defense mechanisms to cope. Even I lost a smallish but annoying amount of money early on to a person who promised me a set of CCS season 3 VHS fansubs and never delivered.

I've read books recently on how widespread fraud is among book and furniture collectors. And when you turn to sports collectanea, I understand that the fakes largely outnumber the genuine articles. My little clutch of 50s Topps baseball cards actually can't be sold unless they are professionally authenticated and encased in plastic with the hologram-decorated COA (at a major cost to me, of course).

So it's painful to you, Lori, and I can see from the couple of non-arrivals I've experienced how sad it is to wait in anticipation so you can see the originals of the scans you've received. But actually it would disturb me more if you and others took a "Meh, so doo-doo happens in this hobby."

And, yeah, go after this sleazo any way you can. It's a good thing we have going here. Let's not see it screwed up by grab-and-go opportunists.

[redhusky3]

Definitely a big Thanks to you pixie_princess for warning us about this guy. Its absolutely wonderful that you got your money back!

I agree with sensei. Im so happy to hear you went after this guy. You went above and beyond because you not only warned us but you reported him. It can take a while to actually talk to an Ebay operator. Usually I think people just say "oh well, ill let this one go." I just cant stress enough how very important it is to report problems.

[cutiebunny]

But I think the amount that was spent was too much to let go. $740 is a good chunk of change for most people.

As for legally trying to pursue this person, I would say that you won't stand much of a chance. There are lots of things that are working against this from happening, such as the likelihood of hundreds of reports of fraud per day, the amount of agents employed to look into such crimes and the justice system itself. And that doesn't even account for the judicial system's penchant for charging criminals with lesser degree crimes.

"Murdered an ex? No...it was simply assault with bodily damage!"

Unfortunately, our system is not streamlined enough so that, if a fraud pays their income taxes or receives government funds(welfare), the amount owed isn't deducted from them.