Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

CRIME

Heavy metal band claims German Ebay ripoff

A member of the well-known American heavy metal band Mastodon has claimed that a German boy ripped him off in an eBay internet scam.

Published: 28 December 2011 08:21 CET

Heavy metal band claims German Ebay ripoff

Photo: DPA

Guitarist Bill Kelliher took to the band’s Facebook page earlier this week to explain that he had sold a guitar for $1,275 (€975) to a boy in Germany, who subsequently said he didn’t like the guitar and wanted a refund.

But when Kelliher asked him to send the guitar back to him, the buyer refused and somehow got Ebay to rule in his favour and order the money refunded anyway.

Kelliher posted again Tuesday evening to complain the scammer was trying to re-sell the guitar on the German version of Ebay for €1799.

“I’m not interested in hearing any … talk about Ebay or Germans. It’s really just the principle I’m fighting for,” Kelliher wrote on Facebook. “To not let these things just go.”

The postings got nearly 2,000 comments from outraged fans in response, some threatening the buyer with death.

By Wednesday the listing for the guitar had been taken off Ebay but it was unclear if the company had reversed its decision in Kelliher’s favour.

The Local/mdm

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

The Black Axe gang was involved internationally in “multiple areas of criminal activity”, with a focus in Germany on romance scams and money-laundering, Bavarian police said in a statement.

The dating trick was a “modern form of marriage fraud”, police said.

“Using false identities, the fraudsters for example signalled their intention to marry and in the course of further contact repeatedly demand money under various pretexts,” police said.

The money was subsequently transferred to Black Axe in Nigeria “via financial agents”, authorities said.

In the process, the gang used a “commodity-based money laundering” scheme where products, often with a seeming “charitable purpose” were bought and delivered to Nigeria.

Some 450 cases of romance scamming had been reported in the region of Bavaria in 2023 alone, with the damages rising to 5.3 million euros ($5.7 million), police said.

The suspects, who all held Nigerian citizenship and were aged between 29 and 53, were arrested in nationwide raids on Tuesday.

Law enforcement swooped on 19 properties, including both homes and asylum shelters, police said.

The Black Axe gang had “strict hierarchical structures under leadership in Nigeria” operating different territorial units, police said.

The group had a “significant influence” on politics and public administrations, in particular in Nigeria.

Globally, the gang’s main areas of operation were “human-trafficking, fraud, money-laundering, prostitution and drug-trafficking”.

Black Axe operated under the cover of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, an ostensibly charitable organisation used as “camouflage” for the gang’s structures.

The action against Black Axe was the first of its kind in Germany, police said.

Url copied to clipboard!