Well,
The saga of Mr. Melrose ends (at least as far as I am concerned).
I had decided a few weeks ago to let the authorities handle this issue. It was taking up too much of my time. I turned over all of my information to the FBI’s Internet Crimes division (
http://www.ic3.gov/). I was contacted a few weeks later by them confirming information and telling me that it was being forwarded to the appropriate local authorities that had jurisdiction. A few days after that I get an email out of the blue from Mr. Melrose:
“I have been out of the loop for some time for a reason, I do have some good news - Your PDA has been recovered. It took the past month working with some friends of mine trying to track down the culprit who did this to both you and me. Which he was directly confronted, and when faced to turn over the items he stole from you using my address and my good name
or be brought up on several charges. He did turn everything over, but I
need a list from you what you shipped out. Also, what do you want done
with thiese items, do you want them back or what? My cashflow is
currently low, I have been on unemployment so I don't think I can ship
this stuff to you for at least another week. Please let me know what
you want to do.
Thanks,
Scott Melroseâ€
After some back and forth emails, I realized he wanted to return the Ipaq because he was facing charges. I can only assume that some police agency contacted him and that got him into action. This last Friday I actually received the Ipaq as well as a few extra accessories that I had not originally sent.
Mr. Melrose still maintains that this was all the result of a nefarious cyber criminal who stole his ID and perpetrated all of this.
But wait! The plot thins….
Shortly after receiving the Ipaq I was able to restore it even though Mr. Melrose had tried to perform a hard reset.
Low and behold, the Ipaq restored to all of Mr. Melrose’s information. Not only all calendar (Yep works at Blockbuster), contacts (him with his banking and credit card info, his whole family, as well as many others), but also several documents which tie him to this PDA.
I could not resist confronting him on this. He claimed that while inspecting the Ipaq he must have inadvertently sync’d his information on it. Pretty dumb thing to do, but I could almost believe it, except there was loads of information that would not be sync’d. Software with his name and email used in the registration, Documents that would not be sync’d unless you intentionally copied them to the device, and several backup’s in the file store from as far back as 1/22/2006. Several items with date stamps that were spaced out over the last few months. Oddly enough, the first backup with Mr. Melrose’s personal info on it is 2 days after he would have received it from me.
In the end, I got back my PDA along with a few extra items and hopefully Mr. Melrose will think twice before he rips some else off.
Lesson for all: Don’t lie down and take it when someone rips you off. Stand up for yourself and be aggressive in seeking justice.
Tony
