win one for the little guy

I just read this article over on the consumerist.com and it instilled a little bit of hope in me for "doing the right thing".

In a nutshell, this guy got scammed while trying to sell some old video games through Craigslist. The "buyer/scammer" had sent him a fake money order. When he tried to cash it through his bank, the bank turned around and started closing his accounts! When he tried to get some sort of answers from his bank (wells fargo) he was met with indifference and not a lot of help. Rather than just chalk it all up to a lesson learned (well he did that too), he documented all of his emails and aol IM chats with the scammer and filed several police reports. Then, due to his documentation, and his report, it actually led to the arrest of the scammer who is now doing time.
Read the (rather lengthy) article here on the consumerist.com.

I find it funny that a bit of coincidences have popped up around this.
I had pretty much given up on ebay about 4-5 years ago. I had just heard of so many scams, programs that help bidders unfairly win an auction, etc. It just wasn't worth it for me. Well, about 2 weeks ago, I found myself on ebay. Sure enough, I bid (and won) an item (a toy). So now my fingers are crossed that I'll actually get the item I paid for, and that it's in decent condition. My lesson learned (I was scammed once before with ebay) is basically to never bid on an item unless you are willing to loose that money completely.
My fingers are crossed.
(oh and the other coincidence was that a buddy of mine just asked me the other day about ebay because he wants to sell a bunch of his old CD's).

Totally unrelated...
I encourage you to go read this sad blog post over on my Sister's blog.