Yeah. Unfortunately, the scammers may not even feel they're ripping off their own society. According to commenter Charles, whose story of being scammed seems as advanced as the OP, the accounts scamming him were registered via ebay.in.

Given all the call centers and operations in India and the Philippines, for example, these low-wage countries may have a good number of people who understand how eBay and PayPal systems work. They certainly have a number of tech savvy and multi lingual folks.

If these really are Indian based, I'd argue their modern robin hood efforts aren't a good idea. However I know next to nothing about Indian culture, and we don't really know where the origin of the scam is coming from. It could be US based.

[rant]

In general, I'm unimpressed with the ability of the US government to identify major online scamming patterns and execute effectively deterring consequences for the perpetrators, as well as enact legislation that is not overreaching.

I recall one I got hit by a buyer's club called Reservation Rewards / Web Loyalty in 2007. They started in 2000. They still exist and are still scamming people under the name Affinion, Trilegiant and a host of other buyer's club names that they come up with.

In 2007, I had entered my email address twice to receive some coupon after registering for a road race on active.com. Unbeknownst to me, this legally authorized them to share my credit card with another company and start billing me $10 monthly. Apparently at that time, entering your email into two different text boxes constituted a legal signature. I didn't read the fine print because it just looked like a coupon that would be emailed to me. It didn't look like I was buying anything. I never thought my CC # could be transferred like that and have me charged by a different company. I think the partnering company (active.com, fandango.com, and others) gets a kickback from RR's "coupon" scam which is a modern discount buyer's club.

Anyway, I didn't notice the recurring charges for a few months. Once I did I found this company had been scamming people for years, since 2000. I called to get a refund and got it back in full. They put up some resistance, but having read other peoples' experiences, I knew what they would say and what I should say back. I wrote a few lengthy comments online, considered that my contribution and moved on.

There was a TV report done on them in 2009, in which their CEO stated they were following all laws in all states [1]

Web Loyalty was subsequently involved in a class action lawsuit, in which they settled [2]

According to a review on Glassdoor from a former employee, the company has since been sold to another one called Affinion [3]

There are several revealing Glassdoor reviews from current Affinion employees, this one is worth sharing [4]

In October 2013, Affinion settled with 46 state attorneys general to refund $19 million to tricked consumers. [5]

There are many complaints about Affinion on BBB.org, some of which look just like the old ones about Reservation Rewards / Web Loyalty. That is, charges for services for which people never signed up [6]

There are also some recent complaints about "Web Loyalty" here on BBB although they really fall under Affinion now. [7]

I recall reading one comment where a person was only billed once every six or 12 months, rather than monthly, so they nearly missed it.

This company has been operation for 15 years and is clearly still scammy. I'm sure lawyers would look at this and tell you it happens all the time. It's their job to see this.

To me, this is unacceptable. When you steal cash from a store you go to jail. When you scam people out of money over the internet, you get fined some amount less than your profit, make some minimal adjustment to your scamming service, perhaps sell the business to another one, get a new name and then resume as usual with a small hit to profit.

Our society does not benefit from the little money coming back via these fines.

When is our government going to learn that fines are not a proper deterrent for super scale larceny?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0RzjkOirHg

[2] http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/27/webloyalty-customer...

[3] https://archive.is/FCXKT

[4] https://archive.is/91Hf1

> "A sinking ship with part of the hull still miraculously above water. Affinion is a "Business Parody" at best."

> Pros

> I cannot, in all honesty, find one single benefit of choosing Affinion as an employer as opposed to the next company. Like quicksand, every reason for working there gets sucked into an abyss.

> Cons

> The only benefit of ever working at Affinion would be the lesson one could learn about how unethical companies with a sketchy business model are able to survive this long. At best, it is a sinking ship on its last leg of survival.

> Advice to Management

> Those in "upper management" play their "oblivious" roles to perfection. The fact is, the emperor has no clothes on...and yet every one of them can describe the non-existent clothes to the last thread.

[5] http://www.cleveland.com/consumeraffairs/index.ssf/2013/10/a...

[6] http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs...

[7] http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/business-reviews/buying-clubs...

[/rant]