Brad's Beef

Recently I read a great novel by John Grisham entitled The Rainmaker. It’s a legal suspense thriller that it hard to put down once you start reading it. I’m sure you’ve never heard this before about a book, but the movie doesn’t even compare to how great the book is.

At times The Rainmaker is funny, suspenseful, sad, and even triumphant as the Grisham end’s The Rainmaker on a happy note, despite dozens of unexpected twists.

I recommend it for ages 16 and up and give this book 5/5 stars!

The scams that I’ve already detailed here are all part of a larger scam operation that uses the domain representative.com. If any of you are looking for someone to press charges or sue, this is probably your best bet. I found this online, for what it’s worth, which lists some of the fraudulent email addresses from this scam domain: http://www.419scam.org/419-representative-com.htm

The scammer is back but not using my name anymore. His new stolen identity is Rodney Chandler of Proctor & Gamble and the email address of blujade725@gmail.com.

Here is his fraudulent email:

Hello,

The tickets are still for sale.. I am selling my 2 tickets for $600. The price includes shipping, because i am located in Scottsdale, AZ. I will deliver the tickets via UPS overnight (UPS fees are paid by me).
I would like to do this transaction trough eBay for protection. eBay will send you the purchase confirmation with details how to purchase the tickets from me. You will be sending the money to an eBay Agent. eBay will send the funds to me ONLY AFTER you will have the tickets in hand and give the feedback for our transaction.
In order to start the official procedure, I will need you to send me: your full name, delivery address and your eBay id..

I will check my inbox for your reply later!

Thank you,
Rodney

–
Rodney Chandler
Procter & Gamble
“A new vision for environmental sustainability”

The Scammer’s counterpart in the UK (where he wants you to send him the money via western union (red flag!) is:

Douglas Bromberg, 30 Grovebury Road, London UK Zipcode: SE2 9BB

The item he was supposedly selling on Craigslist was:

2 World Series Gm 2 – San Francisco vs Giants 10/28 – section 104

For more about these scams from this scammer see my other posts: Click Here

ATTENTION: THIS IS A SCAM!

Here is the post from the scammer:

2 LA Lakers Season Tickets Complete 2010 2011 (Los Angeles) $1300

For sale 2 Season tickets for LA LAKERS for the complete year 2010 / 2011 (43 games). See the Lakers in action next season!!! I know they will do something this off season…
The section is 332 row 10 and they are ISLE SEATS!!!

Questions? Shoot me an email!

Here’s the link: http://www.ticketstweeter.com/2-la-lakers-season-tickets-complete-2010-2011-los-angeles-1300/

More details about this scammer’s scams and related scams: Click Here.

The Scammer is still at it. Here is his latest Craigslist posting:

4 Tickets Green Bay Packers vs Miami Dolphins 10/17/10 – $600

Reply to: bdmorgan147@gmail.com

Green Bay Packers vs Miami Dolphins
10/17/10 12:00 PM @ Lambeau Field
This listing is for 4 ticket(s) located in Zone A Row 2
The seats are side by side

PostingID: 1990456182

More details about this scammer’s scams and related scams: Click Here.

One of the BIG ebay/Craigslist scams going on right now convinces victims of the scam to send money to an “eBay representative”. THIS IS A SCAM. The scammer convinces the customer to enter the transaction by sending emails that look like legitimate eBay emails from this email address: safe.purchase@representative.com. This is not affiliated with eBay or anything but a sleazy scam network that steals money from innocent customers.

For more information about this scam, refer to my other posts:

http://gorgando.com/blog/topics/internet_fraud/craigslist-ebay-scam-details-dont-trust-richard-grills-of-london-with-western-union-money-transfer-its-a-scam

http://gorgando.com/blog/topics/internet_fraud/scam-alert-bradley-morgan-bdmorgan117gmail-com-craigslist-scam-nfl-tickets

Here are some excerpts from a SCAM email to show you what it may look like:

Dear John Doe, Thank you for your purchase. The total for your item below is US $500.00
			The seller Bradley Morgan started the transaction over the eBay Buyer Protection Program. We have verified all the details of this transaction, and concluded that this is a safe transaction. Please follow our instructions to complete the transaction safely. We inform you that this transaction is covered by eBay Buyer Protection Program The following item(s) are clear for eBay’s item insurance policy: Item Title: 4 Steelers @ Saints Tickets 1ST ROW! LL on 40 Yard Line Price: US $500.00 Shipping and Handling: Ready for delivery Current Status: Payment Pending Date: 06 – Oct – 2010

Complete your eBay transaction in 4 easy steps:

1. Ebay accepts the transaction and offers purchase protection to the buyer (if the transaction is declined, no further action is required from either the buyer or the seller);
2. The buyer sends payment to one of our agents.
3. Buyer receives the merchandise and has five days to inspect it. If it is complete and as described, the buyer should accept the merchandise. If he refuses the merchandise, the buyer must ship the merchandise back to the seller within three business days.
4. After the inspection period is over, the buyer must contact eBay with the result of the inspection. If the buyer refuses the merchandise, the refund will be sent to the buyer after the tracking number for the returned shipment is verified.

PayPal Buyer Protection on eBay existed only for eBay customers who paid for their purchases through a PayPal account. Now purchase protection and issue resolution for your eBay purchases will be managed by eBay, for all eligible payment methods. With eBay Buyer Protection, buyers will receive coverage for the purchase price of the item, plus original shipping.
This seller is a verified PayPal member but for the time he has problems with his PayPal account so he won’t be able to receive payment for the item through PayPal.

Payment must be sent by Western Union Money Transfer !
eBay Buyer Protection covers this transaction if the payment is handled through Western Union. We will offer you the same protection like you are paying with PayPal directly.

Payment instructions:
To submit the payment with Western Union Money Transfer you have to pay for the transfer with cash at a local Western Union agent.
Visit http://www.westernunion.com/info/agentInquiryIntl.asp to locate the agents in your area. Go to one of them and send the payment to one of our agents.

Do not forget to inform the seller (bdmorgan147@gmail.com) that you have sent the payment, and provide all the information required to confirm it!

The amount sent (in local currency);
MTCN (10 digits number from the payment receipt);
Your details (name and address)

Within 24 hours, you will receive the tracking number for your merchandise.

Purchase protection and refund:
Currently, this seller has a $3,500.00 deposit in an eBay managed purchase protection account.
Transactions with this eBay seller are covered by purchase protection against fraud and description errors. For your safety, this account was locked today, for 45 days time period. The seller is unable to withdraw any money from it, within this period.

Should you need a refund for this transaction, the insured amount will be taken from the seller’s purchase protection account and sent to you. The refund is sent to your bank account, or by check or money order. The way you are refunded is at your choice. You have 45 days from the above verification date to request a refund. Refund requests are processed within 3 days.

.


Conditions to be meet before you may ask for a refund:

1. If the item doesn’t arrive and/or the seller stops communications after the payment was received;
2. If the merchandise you receive has different specifications than the ones you agreed on;
3. If your merchandise arrives in a much longer period than the one you agreed on (more than 15 days from the payment clearance day);

For cases 2. and 3. you have to send back the merchandise to the seller prior to ask for your  refund. If you did not pay the seller by payment method required by us, your refund request will be declined.


This e-mail message was sent to you from eBay Safety Center, with the full support of the SquareTrade center.
If you encounter any problems with this transaction, please contact us.
When contacting our support team, use the reply feature so that all previous correspondences are included in your email. Otherwise, we will not be able to process your request.
To ask for a refund, simply reply to this notification and enter in the subject line: #25455422845

Thank you for using eBay!


Copyright © 2010 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.

eBay and the eBay logo are trademarks of eBay Inc

Another email excerpt from the scammer:

Ok. Done !!!

Did you receive the invoice from eBay with details on how to purchase the tickets from me?Please also check your bulk/spam folder, I sometimes receive news from eBay there.
If you got the purchase confirmation please read it. You will be sending the money to an eBay agent who will hold the money until you will have the tickets in hand. 

eBay will send the funds to me ONLY AFTER you will send them the feedback for our transaction (you received the tickets and everything is OK).

Thank you!

More details about this scammer’s scams and related scams: Click Here.

One of the victims of the Craigslist NFL Tickets scam (see my previous post by clicking here) was kind enough to share with me some of the details of the transaction. I’m posting them here in hopes of warning others about the scam. She was told by the scammer to contact Richard Grills, an alleged eBay agent in London. The address she received was 25 Northcote Rd. London. It appears the address is real, though I don’t know who it belongs to. She sent the money via Western Union, which is also a red flag! Don’t ever ever send money through Western Union or something like it to someone you don’t know.

Obviously you should never enter into any Craigslist transaction unless it’s face to face with the person or you’ve received and inspected the goods before paying the seller. But especially do not use a third party to handle the money! If you’ve found this post by searching the name Richard Grills, don’t trust him.

UPDATE: Another Scammer in the UK that as part of this scam collects the Western Union money transfers is Crystal Delapena of London, UK.

More details about this scammer’s scams and related scams: Click Here.

I was contacted this afternoon by someone asking if a craigslist post was legit. It apparently was by someone claiming to be me. Here is the fraudulent email that they sent out:

Hello,

The tickets are still for sale.. I am selling all 4 tickets for $500. The price includes shipping, because i am located in Scottsdale, AZ. I will deliver the tickets via UPS overnight (UPS fees are paid by me).
I would like to do this transaction trough eBay for protection. eBay will send you the purchase confirmation with details how to purchase the tickets from me. You will be sending the money to an eBay Agent. eBay will send the funds to me ONLY AFTER you will have the tickets in hand and give the feedback for our transaction.
In order to start the official procedure, I will need you to send me: your full name, delivery address and your eBay id..

I will check my inbox for your reply later!

Thank you,
Bradley

–
Bradley Morgan
Human Resources
Ernst & Young
“Quality In Everything We Do”

This email was sent from bdmorgan117@gmail.com and again, is a scam using craigslist and ebay- one of the common scams going around the Internet right now. I did check Ernst & Young’s employee database just to make sure there was no other Bradley Morgan, and there isn’t. If anyone has a friend that works for google and can track down this guy from his gmail access logs, I have a few choice words for him…

See my follow-up post by clicking here.

More details about this scammer’s scams and related scams: Click Here.

Yes, it’s in the app store now! For more information, check out my website: www.scripturemasteryapp.com.

Simply using Interface Builder, I could not find a way to make my buttons center multiple lines of text. If there is a super easy way, then let me know and I’ll update this post (but I don’t currently think there is). So I figured out how to do it programmatically, which is what I’m showing here in this post.

Go ahead and create your button using Interface Builder (or programmatically). If you use Interface Builder, then make sure you create the IBOutlets in the header file and appropriately link those attributes to the UIButtons in Interface Builder.

Once you’ve got the buttons created and linked, you’re ready to set the text for the button labels. To center the text you’ll need to use:

myCustomButton.titleLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter;

And to set the text so that it appears in two lines you’ll need to use:

[myCustomButton setTitle:@"theTopTextnBottomText" forState:UIControlStateNormal];

“myCustomButton” would be replaced by whatever name you’ve given your UIButton. Obviously you can use dot syntax or [brackets] for either line.

Notice that the “n” is used as a line break so that your button label will read “the Top Text” on the top and “Bottom Text” below it. Both will be centered as a result of you setting the text alignment.

Here is a snippet of my code and the resulting buttons: