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Money laundering via author impersonation on Amazon?
- nixtaken 6y agoThis still seems to be happening two years later. A person complained about seeing a book sold under their name for 550 USD. It contained gibberish and the sales were recorded as income to the IRS even though the owner of the account couldn't find out where the money went. Amazon wouldn't tell her who had opened a bank account in her name. I suppose they prefer to deal with such accounts behind the scenes.
- bserge 6y agoIt's happening on eBay for over a decade. Cheap trinkets and books for insane prices. Except for the impersonation part, I don't understand that tbh.
- rwmurrayVT 6y agoYou avoid the taxes.
- bserge 6y agoOh, so any income reported won't be in your name? Clever, although you would also need bank accounts in others' name. Basically you'd need to use their whole identity, then withdraw the cash, possibly with fake IDs. Which is what they're doing, I guess.
- rwmurrayVT 6y agoYou can open accounts online with ease. I posted about it before if you peek in my profile.
- smokelegend 6y agoWire the funds offshore to a place more willing to look the other way for a small fee:do this a few times to other accounts in other countries, park the clean non-taxed cash offshore, get a cc or debit credit for the clean account...profit Sure you spend sum cash on cleaning the funds, you're still not paying taxes on that cash win/win
- therealx 6y agoIt's not too confusing to me. It gets the IRS off the trail of the actual person getting the money - they don't care that the IRS still wants money - they are confident that it wont get traced. It's truely obfuscation.
- compsciphd 6y agonotice how amazon gift cards go for higher than face value on ebay https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=amazon+gift+card&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=amazon+gift+c... My only logic is that its a form of money laundering.
- strogonoff 6y agoPardon me, but how is gift card price related and how could gift cards ever be cheaper than face value (surely someone somewhere would be working at a loss)?
- sammorrowdrums 6y agoThe question is why wouldn't someone buy from Amazon
- inetknght 6y agoI wouldn't, and haven't, bought anything from Amazon since Amazon facilitates and perpetuates fraud.
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago... Which would include gift cards for amazon, indirectly paying Amazon doesn't change that. [edit] - I'm not sure parent comment was replying to the gift card point. My comment was specifically about why buy Amazon Gift Cards from a third party ever.
- sct202 6y agoIf they're using fraudulent payment sources (stolen credit cards) it may be harder for them to use them on Amazon versus somewhere else.
- sammorrowdrums 6y agoYeah, I was sort of implying "unless there is something dodgy going on"
- folli 6y agoUsing GPT-3 to 'write' the books instead of obvious gibberish would lead to an additional layer of evasion.
- revicon 6y agoIs there a version of GPT-3 that is available for use by the general public right now? I haven't seen anything outside of OpenAPI's private beta.
- jrockway 6y agoGPT-2 is available. I played with it a little bit and was mildly impressed. I don't think I would read a book written by GPT-2, but it's better than gibberish.
- zaroth 6y agoNeeds (2018)
- Sujan 6y ago(2018)
- stevespang 6y agoAmazon refuses to issue a corrected 1099 or provide me with any information I can use to determine where or how they were remitting the royalties.” Time to lawyer up and relieve Bezos of a few tens of thousands of $$$
- choeger 6y agoNot so much laundering the money, but rather obscuring the trail between the crime and the money. Laundering would come afterwards, I presume. Ok, so to pull this of, you need to: 1. have one or more stolen credit cards (obviously not on your name) 2. sell a book under a false name and buy it with the stolen credit card 3. have a bank account somewhere either under the false name from 2. or under some other false name or with a bank that will never give out your real name So the money is not "clean" because it now rests inside a bank account with a false name or a bank that does not cooperate with authorities. In any case it is still somewhat shady.
- gruez 6y ago>1. have one or more stolen credit cards (obviously not on your name) >2. sell a book under a false name and buy it with the stolen credit card That probably won't work too well because you'll have a unusually high chargeback rate on your account which would lead to your account getting flagged. You also eat the charge of chargebacks so that will eat into your profits. This could work as a part of a larger money laundering scheme though. eg. you have cash from selling drugs and you want to clean them, so you buy amazon gift cards with it and then use them to buy your ebook. now you have a clean source of income (selling ebooks) that the IRS would be satisfied with.
- mywittyname 6y agoHow can the IRS be satisfied when someone else's identity is being used? It doesn't make sense because the launderer is still in possession of dirty, now stolen, money. I'm guessing they are using the identify of "real" authors to bypass some kind of check Amazon has on new accounts selling books from unknown authors. Otherwise, what you're saying makes sense.
- gruez 6y agoNot sure, maybe amazon doesn't require that the author be the same person as the entity selling the books (eg. LLC)? That way the IRS only really sees that Bob is getting his income from Bob's Books LLC, but unless they dig deeper they wouldn't know that Bob's Books LLC is impersonating Famous Writer. edit: this is incorrect, see thread below.
- mhb 6y agoHow is this money "laundering"? It just seems like a way to use stolen credit cards to make fraudulent charges.
- quercusa 6y agoThis feels like some sort of scam but it's not clear what the purpose would be: G.J. Blokdijk is the 'author' of thousands of medical titles: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&field-author=G.J.+Blokdijk&text=G.J.+Blokdijk&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&fie... Gerardus Blokdijk gets more than 40,000 hits for computer-related titles apparently generated by template: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gerardus+Blokdyk&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Gerardus+Blokdyk&i=stripbooks&ref...
- duskwuff 6y agoDifferent kind of scam. Those books are fillable forms -- the medical titles have pages of generic questions like "how often should I take <some medication>" and "can you take <some medication> with food", with large spaces for the reader to write an answer. The books aren't specific to the medication at all, as evidenced by the fact that they're full of irrelevant questions (like asking if an antiparasitic drug is addictive). The business titles in the second SERP look similar -- they're poorly formatted scoring systems or checklists. So yeah. Those books look "legitimate" inasmuch as they are at least intended to be bought by real people believing that they are useful, rather than as a means of money laundering. The content of the books is heavily templated to the point of making the books not worth their selling price, but that's a separate issue.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 3np 6y agoI stumpled upon Blokdijk last week when looking for resources on setting up Cyrus IMAP. I don't think this is a simple money laundering scam after looking further into it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyrus-IMAP-Server-Complete-Guide-ebook/dp/B07YKK84H6 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyrus-IMAP-Server-Complete-Guide-eb... I found the full text elsewhere and it's basically 215+ pages of boilerplate/generated questions with blank answers to fill in. Complete nonsense. It's not only sold on Amazon, but on several other otherwise-not-that-dodgy sites as well. The author even has an Australia-based business selling "licenses", "certifications", "professional development" etc. Blokdijk/Blokdyk (he spells his name inconsistently) looks like a typical conman with a small number of Schroedinger accomplices and blindsided useful idiots. https://theartofservice.com/ https://theartofservice.com/ I get the vibe that if you sign up with them, you end up as a "consultant"/"affiliate"/"coach" spending your time acquiring new nodes in the network... Maybe there's a scammy MLM-component, maybe not, it's not spelled out, but I've seen that before even when it's not obvious from anything public. I'd be surprised if their business would hold up to legal scrutiny. And given that, who are these purchasers of his books on Amazon, then? I can't imagine anyone genuinely buying this and not asking for a refund. Is it just him buying from himself to boost his image, or are they that good at selling snake-oil? ------------ Then take a look at this, one of the top results I got when searching (warning, scam and probably contains malware): https://iv.0li.ru/books_db/?q=OFdIalBBN1dvcU1DbThiNTJIOVp0YStwRVNyRHBpWmdmZmlCMDlvMk8yUHUrS1ZWczVleWNXQXJXOGYyckE3VEtGaUwvYm5BS0ZJUHdNYWEwVk5UMUg4aW0xcVAyekVVL0hZM2pvbFJTcHZpLzNzdThoekZpVUZ4T2NUaXlmNVg2alIyMlFod1N1UENxTEVwVEhGbmlUL0JVM0hZY3BYNHlVOFhXejNneFg0U2JXSDk3YmswZU91MUFHUkRObjBzVllnNUtRR3V3Z3A3dUwvazFlcTlxT1c4dDIvdDhwNE8vaVh2b25MaFUrOD0=&enc=1&id=536 https://iv.0li.ru/books_db/?q=OFdIalBBN1dvcU1DbThiNTJIOVp0YS... This is the most clever piracy-scam site I've seen. Note how the title is generated from the query and post dates are dynamically set so the earliest is old while the most recent is yesterday. It's quite poetic how these assisted auto-content generating scams are chaining on to each other (:
- ja27 6y agoI've seen the same claim about obscure mobile apps.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoinstead of using stolen credit cards wouldn't you instead have people bring their cash to get Amazon credit at a store, pay them 10 dollars per 450 dollars, they buy 'your' book with amazon credit, you've laundered 450 dollars for 10 dollars and some small expenses related to fake book generation etc.
- robalfonso 6y agoYes, exactly this. In addition you don't really need other people. If you have actual cash, buy gift cards in cash yourself then purchase online. If you can publish one book thats giberish, then you can publish dozens. And it's trivial to have a dozen amazon accounts/email combos to make the purchases with.
- lrossi 6y agoGiven that some of the titles have 1-star reviews, I think the goal is to scam people into buying expensive crap. The books are auto generated and the content is worthless. In many countries it’s difficult to request refunds for online payments, especially if it was clear what you were buying. There’s a look inside button you can use to see a large selection of pages. He generated so many books probably to cover all kinds of tech topics, to reach more victims.
- lrossi 6y agoWhat I mean to say is that a launderer would not have bothered leaving bad reviews for his own fake books. The people who did this bought the books by mistake. Not sure why this idea gets downvoted. The simpler explanation is usually right.
- dkdk8283 6y agoComments in the article are from 2018: what’s changed since then?
- kuroguro 6y agoJust fraud, not laundering. They're solving the problem of how to effectively cash out credit cards. Selling items in someone else's platform has multiple upsides: 1. it's a large trusted platform, so the victim's bank is less likely to freeze the transactions 2. multiple items with arbitrary pricing means maxing out each card is simpler 3. the platform will likely have to eat the charge-backs, so where ever the seller receives money from Amazon is relatively safe for a while to further convert into crypto or whatever 4. because of the size of the platform you can keep creating new accounts indefinitely - they cannot possibly vet all new sellers - this is probably where the stolen identities for authors come in. Amazon must be doing some basic sanity checks / credit score lookups or something similar - hence they need real peoples names / SSNs. I've seen similar things on app stores / freelancer sites etc. Yes, the accounts get flagged after a while, but there's usually enough time to cash out and creating a new one isn't that hard.
- elliekelly 6y agoHow is this not money laundering? It is most definitely money laundering. The stolen money arrives in a bank account appearing “clean” because it was “earned” via Amazon book sales. The true origin of the illicit cash is now obscured and within the mainstream financial system.
- kuroguro 6y agoThat just seems short sighted as the seller's account would be tracked down sooner or later. Entering your real details on a receiving account is way too risky. It would be possible to launder with a similar setup - just not with stolen cards but with prepaid cash/crypto ones so amazon doesn't flag the account for charge-backs. But then there's no real need to steal the book author's identity. You could just put your own name or a pseudonym on it. For a 1099 to arrive they've clearly entered the stolen SSN somewhere. You'd want your own SSN there to prove to the IRS that you've made the money... (and then you'd want to pay the taxes).
- elliekelly 6y agoNot if you’re transferring the funds to a non-US account via wire transfer. They time it perfectly so the money is in and out of the person’s account before the person even realizes it and by the time they do it’s too late. The money is gone.
- S_A_P 6y agoI know Patrick Reams- he is a semi well known ‘thought leader’/speaker in my industry. (Energy and Commodity markets) interesting to see what comes of this. What scares me is that somehow amazon knows where to send the 1099 but for whatever reason can’t let him access his account or otherwise verify his financial institution details? This doesn’t add up to me.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoSo odd question if anyone can answer. Did Amazon already have the author's information ( and hence the 1099 ) or did the fraudster submit it ( in which case, why did he give the correct address )?
- TheNorthman 6y ago> Reames is a credited author on Amazon by way of several commodity industry books They most likely already had his information.
- FireBeyond 6y ago> So I told them, ‘If you’re saying you can’t say whether I did receive the funds, tell me where they went?’ And they said, “Oh, no, we can’t do that.’ So I can’t clear myself and they won’t clear me.” I had the same with Verizon after someone opened a wireless account in my name. After supplying all the documentation they asked for, they came back to me, "our investigation believes the account was not opened fraudulently" (i.e. that they were saying that the account, and credit tradeline, were in fact mine). "So what documents did I use to open this account?" "We can't tell you, for privacy reasons." "Did you verify my identity at the start of this call?" "Yes." "And you're saying your investigation believes that I opened the account." "Yes." "So I can't see my own documents in order to protect my privacy?" "Well... in case the account isn't yours... umm, ahh..." "..." "..."
- benlivengood 6y agoI'm sure the real reason is avoiding liability for not making any real effort to verify the documents.
- EE84M3i 6y agoAlternatively, they could simply just not be making these records not available to whoever they were talking to at all and/or never disclose them as a matter of blanket policy.
- Spooky23 6y agoI had a similar issue with CVS. Resolved by escalating to state attorney general.
- silexia 6y agoAmazon has been extremely disappointing in it's lack of efforts to remove fraud like this book or the millions of fake reviews. I will no longer be buying from Amazon.
- ryanmercer 6y ago>I had the same with Verizon after someone opened a wireless account in my name. After supplying all the documentation they asked for, they came back to me, "our investigation believes the account was not opened fraudulently" Last summer I get a teams message from my manager "Call me ASAP" uhhh, crap, what did I do wrong. HR had received an attempt to verify my unemployment claim. Uh, er, what? Apparently, like millions of other Americans this past summer, I was one of the people that someone tried to fraudulently collect unemployment benefits on. I contacted the unemployment office her and reported it, a day or so later got a form email back stating this was happening like crazy and I needed to take no further action. >our investigation believes the account was not opened fraudulently" (i.e. that they were saying that the account, and credit tradeline, were in fact mine). This is an ongoing fear of mine. That come tax time they're going to be like "whoa, you owe all these taxes on the thousands of unemployment income you were paid" and I'll be like "uhhhhhhhh, no?"
- lr1970 6y agoThe linked article is from February 2018 -- almost 3 years ago. How relevant is it now in 2021?
- DeBraid 6y agoAn investor, Meb Faber, has written on this topic several times (2018): > Why All My Books Are Now Free (aka A Lesson in Amazon Scams and Money Laundering) https://mebfaber.com/2018/04/18/how-to-launder-money-with-amazon-aka-why-all-my-books-are-now-free/ https://mebfaber.com/2018/04/18/how-to-launder-money-with-am...