On being a “victim”

Earlier this year, I received an email from the US Department of Justice Victim Notification System.  I was surprised—I thought it was spam—but after checking the headers and reading the body of the email I realized it was authentic.  The email said I was victim of a federal crime, and that the email notification system would be used to keep me notified of legal proceedings in the case—I was also given a “Victim Identification Number” and password so I could login to the DOJ website to keep track of the trial.  This was all very fascinating, yet I had absolutely no idea what any of it was about!  The defendent was “Brian Ginsberg”, who I’d never heard of.  They had my full name and my email address, though, so obviously something was up.  A bit of sleuthing through the DOJ website revealed that Ginberg was charged with 13 counts of “mail fraud”, but that was all it said.  I was told I could email the “Victim Witness Coordinator” for more information, but I felt guilty about using up the time of a professional who probably had real victims to worry about.  I didn’t feel like I was much of a victim, considering that I didn’t even know how I’d been defrauded.

Months have passed since my first email from the USDOJ, and the trial has proceeded.  The defendent plead guilty to one count of fraud, and 12 other counts are still listed as pending.  I imagine there might have been a plea bargain and that those 12 counts will never be prosecuted.  I was invited to offer a “victim impact statement” back in June (which I didn’t do, as I the only impact I’ve felt from this is confusion), and sentencing will happen in October.

I’m now vaguely happy to report that I know what this is all about.  After searching around the Internet for information, I found this tidbit of info on a sports memorabilia site, “The FBI has busted another forgery operation which included the boxer Chuck Wepner in addition to several other individuals. The individuals included Brian Ginsberg, Michael DeSola and John Olson. These people forged a large number of Muhammad Ali photographs and flooded the market with them.”  Aha!  Fake autographs!  Now that, I understand.  In the past, I have purchased a number of autographed photos on eBay, but I have no idea which ones I might have purchased from Brian Ginsberg.  I’ve never purchased sports memorabilia of any sort, or autographs from athletes, so I don’t think I’ll ever know which of my pictures are fakes.  I take some comfort in the fact that I never paid very much for anything I bought, but I’ll definitely have to make sure I never try to resell them.

I consider myself a very, very careful eBay-er.  I read feedback, read all the fine print, etc. and I never buy anything like an autograph from someone who doesn’t have a good reputation.  I guess the lesson here is that if you manage to fool 100+ people, you can build a good reputation anyway!

Man pleads innocent in sports memorabilia fraud case

FBI charges another in Operation Bullpen

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/13 at 01:03 AM

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  1. The email said I was victim of a federal crime

    Why is the federal government sending emails as a form of notification to crime victims? A letter in the mail is far more appropriate.

    Posted by Nio  on  08/14  at  06:33 AM

  2. One has to be so very careful with everything these days,  including our identity.

    Posted by Coll  on  08/14  at  06:58 AM

  3. Nio, they may not have had my contact information other than my name and email address—I guess it depends on where they got it from.  There’s a chance the guy who was charged with the crime just kept my name and email address on a contact form or something.. I really don’t know.

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  08/14  at  12:55 PM

  4. The US government can find just about anything (except Obama). I can’t imagine they can’t find your address and phone number. Christ, my first step would be to call 411.

    Posted by Nio  on  08/14  at  04:24 PM

  5. Wolf just corrected me. It’s Osama I meant to say, NOT Obama.

    On a completely unrelated note, I was listening to NPR today and they were talking about the housing market in Vegas and how it’s a buyers market. Those selling are not going to get the money they paid for their houses.

    Posted by Nio  on  08/14  at  04:26 PM

  6. I’m not sure if the govt knows where Obama is, either ;-)  As for the crime, I don’t think I was defrauded out of more than about $20, so they may not have put much effort into finding me (you won’t find me via 411).  It really doesn’t matter to me—I found the story more amusing/bewildering than anything else.  I feel sorry for anyone who spent thousands and thousands of dollars on fake sport memorabilia, though.

    Yes, Vegas is a buyers’ market right now.  Houses got really expensive really quickly, and we’ve run out of people who can afford them.  Our neighbour’s house took about 4 months to sell (it finally sold last week).  We hope our house is a little bit different—a very large yard and a pool—so it might have unique appeal to buyers if we wanted to sell.  It’s not another generic house, 5 feet from its neighbour, with a postage stamp-sized lot, as so many of them are.

    Congratulations on your first day of school, btw!

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  08/14  at  04:49 PM

  7. Remember earlier this year, an eBay seller who took off with - I can’t remember, a LOT of money. He’d built a high volume, good rep with tons of positive FB, selling electronics - iPods and the like.  Then he took a ton of orders and money, didn’t send anything out and bailed.
    I’ve bought and sold a bit on eBay. Only once was I really scammed. Paid for a pair of “authentic” Suncloud glasses and they were clearly knockoffs.
    They say it’s a buyer’s market here in SE MI too. Trouble is, so many people are trying to sell, some houses are taking a year or more, people are getting negative appraisals and having to really drop the selling price. I had mine on the market for 9 months and got nothing but a few lowball offers. It’s paid for, so I figured I’d stay for a while more. Who knows, the market might pick up around here! We are having a record number of foreclosures in this county, so it’s probably easy to get deals on houses the bank has taken back. That’s how I bought mine.

    Posted by Carina  on  08/17  at  02:48 AM
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