Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

This just in, proving once again that you can find any type of expert you need, in the paddock:

Being a Detective here in Illinois I can add a little more information to Kevin Hunt’s unfortunate screwing.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to be a criminal these days. Prison thugs are now carrying labtops and printers and bouncing from town-to-town printing fictitious checks/money orders. We see it all the time at work. The big thing now is scanning in large company checks, changing the signature line and you have the makings of your own U.S. Mint. Businesses don’t question them as much. This is compounded by bouncing from town-to-town.

Obviously the internet is a haven for the same thing. Be wary of hotmail, yahoo and other accounts. Anybody can create a fictitious name and buy stuff from it. I, too, use a hotmail account, but give people my work and secretary’s number for verification.

I had a buddy that almost got screwed on a Ducati motor. He sent the check for the motor to the guy and it never showed up. He did some checking and the guy’s voicemail was a internet voicemail that was bogus and tracked the check to a bank 90 miles from the address. Luckily, I was able to help him get his money back after I got involved. Something I learned through the process was Western Union doesn’t require identification for wire orders under $600. That’s why the guy wired the money back in two increments.

From a police standpoint, these cases are extremely hard to investigate because they require enormous amounts of work with several jurisdictions. Unfortunately, most States Attorneys Offices won’t spend the resources/time to go after them unless they have multiple cases of it or huge sums of money taken.

I had a case of computers being shipped to an empty apartment in a multiple-unit building. UPS couldn’t deliver it so they held it at their shipping facility. UPS doesn’t record your information when someone shows up to pick it up. They only require that the i.d. matches the name on the box. It’s not hard to make a fake i.d. I was unable to do anything with the case.

Kevin has some good advice. Here’s a few things to add to it.

1) Get as much information as possible, i.e. work numbers (call them to verify), driver’s license numbers and date of birth. Cell phones are hard to track because you have to have subpoenas and search warrants.

2)Use the internet to your advantage by doing the reverse lookups.

3) Use paypal or other ways that are insured.

4) I might open up a can of worms, but call me with questions or if you need help, 217-351-4561.

Detective Kevin Hanson
Champaign, Illinois
[email protected]
CCS #65, AMA #165