What would you do in my situation?

[monk90222]

What? Did he think you wouldn't notice an empty box?

[tbowman]

Wow, I'm sorry this happened to you.

[waltah!]

I'm really sorry that you got scammed so badly. If it were me I would start a new thread on the BOI calling this person out for what they truly are. Since it was a trade you can't recover money, but you can try to make others aware so that he can't continue to scam. You have a good amount of info, and it's probably his real name as he has a Myspace and such under that name.

[Jamie-n-Heith]

OH NO!! What a punk, I hope you will be able to make his life as miserable as you possible can. I know your options are limited but I hope you make him pay!!!

[wilomn]

Call the police in his home town and file a report for theft. Don't let the put you off.

Save the box and label too.

[DustinB]

Was the hole just punched in the styrofoam or in the box itself? If it was in the box too you will probably have a hard time proving they didn't escape. If he was dumb enough to forget to punch a hole in the box too, then I would imagine you might have a shot. Your only recourse will likely be a civil matter, I don't know if you would actually be able to file anything criminal on this.

Either way, sorry this happened to you. Do you have any of the guy's info? If not you may be able to get local law enforcement to get fauna to release the IP address to you. Then you could locate the owning ISP of the IP and subpeona the customer's information.

It's not going to be a very quick process. Your best bet would be to "threaten" legal action noting what I said about the IP information. Be careful in your correspondence though, you only want to "inform" him of legal action including what can take place, no actual threats or abusive confrontation(language). Keep copies of all correspondence between you and him, note everything to the letter in a sequence of events.

[herpchick]

There were no holes in the box itself only in the top of the styrofoam lid. I'm going to try getting a hold of him and "threatening" legal action, but from what I can tell, all the #'s he's given are not his. Even the phone # on the UPS shipping label was an older woman who had no idea what I was talking about.

[82shovel]

Put the box and ALL the packing and tape together and take it to an UPS office and have it weighed. Then compare the weight to what the shipping weight was. That will tell you if anything was inside the box when he shipped it....

[herpchick]

Put the box and ALL the packing and tape together and take it to an UPS office and have it weighed. Then compare the weight to what the shipping weight was. That will tell you if anything was inside the box when he shipped it....

That's a good idea. I'll try the scale here at home. The shipping label said it was 1.9lbs

[DustinB]

Put the box and ALL the packing and tape together and take it to an UPS office and have it weighed. Then compare the weight to what the shipping weight was. That will tell you if anything was inside the box when he shipped it....

That's a great idea ^^^!

You do have his e-mail address so you can contact him at least, so that's good for the "threatening" part. What about the address you shipped your package to? Have you tried a reverse lookup on it for a phone number?