[URSpider94]

The scammer had it sent General Delivery. For those not familiar with the term (it's not used commonly these days), it's possible to have something shipped General Delivery to any post office, then walk in and pick it up. See https://www.usps.com/manage/forward-mail.htm for more info. This seems like one of those arcane system hacks that's ripe for abuse.

He/she presumably had to show some ID and sign something to get the package, but I'm betting that the ID was fake.

[DannyBee]

You think general delivery is also his credit card billing address?

Do you think he walks in with different fake ids every time he does this?

Do you think he also uses different credit cards with paypal?

Or do you picture him as a nomad, like the old guy from Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, traveling the country collecting fake ids, credit cards, and iphones?

If he is super-master-ninja and all else failed, do you think it would be more or less expensive than court to honey pot him, ship him a box of rocks (or something that takes continual pictures and uploads it instantly) in a very bright pink package, fly super-economy to the place he is supposed to pick it up, and then sit in the post office a few days waiting to see your package picked up, and take pictures of the guy and his car plates?

Unless of course, he only uses public transportation to cover his tracks (or steals random cars every time he needs to travel to the post office!), and wears facial disguises, sunglasses, and a hat to make sure no camera gets a good look at him. Never the same motel room twice, always paying cash, blah blah blah.

Reality: It's actually very hard to hide when your fraud requires picking up physical items at a known location.

It's easier to hide remotely, but not so much otherwise. Even remotely, i'd put 20 bucks down that given only the info the seller has about the guy, 4chan or reddit could find in 2 days or less.

[URSpider94]

Dude, funny reply, but I never said that he was un-findable. The parent suggested sending a subpoena to the shipping address, which isn't likely to work in this case. Also keep in mind that the OP doesn't have the guy's credit card number, PayPal does -- and I bet they are not handing it over.

[DannyBee]

Sorry, I was in a snarky mood :) It seems every 2 months there is another popular blog post about how impossible it is to be a seller and how there is just no way to deal with the fraud. They act like once it involves more than email or phone, it's all impossible.

But, yes, sending to shipping address is unlikely to work.

Paypal will turn over the info if you subpoena them (you will have to open a miscellaneous matter in california and subpoena them there, but this is not a big deal).

If you are law enforcement, they will turn it over much faster, but unlike Google/et al, they generally do not object.

In fact, here's a great example of this: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/califor...

"Google has not produced documents, paypal has" :)

They are in a pretty different position, so i can't blame them. Your bank would turn over records in response to a simple subpoena as well.

Unlike your bank, Paypal will give notice and time to object to the guy, but if he objects, he will have to do so in court (and then you'd know who it is or otherwise be able to sue them directly as a doe, and so it won't matter), or paypal will turn over the records.

[codenerdz]

Thanks for your comments Danny.

You make this process seem so simple that im eager to learn it.

Can you outline steps necessary to subpoena paypal without having access to an expensive legal letterhead(that comes with an hourly legal bill attached) and to actually follow through this subpoena into getting requested documents.

I was able to get a phone number for supposedly a legal department, but I was told in so many terms to only have a lawyer call them. Im sure if pressed, paypal would give out their legal teams address.

[DannyBee]

Being a lawyer, I can't really give you actual legal advice on how to do this stuff without you being my client, but i can explain a very very generalized process.

Note that if you are not a lawyer, you will end up spending some time reading rulebooks and filling out forms that lawyers know how to fill out. There are usually legal aid folks/etc in most state courts that can help.

So let me give you an example process (Again, this is not legal advice, just an example process):

1. Open a small claims case against the pseudonym of the paypal person (to be filled in later), or what they claim their name to be if you have it, in the state you believe them to be in (assuming that state allows subpoenas in small claims. If not, you may have to open a real case in their district court, which is more expensive and requires more paperwork). This will require service of process, which will be initially hard, but there are fallbacks in case the person is deliberately making themselves unreachable, like publishing service in newspapers, etc.

2a. Start by getting a subpoena from the small claims/etc court, see if that's enough to get what you want. They may want a subpoena from their local court. In that case

2b. Contact the relevant court for paypal (northern district of california, I believe), and get them to issue an out-of-district subpoena. For the central district, you can see the exact process here: http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/court-procedures/filing-procedu...

It should be roughly the same process for northern district (the form numbers are the same, though the form content will say northern district instead).

Note that the envelope should be addressed to you.

They will assign a miscellaneous action number, and mail you an endorsed subpoena.

3. Send a copy of the endorsed subpoena (keep the original since you are likely to end up playing mail tag a few times) to the address paypal provides. Again, i don't have this address handy, but as a registered corporation, you should be able to lookup where they receive service of process. They are required to have a registered agent that accepts service of process.

If they fail to respond, file a motion to enforce the subpoena (this is covered in the URL linked above in the case of northern district, if it's another local court subpoena, they will have a similar way).

They do have a fraud investigation team which you could contact with the subpoena first, and see if they will respond. They may work only with law enforcement.

Again none of this is legal advice, there may be intermediate or more steps, i'm not responsible if the steps are not right or in the right order, or if following these steps causes you to lose all your legal rights, etc.