Scam artist warning (sorry Very long)

[Fltrplntman@domain.elided]

I am posting this with permission from George Perfect form the Maserati
Group. This is a warning of a scam artist on ebay.


I am sorry that my first post to this group for some time should be on such
an unhappy subject but I hope you will forgive me and might be willing to
help put a stop to the nefarious activities of the individual calling
himself "Travis Worrell" and using the email account  MauiCowi@domain.elided -
eBay ID mauicowi

This person has been auctioning links to car related sites claiming they are
hard to find and that his knowledge is the result of lengthy and difficult
research he has performed. One of the sites whose copyrights and information
he has infringed and abused is the Maserati Resource Centre. In the past 24
hours alone, he has obtained $30 by auctioning links to the parts
interchange database at the MRC on eBay, obtaining instant payment through
PayPal.

I was made aware of his activities by a member of a BMW discussion board
whose links and information he has been selling for some time. When the
site's owners complained to eBay and other organizations he started to post
numerous offensive messages to the site's bulletin board - often under the
names of respected regular contributors to the board whose identities he
falsely assumed.

Those who know me at all will know that I have struggled long and hard to
build the Maserati Resource Centre and ensure that all the information
contributed to the site by me and others is made available free of charge to
anyone with an interest in the Maserati marque. I have every intention that
it will remain so. It genuinely pains me to see someone deceiving and
ripping off visitors to the site, lining his own pockets in the process.

I have made formal complaints to both eBay and AOL and wait to hear from
them. It may be that both organizations consider his activities legal if
highly unethical. He has been allowed to continue his activities so far
without trouble. His claims to legality rest on his assertion that he is
doing no more than selling his "research" in the form of an email containing
a link to the web site concerned and that he is neither copying nor
distributing information taken from the site. I disagree as my site's
copyright notice prohibits any use of information presented on the site
without my permission and I consider "information" to include the URLs,
links and page titles contained within the site.

He also attempts to liken his activities to those of the major search
engines - conveniently side-stepping the fact that the engines do not charge
for access to their information and provide a genuinely useful service to
site operators - they certainly don't demand $15 for every link they serve
up, useful or otherwise.

In any case, "Travis" is fully aware of the true nature of his activities as
this gloating message he posted to the bulletin board at the
www.firstfives.org BMW site reveals:

"actually buddy, if u remember i sold the last one for your engine swap info
and the guy got to it and put it on his comp before you were able to take it
down. And also there are hundreds of other bmw fourms, claassifieds and
disscussions where i can sell the links. have a nice day ;)"

Note that he admits to selling "your engine swap info" - not a link. He also
seems quite proud of the fact that someone has then copied the copyright
material when it was clearly the site owner's intention that no such
activity took place. The inference of his message is that the information
was then published or used elsewhere - again without the owner's permission.

There has already been discussion amongst owners of the sites affected by
this scumbag about steps we might take to protect our information and
prevent what we see as his exploitation of members of the very community we
have set out to serve. I am reluctant to take such steps but I must ask you
to accept that these activities are deeply offensive to those of us who
spend thousands of hours collating, preparing and creating the information
that appears on our sites. So offensive in fact that one alternative put
forward is to remove the sites entirely.

I neither wish nor plan to follow either course of action at present.

So - how can you help? Here are a few suggestions:

1. If you are a lawyer with experience in this field of Internet scamming
willing to share your advice I would be pleased to hear from you - he
appears to be operating from U.S. soil and is operating on eBay's U.S. based
servers so experience of U.S. legislation would be especially welcome
2. If you agree with my sentiments in this matter, please add your voice to
my complaints by sending an email message to ukinfringement@domain.elided
(concerning his auction listings on eBay) and to abuse@domain.elided suggesting
that his email account and Internet access be withdrawn - I would be
grateful if you would copy the messages to me at georgep@domain.elided
3. If you see or become aware of this individual or any other offering links
or information directly derived from the Maserati Resource Centre please let
me know immediately
4. If you see auctions of links to sites you believe to relate to the MRC
("Travis" does not - for obvious reasons - disclose the names of the sites
he is selling) please take time to email anybody who bids on them, giving
them my web site address and informing them that the site is free to access
without payment to me or anyone else - visitors can also be directed to
http://www.maserati-rc.org/masrlinks.htm where they will find links to most
of the Maserati related sites on the web - almost certainly any site whose
link might form the subject of an auction
5. If you have previously paid this person (or any other) for information
derived from or for access to the Maserati Resource Centre please provide me
with as much detail as you can about the transaction so that I can pass it
on to the relevant authorities - if you wish to remain anonymous your
identity will be withheld
6. ... and finally ... as he claims to be such a keen and fastidious
researcher of matters Maserati I'm sure he would welcome as many high
resolution (ie, *large* file size) photos and sounds of Maseratis as we can
all send to him at MauiCowi@domain.elided. Don't worry if you get a response
telling you his mailbox is full - be sure to send the file again as he
shouldn't miss out on any research opportunities.

If anyone has other practical suggestions on how to overcome such abuse I
will be pleased to hear them.

In case you are wondering why I am making such a fuss over material that I
freely publish for all to see it is simply this - if I believed that people
should have to pay to see the results of my hard work I would charge for
access to the site myself. Neither "Travis Worrell" nor anyone else has a
right to obtain money for my work - most definitely not without my
permission.

His activities are those of the lowest form of parasite - and like any
parasitic infection, if left unchecked it will eventually kill its host. I
believe his activities must be stopped.

Thanks for reading


George Perfect
Maserati Resource Centre
www.maserati-rc.org

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