Cell-Phone-Numbers.com in the News

Apple users take a bite out of crimeBy Christine TatumTribune staff reporterPublished December 13, 2002, 9:45 AM CSTHad it not been for an angry and determined band of Macintosh users, Christmas might have ruined the holidays for more computer sellers using eBay.

Melvin Christmas, that is, according to police.Markham police on Thursday charged the 38-year-old local man with two counts of forgery for allegedly bilking thousands of dollars from eBay users. Police said Christmas confessed and that more charges are forthcoming.“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Markham police Sgt. Jim Knapp said of the Apple computer users nationwide whose teamwork led police to Christmas.

“They have this strong bond that’s about a lot more than their computers.”Last month, Eric Smith, a 21-year-old student at the University of New Orleans, set off the frantic search for Christmas after receiving a bad $3,000 check for the Apple laptop computer he’d sold on eBay and sent to a Chicago address.Smith posted pleas for help on Internet message boards and chat rooms popular among Mac users. He explained that he had only three clues to the thief’s identity: An e-mail address, a cell phone number and the street address on the city’s South Side where he’d sent the computer.

More than a hundred Apple users, many from the Chicago area, responded with tips. One steered Smith to www.cell-phone-numbers.com, an online service that provides the registration information coinciding with a cell phone number. That yielded yet another address and home phone number — this time under Christmas’ name.More clues poured in.

A Mac user in Los Angeles supplied Smith with copies of e-mails he’d received from a person who bought two computers on eBay and provided $6,000 in bogus cashiers’ checks in return. Smith said the messages were identical to the ones sent to him and that they, too, led to Christmas.“We were building a solid case against this guy and all we needed was for anyone in the police to listen,” Smith said.

But Smith received little help from law enforcement. He said the FBI and three offices of the Secret Service he contacted turned down the case because it didn’t involve a significant loss, and the Chicago Police Department took a report but never called back.Fed up, the Mac users decided to take matters into their own hands. Smith set the bait by using his girlfriend’s eBay account to put another Macintosh up for sale.

He received an offer worded almost identically to the others — only this time, the buyer asked that the machine be sent to a home in south suburban Markham.Smith planned to buy a plane ticket to Chicago and — with help from his new Macintosh buddies — stake out the house and call police for help the moment the computer was delivered. Tim Michaud, a 22-year-old graphic designer from Barrington, had supplied Smith with digital pictures of the house in the 300 block of Nottingham Avenue and of cars parked in the driveway.“I’d like to see a Dell user do something like that for a complete stranger,” Smith said.After studying online maps, Smith realized Markham wasn’t part of Chicago — and he scrambled to call the Markham Police Department. Knapp pounced on the case, sparing Smith a trip to the Midwest.“I don’t know much about computers, but I have a passion for this kind of work,” Knapp said. “And Eric had made it so easy.

He’d really worked to put together this nice little package that couldn’t be ignored. ”Knapp arranged to accompany the Federal Express driver making the delivery. He said he arrested Christmas after the suspect accepted the package; a search of the house turned up another $10,000 in counterfeit cashier’s checks. Federal Express also managed to intercept another computer sent to the house by an unsuspecting woman in New York, Knapp said.

Police said they believe that Christmas, whose primary residence is on the 7300 block of South Rhodes Avenue, Chicago, is part of a larger theft ring involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen computer equipment. About a dozen other people who have lost Apple computers through eBay have contacted Markham police, claiming to have e-mail messages identical to the ones Smith received.“I think Chicago (police) will be ready to hear about this,” Knapp said.Smith, who’s still out of a computer and struggling to figure out how he’s going to pay his next tuition bill, said he’s learned a big lesson: “It doesn’t pay to mess around with Mac people.”

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