Penn Yan man entangled in international identity theft
By GWEN CHAMBERLAIN THE CHRONICLE DEXPRESS

PHOTO BY THE CHRONICLE EXPRESS Jeff Ball of Penn Yan is pictured above with his computer.

PENN YAN - We've all heard it, and Jeff Ball probably has too: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

The day after Ball lived those age-old sayings and admitted to the world on national television he had been taken in an international scheme involving Internet shopping with stolen credit card information, he talked with reporters and family from out of town even though he had other major worries, such as:

How could he prevent a foreclosure on his house.

How could he find full time work to help pay the day-to-day bills he and his wife, Terese, face, let alone recover from the loss of an estimated $40,000 in the last six months?

How could he repair the damage that had been done to family relationships? Would he ever recover from the depressive funk he was in since that day in November when he learned he'd been scammed?

But Ball says his mission now is to make sure other people understand the perils of doing business in the age of the Internet and credit card schemes.

"I don't want to see others go through something like this," he says, later adding, "I don't want people to think I'm a bad person. I just got caught up in something. I put my own foot in my mouth."

The Penn Yan man was featured on the March 27 NBC television show Dateline as host Chris Hansen and Internet experts and investigators worked to expose identity thieves who use stolen credit card information to buy electronic goods and other items from retailers. The scammers had the items shipped to Ball and others who then shipped the items to locations in Europe and Africa. Jeff says he was led to believe the system was a legitimate operation and that he and his wife were on the ground floor of a growing business.

It must have been an attractive opportunity for a detailer at a local car dealership (He was laid off in October, and then let go from a trial period at Shepard Ford in Canandaigua the day the television show aired last week.).

"I thought I was working with someone from Solon, Ohio who was opening a store in Australia and they needed a drop ship location here," he says.

Mr. Ball used his own money to pay for shipping the packages overseas. One cargo bill alone was over $2,600, but he was expecting to be reimbursed for the shipping costs.

But everything changed the day before Thanksgiving, and the Balls' very public ordeal continues in another installment of the Dateline show on Tuesday, April 3 at 8 p.m.

In that episode, Mr. Ball says viewers will see how the television show investigators and reporters followed some of the packages sent overseas from his South Avenue home. "They will follow packages to London, Switzerland and Africa."

Mr. Ball says once he learned he was a victim of a scam artist, he decided to help the television show expose the people behind the scheme.

The Balls' story began in July, when Jeff first started communicating with a person who identified herself as Wendy Kenson in an Internet chat room. By August, he had talked with "Wendy" more, and she was beginning to talk about opening a business that would involve her associates sending packages to him.

He says he talked about it with his wife, and decided, " You think you're going to be making extra money."

From September through November, he received scores of packages and shipped them on - laptop computers, home entertainment systems, DVD players, and a variety of other electronics. Most of the items were purchased online from companies like QVC and Finish Line Shoes.

At the same time, he and "Wendy" exchanged some romantic messages, and he told the Dateline delivery people Wendy was going to marry him. Now he explains that was all part of the bigger plan, that he had been told he had to say that if people asked about their relationship.

But it seems "Wendy" wanted to take the relationship in another direction too. Mr. Ball says, "She wanted me to open a bank account and she would put money into it."

He didn't open that account, but he did open a Paypal account where about $18,000 was deposited.

After his first meeting with the Dateline crew, he contacted stores to return the items that were in his house awaiting shipment overseas. That's when he discovered the goods were sent to him as gifts.

It all eventually went back to the retailers, and Dateline staff made sure the owners of the credit cards had been credited for the purchase.

"I didn't want those people to be out of their money," he says.

But it didn't take him long to realize he was out all the money he'd spent to ship items overseas. When he met with Chris Hansen of Dateline the day before Thanksgiving he was expecting to be reimbursed any day. "I really thought she (Wendy) was on her way here to pay all the bills."

A Dateline producer has taken over his identity online and has maintained contact with "Wendy." They recently discovered a new entry in the chat room from "Wendy" announcing that she lives at Jeff's house in Penn Yan but she's looking for another boyfriend because she discovered he was involved with another woman.

Mr. Ball isn't the only one feeling the sting of humiliation from being scammed. His wife, who works at Badger Electronics, quietly listens as her husband describes the situation in which they find themselves. She says she'd rather not comment on their fix except to say, "It plumb sucks."

Perhaps that's an understatement. Mr. Ball, who also had some explaining to do to Mrs. Ball about comments he made about Wendy being his fiance, said he was so depressed about the situation, he didn't dare take his gun out to go hunting late last year.

He's cancelled his own credit cards and is concerned about the security of his bank accounts.

Now he just wants to help Dateline catch the people responsible for the scheme, and he's been willing to talk with other media about his experience. On March 28 he spent 90 minutes on the phone with a New York Times reporter who covers technology and security for that publication.

He is not being paid by Dateline for his continued involvement. When asked what he might do if he could confront the person or people responsible for the situation, he says, "I don't know, but it won't be pretty."