Musings of an Internet Junkie

As some of you may recall, I was the victim of a scam artist named Paul Calabrese at the end of 2007 and Paypal refused to collect from his account after finding in my favor through their dispute system. After I filed an unauthorized transaction investigation with my own bank, Paypal then attempted to collect from me, going so far as sending me to a collections agency. After I disputed the transaction again, in writing to both the collection agency and Paypal, Paypal quietly resolved the issue in March by crediting my account back the amount they had removed after I had filed the unauthorized transaction investigation.

I was never contacted via email, phone, or written letter upon the resolution which I find odd since any transaction on my Paypal account in the past had always generated a message in my inbox. I was notified on July 4, 2008, that my funds could now be withdrawn from my Paypal account which I found odd and upon logging in found the transaction under dispute had been reversed in March, 2008, not long after I had written the letter to the collection agency and Paypal.

In November, I filed a dispute with PayPal since another PayPal user decided to take payment from my for a number of items and never shipped said items. I was awarded a claim on the dispute in December from PayPal, however at that time PayPal would not collect against the user Paul Calabrese, meth8600@hotmail.com due to “insufficient funds” in his account so I was never granted a refund.

I decided to file a fraud claim with my own bank due to PayPal’s lack of resolution. Today PayPal decided to return the money back to my bank by removing it from my own PayPal account thereby causing my PayPal account to have a negative balance. What I do not understand is why this could not have been done to user Paul Calabrese’s account at the time of dispute since PayPal seems so willing to make my account negative to resolve a dispute with my bank and why I am being penalized via my PayPal account instead of the person who committed the fraud. It is my belief that PayPal could have and should have removed the money from Paul Calabrese’s account to resolve this issue and leave him with a negative balance.

Now I am left to dispute the negative balance of my account with PayPal, who created the negative balance to begin with. Most likely they will claim ignorance or it is some policy or procedure and then will attempt to go on to try to collect back the money from me by ruining my credit record. I cannot even close my own account with PayPal at this time to protest since I have a negative balance which they created through their actions. Needless to say, I have been documenting everything from the time the first transaction occured, through the dispute and claim process, and now this new twist. The saga continues….

I am appealing to the Internet community at large to help provide me with information to track down one Paul Calabrese, located in Connecticut. Mr. Calabrese took payment for automotive parts orders from several people on Club Lexus and never delivered the parts, instead opting to take the money and disappear. All of us involved have filed disputes through PayPal who has been less than helpful in recovering our money from Mr. Calabrese. I have also personally filed complaints with the Internet Crime Complaint Center and filed a fraud affidavit with my own bank. I do not expect much help from these entities either.

My ultimate goal would be to locate Mr. Calabrese so I may bring charges against him for fraud and other laws which may have been broken in this failed interstate commerce transaction. I would also like to show that people are not as anonymous on the Internet as they would like to believe seeing as how fraud on the Internet is on the rise which I posit is because people believe they have some sort of anonymity on the Internet so they will not be held accountable for their actions. Club Lexus will not release the last logged IP address of Mr. Calabrese without a subpoena. PayPal will not release Mr. Calabrese’s address without a subpoena.

Here is the information I have collected on Paul Calabrese thus far:

Name: Paul Calabrese
Location: Connecticut (possibly around the Waterbury area, although this has not be verified)
Birth Date: January 14, 1986
Car: 1993 Lexus SC400, silver spruce color
Screen Name: Cal9126
Email: meth8600@hotmail.com

What is the deal with SUV and pickup truck drivers these days? I drive a a grand touring sports car, and it is not a small car seeing as how it weighs in at ~3500lbs without me in it, yet these drivers must be blind since they are either pulling out in front of me, or pulling so far ahead of me when I am attempting to make a left hand turn that I can no longer see if there is any oncoming traffic from the right hand side forcing me to wait for their sorry excuse of a life to get out of the way so I can safely enter traffic.