Introduction Michael Zimmerman stole money from me. In early 2004 I agreed to buy an Apple PowerBook laptop from Michael Zimmerman. Once he received the money he ceased contact, and there were no options for me to pursue it. Here we are, years later, and the means now exist to make other people aware of what this person did. The evidence is here. If you know Michael Zimmerman please ask him about this. The Advertisement - Michael Zimmerman's username was gcs3infl: The Full Story: In February 2004 I was looking to buy a used or near-new Apple PowerBook. I found a listing on the PowerBookCentral.com web site (since gone) which was suitable. The item: - Apple PowerBook G4/1.33GHz 17” with the standard 512Mb RAM - Timbuk2 Case (black) - Apple iLife '04 DVD - Price: $2500 firm I contacted the seller and established contact. I made an offer and he replied with a clear acceptance of that offer. We agreed that I would pay him via Telegraphic Transfer (ie bank transfer from my bank account to his) and I did this shortly after. These days we have PayPal, but that wasn’t available to me at the time. My offer: - $2400 without the Timbuk2 Case (ie the case had a RRP of $130 at the time). Contact details provided by Mr Zimmerna: Email Address: vfib71@yahoo.com Telephone: 305-519-8389 For the next few days, things seemed ok. I emailed him shortly after making the transfer and he replied that it hadn’t come through yet. I later learned (from speaking with someone at his bank) that the money had in fact appeared in Mr Zimmerman’s bank account almost immediately. After a few days of email conversation all contact from Mr Zimmerman ceased. I rang the phone number he gave me earlier but never got to speak to a live person (ie it was always an answering service). Sometimes I would hang up and try again later, and sometimes I would leave messages explaining how stressed I was becoming and requesting that he contact me as soon as possible. It was becoming apparent at this time that this transaction was a fraud. I never again did hear from Mr Zimmerman. Email and phone discussions with Mr Hyte at his bank confirmed that there had been phone conversations between Mr Hyte and Mr Zimmerman at the time of the transfer. In these conversions Mr Hyte told Mr Zimmerman that the transferred money was in his account. Once it became apparent that this was a fraud I rang the Miami-Dade police but after frequent transfers and waiting on the phone was not able to make any progress. I later found out about the Internet Fraud Complaint Centre and resolved to make a complaint via that. During the discussions, there was a photo on Mr Zimmerman’s personal web site of his home office. In that photo is a PowerBook 17”, which I assumed to be the one that I was purchasing. I was checking this site regularly at the time and it was regularly updated, confirming to me that Mr Zimmerman was in fact around and not pre-occupied in such a way that would have prevented him from contacting me or sending the item that I had paid for. Unfortunately, my mother had died suddenly a couple of weeks before all this (ie 11th February, 2004) so as a result of the stress of that and the funeral, along with other factors, I wasn’t able to allocate significant resources to this at the time. Needless to say, I severely regret that now. In my personal opinion, this is a clear case of intended fraud and I hope that Mr Zimmerman can be somehow be held responsible. What he did is disgraceful, and I hope that all his family and friends become aware of what he did.