Ok Ladies and Gentlemen,
I can wait no longer, the police are involved and events are developing as I write this. There have been a total of three people including myself that I know of that have sent money to a Mr. Austin Laesch of Peoria, IL. He runs by the name of HeavyHit on this board. His email address is iggster22@insightbb.com. I am sure that there are alias's both with insightbb.com addresses and aliases here on the board. He has recieved $750 from three individuals for a single 60gb empeg mk2a. Austin Laesch is possibly an alias as well. Do NOT I repeat DO NOT buy anything from anyone unless it is through Ebay. Do not deal with this individual, he is nice and cooperative until he gets your money. Until this person is caught I would be extremely wary about buying anything from anyone on this board. If anyone thinks they may have been scammed please call Detective Green, Peoria PD, 309-494-8385 as soon as possible.

If we act quickly we can keep other people from getting victimized and hopefully recoup some of our losses, but most of all put this guy behind bars. My number is 360-440-5647 if anyone would like to contact me directly.

Additionally, I am offering a $200 reward for anyone that helps me recover my money or an empeg. $200 is all I have to offer so if two of you provide the info that gets my shiznit back that is 100 bones each. If anyone lives near Peoria, this may be your lucky day. I can't speak for the others involved but they may wish to add to that reward.

StaHi
(Chris)

Spotted a HeavyHit empeg For Sale post over at SoundDomain...

/Michael

In that case we need to pass this info on to other BBS's

laescha@insightbb.com is anhother of his email addresses.

http://www.pcabusers.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1254

belozero also appears to be a possible alias.

Well, I guess a mix-up can be ruled out then ...

The only other info I can add to that which Stahi has already posted is this -

The bank account name that he used was under the name of Roger Laesch (possibly his real name, a relative's name or just another alias). It was the National City Bank, 301 SW Adams St. Peoria, IL 61652.

It would seem his efforts have been quite lucrative so far. Let's hope he is caught and receives his just deserts.

Andy.

Post deleted by jimhogan

THAT IS THE SON OF A BITCHES ADDRESS.

It's a damn shame this happened on the board. I have bought from two different members and I am getting ready to buy from another member. Most of the members I would say are very trust worthy but there has been a rash of new people coming here just to sell empegs and never being heard from again.

I hope you guys are able to recover your money. I looked back on this thread this morning and had figured out who it was. I hope he rots in hell.

Unfortunately he frequents this board and knows everything posted on here.

Send all the email to the detective--see if you can get the dumb bastard to pose with the thing so the cops have an EASIER trail to follow.

Unfortunately he frequents this board

And for that reason I deleted my previous post. Not like it's really critical or anything, but in a case like this in future I would PM anything I tripped across to the primary police contact (stahimooney in this case) until matters are resolved.

Tactics, essentially.

Jim

Deepest sympathy friend,

There is no excuse for dishonesty, if I could help in any way I surely would!

http://www.merlins.org/archives/empeg-forsale/2002-April/001616.html

Username HeavyHit as well as fixed IP address 12.221.51.53 have been banned from this BBS.

If it turns out that the user has been mistakenly accused of the crimes, these bans can be reversed.

Wow... I suddenly have communication. I have pictures. I have a tracking number.

You know what? I am not buying it. I am not stopping this, I am pressing charges.

If I get a working 60gb empeg mk2a--and I am posting the serial to make sure it is not stolen--I will be the first to admit I was wrong and I completely misjudged him. I will publicly kiss some ass. I will drop the charges that I have filed. Email and pictures doesn't change the fact that he has missed deadlines, with NO communication, it doesn't change that there is a HISTORY going back to 1999 of bad deals associated with the name Austin Laesch. Further Andy Stott will get his empeg or his money as well, same for the other gentleman, or the police will continue to pursue this.

If I get my empeg, so what... you don't take someone's money and not keep them informed. I made it VERY clear that I could wait as long as I knew what was going on. He's had the money 8 days and I paid extra for OVERNIGHT shipping, and I hear from him sporadically with missed shipping times; times that HE set?

At this point I feel justified.

Stahi

I haven't heard anything from him yet.

I think the combination of his recently revealed trading history and the fact that his for sale post implied that he only possessed 2 such Empegs (one of his own plus the one he was selling) yet had agreed deals with three separate people, still leaves me suspicious.

With so few NIB 60Gb units still available, I can't see that he is taking orders that he plans to fulfil by buying in the units from elsewhere as he makes deals either.

I hope I am proved wrong, but I won't be holding my breath ...

Austin / Roger, if you are out there, would you care to comment and to clear up this mess ...?

Andy.

If you decide to take empeg, ask for refund of at least on 15-20%. Make him pay.

If smbdy would do this for me, I will ask to compensate my time for $200-$300 in either way. This has to be punished, it is affecting anybody, who is honest by their intentions. And this sucks. Because of one ... you cannot trust people anymore? Make him pay on this.

If I get the product and it is in good working order, I am satisfied that I got what I paid for out of the deal. I am not out to demand compensation simply because I have the attention of the police. I wouldn't feel right about that. "when fighting monsters..." That would be personal gain. If I got $200 refunded that may be Andy's $200 or something like that. On the other hand this isn't over until all the people that claim to be wronged have been satisfied. I think Austin will have to sleep in the bed HE made. Things have a way of evening out. Karma or whatever you want to call it.

Either way we shall see sooner than later methinks.

Still a case for fraud? - selling Overnight mail service and not providing it. I think that he should refund the shipping charges, but at this point I'd be happy just to escape with what i'd paid for...

andys - I hope that your situation gets resolved too.

This has nothing to do with the buyer or sellers in this post, but I thought I would vent out on this post since I'm getting scammed too.

I sold an empeg on ebay for over $600, and the buyer sent me 4 equal paypal payments to equal $600. Then he made a chargeback on the credit card for 3 of the payments, saying that the other 3 were repeat computer errors. Since I accepted all of the seperate payments, and sent to an unconfirmed address, paypal doesn't give a f*ck! I even showed them the ebay auction and emails, and I even got charged $10 for each chargeback losing another $30 on top of the $450. I tried fighting this case for a few months and even contacted some other ebay sellers he did the same thing to. They all gave up, and told me to just take the loss and deduct it from my taxes.

I hate that bullsh!t.

I am the third victim of Mr. Laesch's scheme. I just wanted to post to publicly thank Chris (StaHi) for his diligence and communication early on in these developments as I would not have realized until several vital days later that I may have been scammed. Chris has also been very forthcoming with information that I am currently using to seek recourse and (hopefully) restitution.

In any event, although I don't post often, I have been a member of the empeg community for some time (Mk2: 080000085...full price ;-) ) and have never witnessed anything like this. Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come w.r.t. the empeg community.

I'll keep everyone posted.

Keith

After reading this thread I checked all my deleted emails. About a month ago I posted a message requesting to purchase a Rio Car. I received an email from an Austin Laeten with email address iggster22@insightbb.com

The surname is slightly different to the other posts, but the email address is identical. He told me he would sell me a sealed 60GB Rio for $650, and to hurry, as he only had a few left.

I didn't purchase the item from him, as I was a bit wary. Just thought I would pass on the info - may be useful? I still have the email if it'll come in handy.

Phil

Again I urge everyone that has had contact with this person to email the detective that I posted earlier. Even if it was relatively harmless, it may provide a missing puzzle piece.

As you know I have been pursuing this both locally, and in Peoria. I have been CC'ing both law enforcement agencies everything I find out, and here is a little feedback from my local Law Enforcement Agency--Chris

My Sergeant has referred this to the FBI, please advise the other victims.
Good luck with your case.
Karen Swanson


From :
"John Sprague" <JSprague@MAIL1.CO.KITSAP.WA.US>

To :
"Karen Swanson" <KSwanson@MAIL1.CO.KITSAP.WA.US>

Subject :
Referral of Internet Fraud Case K02-007985

Date :
Tue, 21 May 2002 00:53:33 -0700

MIME-Version: 1.0
I reviewed the report of the information you received from Christopher Bennet. It appears this was a interstate transaction
facilitated by the internet. I have marked it for forwarding to the FBI, as it appears to be their jurisdiction.

I noticed that Mr. Bennet sent you a "CC" of his E-mail. Could you please send this message to him to that he knows of our having
forwarded the case. Also, for future reference there is a web-site that may be of assistance to citizens in similar situations.
The site is at : http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

It is an internet fraud reporting site from the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. They have a reporting mechanism
that relates to internet auctions and sales when the merchandise is not delivered.

Sergeant J. Sprague
Kitsap County Sheriff's Office
Port Orchard, WA 98366

mail and wire fraud are serious offenses and are very difficult to extract oneself from without great expense once charged.

I don't have any sympathy at this point he has had EVERY opportunity to avoid this.

I followed the link in the above post and it is very useful for report this type of crime. Hopefully effective also.

Austin,
What about the other two people that you sold a 60gb empeg to and
you recieved $750 each from? People are popping up all over the place
saying that someone in IL ripped them off, and it all sounds very
familiar.

(Austin's Reply)
They will get the empegs too! I shipped it today.. Tracking # is in my car
and it might not be valid yet... (no bullshit) Sometimes it takes awhile
for it to register.. Ask USPS why that is but I don't know.. It will be
there in 2-3 days.

-Austin

It seems like the only way to avoid this in the future is to use a trusted third party to hold everything in escrow and make sure everything is as represented.

Didn't there used to be .com's that would do this for you? Though the one I actualy heard of just required you had proof that you'd shipped anything to the address the money came from... The other option is a trusted member of this board, but that's a lot to ask of someone.

Matthew

I got this Tuesday afternoon approx 3pm Pacific time on 5.21.02

Interesting reading to say the least. 2-3 days for a package to arrive, maybe 2-3 days to haul a$$ out of town... A federal warrant knows no state boundaries if that is the case. On the other hand, I absolutely attest that I will apologize if he follows through. I hope that Andy and Keith get what they want out of the deal too. If I am wrong I don't think a single person here would have done anything different. Ok the possibility exists that he isn't a crook, and I will apologize for that accusation, but he is a horrible businessman.

I am not getting my hopes up and I am still pushing the charges until the package arrives. If...

I absolutely attest that I will apologize if he follows through

I wouldn't. He's had your money for what, 10 days? Whether simply disorganized, somewhat shifty or totally larcenous, this guy brought it on himself. I'd pursue the legal aspects until there is nothing left to pursue -- until everybody's satisfied. But I wouldn't apologize. If you actually get the unit, consider that you might never had received it unless you involved John Law.

(I see they deleted the 2 HeavyHit For-Sale threads on the soundomain BBS)

Jim