A Canadian man who says he’s been falsely charged with orchestrating a posh e-commerce rip-off is searching for to clear his identify. His case seems to contain “triangulation fraud,” which happens when a client purchases one thing on-line — from a vendor on Amazon or eBay, for instance — however the vendor doesn’t truly personal the merchandise on the market. Instead, the vendor purchases the merchandise from a web-based retailer utilizing stolen fee card knowledge. In this rip-off, the unwitting purchaser pays the scammer and receives what they ordered, and fairly often the one occasion left to dispute the transaction is the proprietor of the stolen fee card.
Triangulation fraud. Image: eBay Enterprise.
Timothy Barker, 56, was till just lately a Band Manager at Duncan’s First Nation, a First Nation in northwestern Alberta, Canada. A Band Manager is liable for overseeing the supply of all Band applications, together with neighborhood well being providers, schooling, housing, social help, and administration.
Barker instructed KrebsOnSecurity that in the course of the week of March 31, 2023 he and the director of the Band’s daycare program mentioned the necessity to buy objects for the neighborhood earlier than this system’s funds expired for the yr.
“There was a rush to purchase items on the Fiscal Year 2023 timeline as the year ended on March 31,” Barker recalled.
Barker mentioned he purchased seven “Step2 All Around Playtime Patio with Canopy” units from a vendor on Amazon.ca, utilizing his fee card on file to pay practically $2,000 for the objects.
On the morning of April 7, Barker awoke to a sequence of nasty messages and voice calls on Facebook from an Ontario lady he’d by no means met. She demanded to know why he’d hacked her Walmart account and used it to purchase issues that had been being shipped to his residence. Barker shared a follow-up message from the lady, who later apologized for dropping her mood.
One of a number of messages from the Ontario lady whose Walmart account was used to buy the products that Barker ordered from Amazon.
“If this is not the person who did this to me, I’m sorry, I’m pissed,” the girl from Ontario mentioned. “This order is being delivered April 14th to the address above. If not you, then someone who has the same name. Now I feel foolish.”
On April 12, 2023, earlier than the Amazon purchases had even arrived at his dwelling, Barker acquired a name from an investigator with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who mentioned Barker urgently wanted to come back right down to the native RCMP workplace for an interview associated to “an investigation.” Barker mentioned the officer wouldn’t elaborate on the time on the character of the investigation, and that he instructed the officer he was in Halifax for a number of days however may meet after his return dwelling.
According to Barker, the investigator visited his dwelling anyway the next day and started questioning his spouse, asking about his whereabouts, his work, and when he may return dwelling.
On April 14, six packing containers arrived to partially fulfill his Amazon order; one other field was delayed, and the Amazon.ca vendor he’d bought from mentioned the remaining field was anticipated to ship the next week. Barker mentioned he was confused as a result of all six packing containers got here from Walmart as an alternative of Amazon, and the delivery labels had his identify and tackle on them however carried a contact telephone quantity in Mexico.
Three days later, the investigator known as once more, demanding he undergo an interview.
“He then asked where my wife was and what her name is,” Barker mentioned. “He wanted to know her itinerary for the day. I am now alarmed and frightened — this doesn’t feel right.”
Barker mentioned he inquired with an area lawyer a few session, however that the RCMP investigator confirmed up at his home earlier than he may converse to the lawyer. The investigator started taking photos of the packing containers from his Amazon order.
“The [investigator] derisively asked why would anyone order so many play sets?” Barker mentioned. “I started to give the very logical answer that we are helping families improve their children’s home life and learning for toddlers when he cut me off and gave the little speech about giving a statement after my arrest. He finally told me that he believes that I used someone’s credit card in Ontario to purchase the Walmart products.”
Eager to clear his identify, Barker mentioned he shared with the police copies of his bank card payments and buy historical past at Amazon. But on April 21, the investigator known as once more to say he was coming to arrest Barker for theft.
“He said that if I was home at five o’clock then he would serve the papers at the house and it would go easy and I wouldn’t have to go to the station,” Barker recalled. “If I wasn’t home, then he would send a search team to locate me and drag me to the station. He said he would kick the door down if I didn’t answer my phone. He said he had every right to break our door down.”
Barker mentioned he briefly conferred with an lawyer about how one can deal with the arrest. Later that night, the RCMP arrived with 5 squad vehicles and 6 officers.
“I asked if handcuffs were necessary – there is no danger of violence,” Barker mentioned. “I was going to cooperate. His response was to turn me around and cuff me. He walked me outside and stood me beside the car for a full 4 or 5 minutes in full view of all the neighbors.”
Barker believes he and the Ontario lady are each victims of triangulation fraud, and that somebody possible hacked the Ontario lady’s Walmart account and added his identify and tackle as a recipient.
But he says he has since misplaced his job on account of the arrest, and now he can’t discover new employment as a result of he has a prison document. Barker’s former employer — Duncan’s First Nation — didn’t reply to requests for remark.
“In Canada, a criminal record is not a record of conviction, it’s a record of charges and that’s why I can’t work now,” Barker mentioned. “Potential employers never find out what the nature of it is, they just find out that I have a criminal arrest record.”
Barker mentioned that proper after his arrest, the RCMP known as the Ontario lady and instructed her they’d solved the crime and arrested the perpetrator.
“They even told her my employer had put me on administrative leave,” he mentioned. “Surely, they’re not allowed to do that.”
Contacted by KrebsOnSecurity, the lady whose Walmart account was used to fraudulently buy the kid play units mentioned she’s not satisfied this was a case of triangulation fraud. She declined to elaborate on why she believed this, apart from to say the police instructed her Barker was a nasty man.
“I don’t think triangulation fraud was used in this case,” she mentioned. “My actual Walmart.ca account was hacked and an order was placed on my account, using my credit card. The only thing Mr. Barker did was to order the item to be delivered to his address in Alberta.”
Barker shared with this creator all the documentation he gave to the RCMP, together with screenshots of his Amazon.ca account exhibiting that the objects in dispute had been offered by a vendor named “Adavio,” and that the service provider behind this identify was primarily based in Turkey.
That Adavio account belongs to a younger laptop engineering scholar and “SEO expert” primarily based in Adana, Turkey who didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Amazon.ca mentioned it carried out an investigation and located that Mr. Barker by no means filed a grievance concerning the vendor or transaction in query. The firm famous that Adavio at the moment has a suggestions score of 4.5 stars out of 5.
“Amazon works hard to provide customers with a great experience and it’s our commitment to go above and beyond to make things right for customers,” Amazon.ca mentioned in a written assertion. “If a customer has an issue with an order, they may flag to Amazon through our Customer Service page.”
Barker mentioned when he went to file a grievance with Amazon final yr he may now not discover the Adavio account on the web site, and that the location didn’t have a class for the kind of grievance he needed to file.
When he first approached KrebsOnSecurity about his plight final summer time, Barker mentioned he didn’t need any media consideration to derail the probabilities of having his day in courtroom, and confronting the RCMP investigator with proof proving that he was being wrongfully prosecuted and maligned.
But every week earlier than his courtroom date arrived on the finish of November 2023, prosecutors introduced the costs in opposition to him can be stayed, which means they’d no instant plans to prosecute the case additional however that the investigation may nonetheless be reopened sooner or later sooner or later.
The RCMP declined to remark for this story, apart from to verify they’d issued a keep of proceedings within the case.
Barker says the keep has left him in authorized limbo — denying him the power to clear his identify, whereas giving the RCMP a free cross for a botched investigation. He says he has thought of suing the investigating officer for defamation, however has been instructed by his lawyer that the bar for fulfillment in such instances in opposition to the federal government is extraordinarily excessive.
“I’m a 56-year-old law-abiding citizen, and I haven’t broken any laws,” Barker mentioned, questioning aloud who can be silly sufficient to make use of another person’s bank card and have the stolen objects shipped on to their dwelling.
“Their putting a stay on the proceedings without giving any evidence or explanation allows them to cover up bad police work,” he mentioned. “It’s all so stupid.”
Triangulation fraud is hardly a brand new factor. KrebsOnSecurity first wrote about it from an e-commerce vendor’s perspective in 2015, however the rip-off predates that story by a few years and is now a well-understood downside. The Canadian authorities ought to both let Mr. Barker have his day in courtroom, or drop the costs altogether.