Cell Phone Numbers in the News

Apple users take a bite out of crime

By Christine Tatum
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 13, 2002, 9:45 AM CST

Had it not been for an angry and determined band of Macintosh users, 
Christmas might have ruined the holidays for more computer sellers using 
eBay.

Melvin Christmas, that is, according to police.

Markham police on Thursday charged the 38-year-old local man with two counts 
of forgery for allegedly bilking thousands of dollars from eBay users. 
Police said Christmas confessed and that more charges are forthcoming.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Markham police Sgt. Jim Knapp said of 
the Apple computer users nationwide whose teamwork led police to Christmas. 
“They have this strong bond that’s about a lot more than their computers.”

Last month, Eric Smith, a 21-year-old student at the University of New 
Orleans, set off the frantic search for Christmas after receiving a bad 
$3,000 check for the Apple laptop computer he’d sold on eBay and sent to a 
Chicago address.

Smith posted pleas for help on Internet message boards and chat rooms 
popular among Mac users. He explained that he had only three clues to the 
thief’s identity: An e-mail address, a cell phone number and the street 
address on the city’s South Side where he’d sent the computer.


More than a hundred Apple users, many from the Chicago area, responded with 
tips. One steered Smith to www.cell-phone-numbers.com, an online service 
that provides the registration information coinciding with a cell phone 
number. That yielded yet another address and home phone number — this time 
under Christmas’ name.

More clues poured in. A Mac user in Los Angeles supplied Smith with copies 
of e-mails he’d received from a person who bought two computers on eBay and 
provided $6,000 in bogus cashiers’ checks in return. Smith said the messages 
were identical to the ones sent to him and that they, too, led to Christmas.

“We were building a solid case against this guy and all we needed was for 
anyone in the police to listen,” Smith said.

But Smith received little help from law enforcement. He said the FBI and 
three offices of the Secret Service he contacted turned down the case 
because it didn’t involve a significant loss, and the Chicago Police 
Department took a report but never called back.

Fed up, the Mac users decided to take matters into their own hands. Smith 
set the bait by using his girlfriend’s eBay account to put another Macintosh 
up for sale. He received an offer worded almost identically to the others — 
only this time, the buyer asked that the machine be sent to a home in south 
suburban Markham.

Smith planned to buy a plane ticket to Chicago and — with help from his new 
Macintosh buddies — stake out the house and call police for help the moment 
the computer was delivered. Tim Michaud, a 22-year-old graphic designer from 
Barrington, had supplied Smith with digital pictures of the house in the 300 
block of Nottingham Avenue and of cars parked in the driveway.

“I’d like to see a Dell user do something like that for a complete 
stranger,” Smith said.

After studying online maps, Smith realized Markham wasn’t part of Chicago — 
and he scrambled to call the Markham Police Department. Knapp pounced on the 
case, sparing Smith a trip to the Midwest.

“I don’t know much about computers, but I have a passion for this kind of 
work,” Knapp said. “And Eric had made it so easy. He’d really worked to put 
together this nice little package that couldn’t be ignored. ”

Knapp arranged to accompany the Federal Express driver making the delivery. 
He said he arrested Christmas after the suspect accepted the package; a 
search of the house turned up another $10,000 in counterfeit cashier’s 
checks. Federal Express also managed to intercept another computer sent to 
the house by an unsuspecting woman in New York, Knapp said.

Police said they believe that Christmas, whose primary residence is on the 
7300 block of South Rhodes Avenue, Chicago, is part of a larger theft ring 
involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen computer equipment. 
About a dozen other people who have lost Apple computers through eBay have 
contacted Markham police, claiming to have e-mail messages identical to the 
ones Smith received.

“I think Chicago (police) will be ready to hear about this,” Knapp said.

Smith, who’s still out of a computer and struggling to figure out how he’s 
going to pay his next tuition bill, said he’s learned a big lesson: “It 
doesn’t pay to mess around with Mac people.”

*END OF ARTICLE*


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