A Canadian man claims he was wrongly accused of masterminding a sophisticated e-commerce scam and is seeking to clear his name. His case appears to involve “triangle fraud,” which occurs when consumers purchase goods from sellers online. Amazon or eBayFor example, but the seller does not actually own the item for sale. Instead, sellers used stolen payment card details to purchase items from online retailers. In this scam, unsuspecting buyers pay the scammer and receive the items they ordered, and often the only party to dispute the transaction is the owner of the stolen payment card.
Triangulation fraud. Image: eBay Enterprise.
Timothy BuckThe 56-year-old was until recently the orchestra manager of the Duncan First Nation, a First Nation in northwestern Alberta, Canada. The Band Manager oversees the implementation of all band programs, including community health services, education, housing, social assistance and administration.
Buck told KrebsOnSecurity that during the week of March 31, 2023, he and the orchestra day care program director discussed the need to purchase items for the community before the program’s budget expired that year.
“Fiscal year 2023 ended on March 31, and people were rushing to buy fiscal year 2023 merchandise,” Barker recalled.
Buck said he purchased seven “Step2 All around Playtime Patio with Canopy” sets from one seller Amazon Canadapaid for nearly $2,000 in merchandise using the payment card he had on file.
On the morning of April 7, Buck woke up to a series of nasty messages and voice calls on Facebook from an Ontario woman he had never met.She wants to know why he wants to blackmail her Walmart account and used it to purchase items shipped to his residence. Barker shared a follow-up message from the woman, who later apologized for the tantrum.
One of several messages from an Ontario woman said her Walmart account was used to purchase items Barker ordered from Amazon.
“If this is not the person who did this to me, I’m sorry and I’m angry,” the Ontario woman said. “Orders will be delivered to the above address on April 14th. If it’s not you, it’s someone with the same name. Now I feel stupid.”
On April 12, 2023, before the Amazon purchase arrived at his home, Buck received a call from an investigator. Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said Barker urgently needs to go to the local RCMP office for an interview related to the “investigation.” The officer did not elaborate at the time on the nature of the investigation, Barker said, telling the officer he was in Halifax for a few days but would be available to meet when he returned home.
According to Buck, investigators went to his home the next day and began questioning his wife about his whereabouts, work and when he would be able to return home.
On April 14, six boxes arrived to partially fulfill his Amazon order; another box was delayed, and the Amazon Canadian seller he purchased from said the remaining boxes were expected to ship next week. Buck said he was confused because all six boxes came from Walmart, not Amazon, and the shipping labels had his name and address but a Mexican contact number.
Three days later, investigators called him again and asked him to be interviewed.
“Then he asked me where my wife was and what her name was,” Buck said. “He wants to know her schedule for the day. I’m panicking and scared right now – it doesn’t feel right.”
Buck said he asked a local lawyer about counseling, but RCMP investigators showed up at his home before he could speak with a lawyer. Investigators began taking photos of the boxes in his Amazon order.
“this [investigator] Scoffingly asking why anyone would order so many playsets? “I started to give a very logical answer, which is that we are helping families improve their children’s home lives and early childhood learning, but he interrupted me and made a brief comment about the statement I made after my arrest. Speech. He ended by telling me that he believed I had purchased Walmart products using someone’s credit card in Ontario.”
To clear his name, Buck said he shared copies of his credit card statements and Amazon purchase history with police. But on April 21, investigators called again to arrest Buck for theft.
“He said if I got home at five o’clock, he would have the papers delivered to my house and it would be easy and I wouldn’t have to go to the station,” Barker recalled. “If I wasn’t home, he would send a search party to find me and drag me to the station. He said if I didn’t answer the phone he would kick the door open. He said he had every right to break in.”
Buck said he spoke briefly with his attorney about how to handle the arrest. Later that evening, the RCMP arrived with five police vehicles and six officers.
“I asked if handcuffs were necessary – there was no risk of violence,” Buck said. “I was going to cooperate. His response was to turn me around and put handcuffs on me. He walked me outside and made me stand by the car for a good four or five minutes in full view of all the neighbors.”
Buck believes he and the Ontario woman were both victims of triangular fraud, and that someone may have hacked into the Ontario woman’s Walmart account and added his name and address as a recipient.
But he said he lost his job as a result of his arrest and now he can’t find a new one because he has a criminal record. Buck’s former employer, who is originally from Duncan, did not respond to a request for comment.
“In Canada, a criminal record is not a record of a conviction, it’s a record of charges, and that’s why I can’t work right now,” Barker said. “Potential employers will never know the nature of this, they just find out I have a criminal arrest record.”
Barker said that immediately after his arrest, the RCMP called the Ontario woman to tell her they had solved the case and arrested the perpetrator.
“They even told her that my employer put me on administrative leave,” he said. “Of course, they’re not allowed to do that.”
KrebsOnSecurity contacted a woman who used her Walmart account to fraudulently purchase children’s toys, and she said she doesn’t believe it was a case of triangular fraud. She declined to elaborate on why she believed that, except to say police told her Buck was a bad man.
“I don’t believe there was fraudulent triangulation used in this case,” she said. “My actual Walmart.ca account was hacked and someone placed an order on my account using my credit card. The only thing Mr. Barker did was order the items to be shipped to his address in Alberta .
Barker shared with the author all of the documents he provided to the RCMP, including screenshots of his Amazon.ca account showing that the merchandise at issue was made by a company calledAddavio,” the businessman behind the name is from Türkiye.
The Adavio account belongs to a young computer engineering student and “SEO expert” in Adana, Turkey, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Amazon said it investigated and found that Mr. Barker never complained about the seller or transaction in question. The company noted that Adadio’s current feedback rating is 4.5 stars out of 5.
“Amazon strives to provide a great experience for our customers, and we are committed to going above and beyond to provide the right service for our customers,” Amazon said in a written statement. “If customers have questions about their order, they can contact us through our customer service page Report to Amazon.”
Buck said that when he filed a complaint with Amazon last year, he couldn’t find his Adavio account on the site, and the site didn’t have a category for the type of complaint he wanted to file.
When he first asked KrebsOnSecurity about his plight last summer, Barker said he didn’t want any media attention to ruin his chances of appearing in court and providing evidence to RCMP investigators that he was wrongfully prosecuted and defamation.
But a week before a trial date in late November 2023, prosecutors announced they would put the charges against him on hold, meaning they have no immediate plans to prosecute the case further, but the investigation could still reopen at some point in the future.
The RCMP declined to comment on the matter, confirming only that they had suspended proceedings in the case.
Barker said the detention put him in legal limbo – taking away his ability to clear his name while allowing the RCMP to conduct a botched investigation. He said he considered suing the investigating officer for defamation, but his lawyers told him the bar for success in such a case against the government was very high.
“I’m a 56-year-old law-abiding citizen, I didn’t break any laws,” Buck said, wondering aloud who would be stupid enough to use someone else’s credit card and have stolen items shipped directly to their home. Home.
“Their suspension of proceedings without providing any evidence or explanation allowed them to cover up poor police work,” he said. “It’s all just silly.”
Triangle fraud is nothing new. KrebsOnSecurity first wrote about the case from the e-commerce vendor’s perspective in 2015, but the scam predates that story by years and is now a well-known problem. The Canadian authorities had to either bring Mr. Barker to trial or drop the charges altogether.
