Buyer BEWARE!!! Scamming method that hard to track using Bank Deposit and Prepaid Reload credit card.

Buyer BEWARE!!! Scamming method that hard to track using Bank Deposit and Prepaid Reload credit card.

Buyer should be aware of any transaction done using Bank Deposit due to the recent abuse of Prepaid Reload Credit card, for example "the Australian Post Load and Go Card". Such cards are easy access to be bought by scammer who intent to use the card for illegal frauds, and It is very difficult or rather IMPOSSIBLE to lodge a successful dispute on.

This is my Story

I saw an ads on Gumtree, regards a DSLR that was sold 1/4 of it's original price. The ads have image attached and on the description, it says "item was won in a local raffle, selling for money." My instant response was "Wow, this is a good price!" so I contacted the seller regards the camera by email. He provided me with his mobile number, and I text-ed him for payment method, he replied with an email saying he got the SMS and would prefer bank transfer, the email comes with his Bank detail - legit looking Names, BSB and Account number. I thought "well his mobile number seem to be working, I got his bank detail too, there's no way it would go wrong. At the worst case, I can just make a dispute if this doesn't work out" - I CAN'T BE MORE WRONG.

So I paid him the money including Postage fee, he said the transaction will take at least 2 days and once he got the money, he will post the camera. That's good, I'm excited and waited for my camera like a naive child waiting for new toy. And of course, turns out that the camera did not arrive. I tried to contact the seller and there's no reply at all, both email and mobile - I started to worry. I made a little investigation on his BSB number 880100, found out it was owned by Heritage Bank limited for Australia Post prepaid cards. As soon as I saw the words "Australia Post prepaid cards" I was almost certain that this is in fact a SCAM. I searched a little more onto his email and mobile phone, both did zero help. - There's no data regards his email, his mobile number turn out to be just a $2 Prepaid Virgin mobile sim with no recharge in it. There's personal detail in his account but possibly fake name and address - different from what he provided me. Now, I'm sure this is a scam and some action need to be taken immediately, I DID.

I went to my bank, they put a dispute for me, however it will take at least a month and they can not guar·an·tee that I will get the money back. Of course, how would you get money back if client on other end just take the money out from ATM, then throw the card with fake detail away. I chatted with Australian Post and made phone call to Australian load and Go service, seeking for help, telling them the fact there's a obvious way a criminal can abuse your system. However, they decide to do nothing and keep provide this golden method of dirt money transfer service to criminals. Lastly I went for Police and you know how story ends.

You would wonder how easy is it to abuse the system? I have to say, it's very easy. All you have to do is buy yourself one of those Prepaid card, have a database of fake names and seem legit address. Get yourself one of those $2 sim from supermarket, think of a product, it can be an Iphone 5, Samsung, Nikon Camera whatever that doesn't pop the 999 credit cap for your prepaid card. Then just put your ads on and you can sit back wait for your victim - I'm not teaching you how to scam, so please do not try.

So, what did I learn and how to prevent this from happening?

It's lucky for anyone who is reading this post, I learnt all this by the hard way. My pain is your gain, so here's the tips to help you stay away from Scams.

- Always use safer payment method, Paypal or Cash on delivery(A service provided by Australian post, basically you pay for the item to Australian post before receiving in person) for transaction, even though there's fee for the service, at least there's insurance to help you when obvious scam happens.

- At worst case, when A bank deposit have to be taken out. Please gather as much information as possible before transfer the money. For example - tell him to give you his landline number and call over to confirm. Google his Email and mobile number to see such person exist. Search on the bank detail that he given and see if there's anything fishy. Check his account if it is too new...beware!

- Ask him some knowledge regards the product and request more photograph. Normally it would be hard for them to do so because usually they don't really own the item.

- Do not accept any fishy/unusual offer or condition. (for example the western union Scam http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1400409 )

-Always update your knowledge regards internet scam. http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/tag/Scamwatch/ 

To be honest, I'm actually pretty aware of internet scam and stay alert all the time. But scam still gets me - all because of that I am not aware of the existence of Preapid cards. See how important it is to keep update with knowledge?

- Lastly when something is too good to be true, stay alert. If you feel sad about missing the deal, just tell your self, that must be a scam.

Anyways if you want more information regards this type of scam or you want to look for similar victim like me click here http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1955042 (beware that for my case, I didn't put "pay n load pty" for account name, and the transaction still made though)

As final words, I really hope police can be more serious regards internet scam, and hope every buyer who saw this post will start aware and learn how to protect themselves. Sorry for my bad english as I'm not a background speaker. If you find this post helpful and have few extra money to spare please donate to me via paypal by Dreamlight2000@hotmail.com I really need money for a new camera. Also if you are interested and what to ask more question about my experience with scammer, feel free to email too.

Cheers, and have a wonderful transaction

Shun Yu Cao

Melbourne Trip! Manifest 2012

Week ago my wife and I happen to be attending Manifest at Melbourne with our Australian Artist Cirlce Alice Overture. It took 1 hour plane to get there, and the tickets were dirt cheap...well 100 dollar or less for both of us. The weather there is amazingly....well not as cold as expected xD. The event is taking place again at Melbourne showground （I hope I didn't get the name wrong) except they changed the building for Artist into another one in the coner.

Amazingly there wasn't much people compare to last last year,(I didn't go there last year due to lack of money TAT) probably because of the rain...but regardless we had a good time with all the Merchant and artist friends xD

photo of our table with my wife and our producer

We also managed to meet up with our Supplier who is Responsible for Seeking printing service and contacts. He's also responsible for any printing error we had with any of our Artbook xD

<== that's our supplier Y chan

For people who bought our product on the day, Thank you very much, you were the one who made this trip possible xD (we are kind of poor), but other than that nothing much happened.

on a sidenote managed to meet up with our old friend Centimeter - she's a very skilled American artist. And forced her to draw my wife then kidnap her for our last night in Melbourne~ (we throw her into our hotel and ....played cards)

Now...continue on my commission stuff or else I won't have enough time for personal artbook again xD

New camera and Comiket 82!!!

Ok I haven't posted on anything about my self for a long time xD was working really hard(and I mean it) on artbook for C82 which just finished yesterday. It was a great experience XD and thanks Asagi for minding the table(although I haven't really talked to her personally due to language barrier OTL). and ultimately Thanks Kenshi being the translator and Wind for offering this chance for me.

Here's the cover of the book that was sold on comiket C82

I'm currently appling for winter comiket again, probably gonna be on for both 2nd day touhou and 3rd day anime doujin. I haven't set what's gonna be sold on the day yet, wait til the application goes though first XD if anyone got any ideas please send me email, I will be really happy to see your opinion.

Now comiket aside, I recently got into photography and just bought a bridge camera aka super zoom camera aka the Kodak easyshare Z990 for pratice. I probably gonna use it for reference photo for body and landscape (which I sucks on apart from colouring xD). here's some sample image I took with it.

Now I doubt the "easyshare" part of the camera but I guess it will be pretty decent for portrait and wide angle landscape, the only problem was it can blur pretty easily with slight handshake in low light... or my hand isn't steady enough...orz

I will be in Melbourne in 3 days time, report in later for any news, for now...have to draw the application image xD

Super Nova 2012 Sydney Report

Super Nova hit Sydney once again, with thousands of cos-players and millions of fun. As a members of Artist Circle called Alice Overture we opened our store at Artist vendor again, with a few new artbooks.

Super Nova is more crowded than Last year, it was slightly hard to breath air in the convention center. I happened to met lots of old faces as well as new faces, and lots of improvement on art quality compare to last year. There was lots of fun thing happening during the convention, lots of screaming, wrestling, Jedi master, robots, Hi - tech, and hardcore gaming etc etc.

After the convention, we happened to have dinner with producer of Xeph's group.(and robed 2 artbooks  off them MUHAHAHAH). The food was great just a bit expensive....well...I guess it worth it.

Btw, it's at Pancake in the rocks at Darling harbor.

More importantly we decided to join our forces together and make a mahou shojo themed Artbook, more information might be released later on but DO look forward to it please xD

As Personally, I just finished a Poster for Anime Expo in Los Angeles which take place from 29th of June to 2nd of July. So, if you are a fan of me in America (if there's any xD), please take a extra notice~

Reimu

hmmm It seem to be a tradition for me to draw Reimu once a while isn't it, and there's always some form of style change and everything XD

Tried to add more saturation in the drawing and with neater and smoother lines Thanks to my new Cintiq~~~~ *Using a normal nip for colouring and felt nip and customised grip for lining - replaced rubber grip with cotton string XD, looks crap but feels alright, however the colour was off on the drawing, generally image on my cintiq looks more red* than other monitor so I have to do a colour correction afterwards, I wonder if there's any ways to correct it.

As for good news, I'm Getting more used to the Clip paint Lab program, to be honest it is really better than sai in many ways, for example better transform tools, pressure feel, etc, although I would like to see improved control on the brush settings in the future version - the current control is a bit too complicated.(Plus it's a Janpanese program XD which means I can't understand 80% of it~)

The drawing itself is a guest art for a Chinese doujin artgroup 4C-FANTASY, you maybe check out their homepage for the project I participated in. Well according to them the artwork gonna be made into card game but I haven't no idea how the card gonna be played as XD, All I know is they planned lots lots lots of cards... subscribe their web-site and look forward to more updates!(ok I know it's in chinese but hey~)

Ah well have to finish a customised dakimakura commission next~

Anime BBQ event!!!

On Saturday which is 1st of April(nice date), there was an anime themed BBQ happening hosted by an anime store called   Anime @ Abbotsford


The Location is at 318 Great North Road, Abbotsford, Sydney. Where an anime figuring store opened at middle of no where... (well no offence but it is xD)

The BBQ was for free and there's hips of cosplays and candies, I guess that was enough reason for any anime lover to go over, especially for someone like me who can't afford sausages recently.

I have to say, the whole place was packed! Fully packed! Imagine in a normal single house with decent size backyard packed with hips of people in weird custom grabbing sausages. Actually I got a photo for you if your imagination failed.

There was cosplay, people singing,  free sausage, free chips, free candies, camera flashes, figuring shops and even cosplay competition just like any anime convention. Oh and convention doesn't have free foods and instead of normal figuring they have bootleg.

                                      Free Chips!!! =====>

<==== Free Sausages!!!

As for figuring wise, their price are little more expensive however consider the postage and everything it's still reasonable. Also, they have variety of figurings to choose from so I guess that's a big plus for someone who wants to do some treasure hunting outside of your house.(I mean instead of hooking to your computer and waiting for an out of stock item to resell) Btw, The shop owner there is very really friendly, so make sure you give him a hug~

360 view of the backyard, where cosplay competition take place, there were prizes but then again since I'm not in custom so I didn't care XD <===too busy grabbing sausages.

The event happen once every few month or so, during a public holiday or any "fun" dates for example Halloween. So make sure you keep on track and don't miss out the event next time.

Anyways, my reports done, back to my drawing.

New Cintiq Roar Roar!!!

Bought a Cintiq 21UX first generation on ebay for $790!!!

Roar finally my dream come true~~~ *tears

even though it's not the 2nd generation with 2048 pressure sensitive, still XD ~~~~~

On a side note, even though it's just 21" but it's actually bigger than my 24" monitor (it have wider width hence bigger area)

Although there's little problem on the screen.

a 1 x1.5cm weird looking line *although the seller says it's a died pixel but I doubt what it really is...

As you can see from the image, it's not really noticeable unless you trying to find it, so I guess it won't cause any trouble to my work.

Since I got a intuos 3 already, I can pretty much sure the pen on tablet and cintiq, although there's pretty much no point of using the intuos anymore. But I do want to get a replacement of a classic pen instead, since the grip pen was too thick and long to use comfortably. (but the price I see so far are rather expensive...)

Going to go to one of the Wacom store next door to hunt down a SmudgeGuard and possibly a cheap Classic pen for intuos 3.

Also I'm selling my Intuos 3 A5 extra wide now, please email me with a reasonable offer price if you are interested~

PS: don't you find this little nib with spring cute? XD

Mini animania 2012 report

2 days after mini animania I finally felt like writing a report for this, but before everything congratulation to E's cosplay skit being the number of the skit group...(although there was only 3 but the quality and competition was rather high) - I laughed at the certificate and rewards btw.

As for minianimania, there wasn't much happening just like other minis except there was more touhou cosplays...well a few but is increasing. Still the old peoples from Artist tables, and few old ones doesn't come back anymore after last year's rip off.(mostly the bootleg issue and the price of tables). The bootleg shops still selling great xD just like any other years, they even have their own dakimakura now(of course having their image ripped off net and print at some cheapy place with bad material) ....even though not as big and good quality as ours.

Come to think of it, there's even a Vocaloid shop next to us selling postcard with images that was obviously wasn't drawn by them....what happened to animania?  O A O

The best part was I actually did mind the table for a while this time.(wasn't chasing around doing random things like last year). Thanks for everyone who bought my dakimakura and artbooks~~~~ The Black rock shooter tribute didn't sell well though... (stare at someone who was responsible for this), but was enough for mini I guess.

But yea...nothing was really exciting about animania except e win her first reward....

Now throw away mini...just bought a Cintiq 21UX first gen for 790 plus postage yay yay! going to be delivered tomorrow or day after, got look forwards to that. Will write a review after I get it...anyways that's it for now.

And yes the list for my personal artbook now, but I not going to share it now O w O.

END

DTF practise and review

Still planning on my Personal Illustration artbook which would be published for winter comiket....hmmmmm...any suggestions?

and some practice I done today after finally fixed my DTF-720 to the lap top cooler properly *it refuse to stick with the lap top cooler and keep breaking any seal that I made to bind them together with sticky tape.

you can see died sticky tapes everywhere XD

and here's the image

MADOKA!!!! - I finally drew something madoka related *tears....oh wait, I think I done a QB before...ah well....

the image was done purely with DTF 720... *the sketching stage was great, I almost feel the same sensation as when light yagami write his death note.

however...after I drew this half way...I found the pose to be pretty familiar(eg, when a lame love animation with main char crash with our female girl lead).... meh ignore that~

Now about the DTF-720 or other might call PL - 720. Regardless it's pretty much the same thing, You can look at it as a cintiq with only 512 pressure sensitive and less function key(although is actually is lots of key on the product it self I just couldn't found a proper driver for it OTL)

When I bought the product, the VGA line, USB line and stand was missing, luckily I have old replacement for lines, and a laptop cooler act as stand(although it took me ages to bind them together - the monitor was too heavy for the laptop cooler so I need to use sticky tape to strengthen  the holder, and prevent the monitor to slip down) on the bright-side, it provides extra cooling....not sure if it was needed though XD

now about pressure sensitive, I know 512 is rather small number compare to the current 2048 standard but it's enough for the job, but it doesn't mean the extra pressure sensitive a proper cintiq offer is completely waste. I do actually find my intuos 3 have much smoother line than this LCD input device. However this isn't the main issue with this device, as for Artist the biggest issue could be - the colour. When I was doing my last project, I have to keep compare the colour of image of two monitor to get the colour right, and It confuse you sometimes(it's mentally stressing to find white colour in your image looks yellow). But then again 171 for a lcd plus tablet...it worth way more the cost. (but as for original price, which is 1500AUD is completely rip off)

So in the end I would still hunt down a 2nd hand cintiq if I could... hopefully soon....

News and Updates

Wow, I haven't wrote anything on blogger and post anything in pixiv and DA for ages, if you wonder why that's because......I travel to the future, defeated few giant robot and got sent to the past and killed few dragons, found  the lost ring of justice, had few friends (died during boss) battle against the evil mind and comes back...

Ok I start to feel lame about this joke so I would stop here.

But! I do have some hardware upgrades since my last post, that is....

This baby in the photo, DTF-720, 17" LCD with pen pressure sensitive of 512 by wacom, was on market for 1.5k but bought off from grayonline for just 171 dollar~ (not for my self though)

Although this does look like a great cintiq replacement, It's decent but isn't good enough.... ah well can't ask too much for 171 isn't it XD

and then I Hi-Jacked 2 flex pen nibs off some friend so now the pen won't be that slippery~ YAY YAY


On the drawing side, there's few things I completed, but I still need to ask for permission to upload those pictures, one of them are CD cases for Kamicon

For more detail go to http://www.kamicon.net/dvd.php

*I didn't do the cover design...

I also drew a guest art for a chinese doujin group, and a image of touhou for something that I can't tell now~

Meh that's all for now, will update next time~

Oh and if anybody have a cheap 2nd hand cintiq please sell it to me~~~