Police in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, have arrested a woman for stealing a laptop from a hacker who was trying to scam people into picking up and shipping the illegally purchased computer, the AP reports. Which raises an important question: Should scammers be punished for scamming other scammers, especially during this, the Summer of Scam?
The scammer in question, Jennifer Wozmak, 51, responded to an online ad for a job to ship the computer overseas — thus unwittingly serving as a middle man and freeing the hacker from legal liability. To be honest, this doesn’t seem like a great scam on the hacker’s part, because who other than someone with aspirations of stealing a laptop would willingly choose to participate in the logistically soul-sucking activity of international shipping, but hey, they, not I, are the masterminds.
Police say Wozmak responded to the hacker’s ad, but then, instead of shipping the laptop overseas as agreed upon in the aforementioned scam/deal, she shipped a stack of magazines instead, and sold the laptop to someone else for a tidy profit. It’s likely she did not realize that she was the second person to have stolen this laptop; in March, a business owner had contacted the Wolfeboro PD to say that a hacker (presumably the first scammer) had used their account to purchase the computer.
After the business owner contacted the police, they tracked down Womak, who has now been charged with theft. Wolfeboro police chief Dean Rondeau told the AP that Wozmak had no connection to the original scammer, who appears to remain at large.
Hmm. What do you think — should she be arrested for scamming a scammer? In any case, hopefully she’s able to Instagram from prison should she be found guilty.