It’s a season everyone is looking forward to. Especially when you live in a country like Finland, where you’re digging your Life through 5-6 months of snow every year. And that’s Southern Finland (let’s not start about going up north).
And yeah… Finally, after many, many months it really does look like spring’s on its way (save for the snow that’s coming down as I write this).

Spring always comes with surprises. The worst part of the snow melting is all the dog poop that is surfacing and accompanying it the foul smell of it. I could go all into detail and describe to you the gooey… but no, I won’t.
A little colorful flower, which has had the power to withstand the weight of the snow that’s been piled up for way too long, and is now breaking the surface of the snow like the hand of a zombie trying to get out of the soil.
Cars that have disappeared under piles of snow with the winter ongoing, and the snow plows shoving all the snow off the street to the side.
And yeah… It can thus happen, that that big pile of snow looks exactly like… well… a big pile of snow. And a snow plow doesn’t really feel the difference when it piles up more snow, and maybe pushes it a bit further off the street and a bit further toward the pavement.

And yeah… If you happen to be the owner of such a car, and you don’t use your car during winter, then it could just happen that your car actually DOES disappear under said pile of snow.
And yeah… If the snow then melts, and your car happened to have been disguised as a pile of snow, you might just be in for a nasty surprise when the snow melts and your car peeks it’s battered head out of the snow…

Demolished mini van

Demolished mini van

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece on one of my pictures being used without a license on the website of the Berkeley Daily Planet. It was a very sour thing, because I really wanted to pursue this due to Ms O’Malley’s outrageous attitude, but the outcome would simply not outweigh the costs I’d have to make in order to do what needed to be done for this.
I shared the link to this blog post in several groups on LinkedIn I’m a member of and got many comments on how crazy this really was. One of the members advised me to write a complaint to the State Bar of California, where all the lawyers are registered. They would be able to reprimand Ms O’Malley for her idiotic behavior in this case, IF she really was a lawyer as she claimed to be.

I took the advise, and wrote the State Bar a letter. The official complaint form on the website was only for lawyer-client situations, and didn’t offer any options for different situations, which kind of made me think that my letter would disappear in a trash bin, because it was not according to the prescribed format. But anyway… I sent off my open letter, including a screenshot of the website with my image on it and every single piece of correspondence I had with the Berkeley Daily Planet and Ms O’Malley, and I referred also to the contact I had with my attorney Mr Kinne from Kinne IP Group.
Here are the main lines of what I wrote:

I would like to file an official complaint against a lady by the name of Becky O’Malley, who claims to have been, and I quote “an intellectual property attorney and a member of the State Bar of California, a status which I could easily activate if needed”.

The issue is about a copyright infringement case. This lady is, together with a gentleman named Tom Butt, working for the Berkeley Daily Planet, an online news paper.

Just recently I discovered that they had been using since early 2010 one of my images, without my consent, without the proper licenses, and even with Mr Tom Butt’s name as accreditation with the image (screenshot of the web page attached).
At first I tried to settle the matter with them directly (correspondence attached), but things soon got so bold that I asked my attorney if there was any way to pursue this matter officially.
He gave me an outline of the possibilities, and I decided not to pursue the matter, because in the end it would cost me more money and grievance than I was willing to put into it.
The fact that I am residing in Finland and that I only have a raw file, i.e. the file is not registered at the US copyright office, to prove I’m the creator of the piece was part of the decision.
However, when Ms O’Malley so blatantly and shamelessly threw in my face that I should let go of the matter and that I would get nothing out of it, this turned more into a principle matter for me.
The fact that she is, or claims to be, a former Intellectual Property Attorney and a member of the State Bar of California makes this case all the more outrageous. Tom Butt, the journalist in question, has purposefully and knowlingly used one of my images and accredited it to himself, but when I confronted the paper, and Ms O’Malley, with all her knowledge of Intellectual Property and copyright infringement, about it she had absolutely no right to justify it like she did and slam the door in my face.
With the way she behaved, knowingly and purposefully defending, acknowledging, and approving copyright infringement, she has no business being a (former) Intellectual Property Attorney and member of the State Bar of California.

I sent it, and pretty much forgot about it. A month went by, then another month in which I was abroad.
But then, when I came home from my trip, I actually found an envelope from the State Bar of California.

Response letter from the State Bar of California

I’ll pick out the piece that matters:

Based on our evaluation of the information provided, we are closing your file. Before the imposition of attorney discipline can be obtained the State Bar must present clear and convincing evidence of willful misconduct. We have concluded that there is insufficient evidence of willful misconduct that would warrant disciplinary action. Ms O’Malley was not your attorney and owed no fiduciary duty to you. In fact, she was not acting as an attorney in said matter, but could activate her membership status if she needed to. Moreover, the circumstances you described are civil in nature. As such, the more appropriate forum in which to address your claim would be through appropriate civil action.

Ok, so I agree that the circumstances I described are civil in nature. But they have concluded that there is insufficient evidence of willful misconduct?
She may have not owed fiduciary duty to me, but with her supposed background in Intellectual Property it was her civil AND professional duty to properly pay for an image that they were using. And also her conduct in the correspondence afterward was in my eyes a very willful misconduct.

So what is wrong with the juridical system of today?
The system seems to be protecting the wrong people…

It’s been quiet a bit. I know. Been busy, and I had my images to process from the trip to the Rocky Mountains. They will come in the following posts.
But first I wanted to write this.

With my D800 (the space-eating, 40Mb per raw image camera) I needed bigger cards. The biggest card with my D700 was an 8Gig (Kingston). That was a conscious choice. I could’ve put in a 64 or a 128, but you never really know when a card fails on you and you lose everything. I didn’t want to take that risk. So rather than having 1 big CF card, I had several smaller cards.
From a local store I bought a Transcend 32Gig and shot with that the first months. Around the house I don’t usually shoot 0ver 500 images, so that card would keep me going until my trip. A Buddy of mine was going to the US and I had him bring back 2 Kingston 32Gig cards, because they are like… half the price at B&H compared to what I have to pay for the same stuff in this beautiful country.

I’m of the naive type that believes that everything works out of the package. So I didn’t test the Kingston cards in the camera before I left off to the Rockies. I had my Transcend 32, and the 2 Kingstons. I threw out all the other cards, save for one of the 8Gig Kingstons (just for good measure, but I didn’t expect to need that with 3 32Gig cards).
Rocky Mountains came. It was beautiful. It took me about 5 days to shoot the Transcend 32Gig full (about 750 images). Then I had to switch.

I took out the Kingstons and put one in the camera. No joy. I formatted -or try to- the card. Card ERROR came flashing in the display. Uh oh…
Well, that was bound to happen some time. And of course it would be at a time like this. But no worries. I had a second card. I switched cards. No joy… I formatted -or try to- the card. Card ERROR came flashing in the display. %#&(“%//#&%!!!
What are the odds that TWO cards, straight out of the package, don’t work? I got to fire up my Buddy’s laptop and went to Kingston’s website. The FAQ’s on this card mentioned something along the lines of “What if the card doesn’t work in my camera, but does work in another camera?”, which led me to test the cards in my Buddy’s Canon 1D MkIII. And of course… they worked in his camera. I planned on testing it still in my D700 at home, but for now I had to make do with the 8Gig that I had brought (just for good measure and which fit about 120 images of the D800-size).

When we got to Colorado Springs we went to a Best Buy to get me another big CF card (can you believe that none of the other big stores had anything bigger than 4Gig??). They only had Sandisk as a brand (which is fine), but the largest was 16Gig and it cost 87$. For reference: the two 32Gig Kingstons I bought from B&H were 53$ each. One of the clerks came to me and asked me if he could help me, and I told him that I got 32Gig from B&H for almost half the price of his 16Gig. He was eager to help and suggested a price match. He checked on Amazon for the price of the Sandisk and it came in on just over 60$, so he sold me the card for just over 60$. No hassle, no fuss, no struggle. Just plain and simple, friendly customer service.
That’s customer service #1, at Best Buy.

But I’m side-tracking.
When I got home from the Rockies I tested the cards in the D700, and they worked. I find it a tad bit strange that a newer camera wouldn’t be able to read older cards, but anyway… I contacted Kingston, explained them the situation and it took them less than 2 hours to respond to my inquiry:

Dear Arno,
Thank you for contacting Kingston Technology.
We are going to replace your 2 x CF/32GB-U2 with 2 x CF/32GB-U3 that has been tested as working perfectly fine with the Nikon D800.
The CF/32GB-U3 is the fastest of our CF cards range with a speed of 600x.
Could you please let us know if you agree with that replacement?
I look forward to hear from you.
Kind regards,

No “What did you do to your cards”, no “this is your fault and it doesn’t fall under our warranty policies”, not a single attempt to squirm away from their responsibilities, like I’ve seen so many companies do in the past. Just a simple “we’re going to replace your cards with a faster and more expensive card than what you had, do you agree with this?”.
I mean… Duh? Do I agree?

I sent them a mail back to confirm that I -of course- agreed with this, shortly after which I got a ticket number and an address where to send the “faulty” cards.

I sent the cards on Monday, on Tuesday I got a mail confirming that they received the cards. On Wednesday morning I received another mail, saying that the new cards were shipped and on Thursday in the afternoon I got a phone call that the delivery guy was waiting downstairs at the door with a package from Kingston.

That’s Customer Service, with a capital C and a capital S. From Kingston. With a Royal K.
It is absolutely refreshing to receive this kind of service in a world that has turned so individualistic and profit-based. The client is King isn’t something I would ALWAYS take literally. In the type of work I’m in I’ve seen clients behave like jokers and assholes, but when “the client” reports a faulty product Kingston for me has just set an example of how things are supposed to be dealt with. I’m typically not brand loyal when it comes to smaller accessories for the camera, but this kind of service makes me want to come back to Kingston. And I will recommend them to anyone.

I remember when I started being serious about photography (quite some time ago already) there were a couple of things that I had to re-read in order to understand the technique behind it. DoF, Depth of Field that is, was one of them. I thought I could do a little write up about it including an example of DoF with different aperture settings.

So what is Depth of Field, really?
If you google the term a recurring definition you’ll find is “the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in acceptably sharp focus in a photograph”. That doesn’t tell you much, does it? It didn’t tell me much back in the day when I had to look it up in a book (you know, those rectangular shaped things with this funny stuff called paper inside on which text and pictures are printed ).
What this definition told me was that it had something to do with the distance between the objects in your picture. It does, kind of, but that’s not really the point.
For me DoF bluntly means: part of your image is in focus and the rest is not in focus. And it’s done on purpose The more blurred or out of focus the picture is, and the less of your designated object is in focus, the narrower (or shallower, or smaller, these are all terms used to indicate) the DoF.

Many things can affect the DoF, but the the DoF is mainly controlled by the aperture setting on your camera.
That was another thing that I just couldn’t remember: the larger the aperture, as in the smaller the number indicated for the F-stop, the larger the hole in your lens through which light is let through to the sensor. So larger aperture – smaller F number – larger opening in the lens to let light through. Without this getting completely technical, I’m trying to keep it simple, let’s suffice with saying that things with a small aperture are more in focus because the rays of light that are coming into your lens are less diffused, scattered if you will, by the small hole in the lens before they reach the sensor. The bigger hole with the later aperture allows for the rays to basically go all over the place and thus can’t create the sharp image on the sensor.

Do note that if you change the aperture, you will have to equally adjust the exposure time. A picture taken with f/8 and 1/500 sec exposure time will render the same result in terms of exposure as a picture taken with f/11 and 1/250 sec exposure time. If you stop down the aperture with one stop, you’ll have to open up the exposure time with one stop and vice versa.

Below is a series of images in which you can see what happens when you start with a large aperture and end with a small aperture.

From top left to top right the camera settings were:

1/15 sec @ f/3.5; 1/15 sec @ f/4.8 (I didn’t adjust the exposure time, which shows in the image: it’s slightly darker than the first one); 1/8 sec @ f/6.7; 1/4 sec @ f/9.5;

From bottom left to bottom right the camera settings were:

1/2 sec @ f/13; 1 sec @ f/19; 2 sec @ f/27; 4 sec @ f/38.

We were out on Suomenlinna last weekend with friends. Just for touristing, they were over from Holland, and hadn’t been there before.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we spent a good amount of time sitting on a terrace, on the rocks near the sea and roaming the island.
Not far from where we sat on the rocks, just over on the other side of the hill we happened to see a kite appear every now and again. When we were done with our picnic we went for the round around the island and moved toward the kite.
I’ve done some stuff in my time, but this has been on my list of wanting-to-do for a long time. Not sure how difficult it is, or if you can even do it “just like that”, but well… One should never stop dreaming, right?
Kudos to this guy. The wind was very strong and he made it look so easy.

D800, ISO100, 1/350 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm (and quite some PS-ing, the sun was great, but the light for photography terrible)

There are so many ways you can photograph water. But I must admit I was slightly lazy and unmotivated (could be because it actually had been raining for 3 days straight, how’s that for water? ). However, even laziness and lack of motivation can spark some creativity. I set up the flashes next to the tap and let it drip slowly. A little twist on the drop in the water pictures you see come by every now and again.

Focusing is a pain in the ass, and you have to be surprisingly fast with pressing the (remote) shutter. I missed a good few. But I also got a good few nice ones

D800, ISO1600, 1/8000 sec @ f/3.8, 2x off-camera SB-800

D800, ISO1600, 1/8000 sec @ f/3.8, 2x off-camera SB-800

Let me warn you in advance. If you’re sensitive to graphic material, leave now. If you’re under 18, leave now. The last part is not pretty. And no, this blog is not going to feature this kind of material structurally.

I’ve written about Vappu before. It’s the Finnish celebration of Labour Day. It’s one of two days (together with Pikkujoulu – Little Christmas), where people are “allowed” to drink themselves into oblivion theoretically without *any* moral or ethical consequences.
I don’t drink alcohol myself, so drinking yourself into oblivion always gets my judgment. I don’t judge anyone for drinking alcohol, but if you get so wasted you don’t know or remember what you’re doing, you lose my respect (like that is worth anything, but let’s not go there ).

Anyway…
We’ll do the nice part first. The day after…
It was a beautiful day. I don’t think it’s ever been this nice weather in all those years I’ve been in Finland. Sitting with a stack of magazines and/or a good book on a picnic blanket drinking tea, sodas, champagne and/or cider (not for me, but thanks Eugene! ), crackers with cream cheese, chips… Few things can beat that.
A staggering amount of people sitting and roaming around, and at the location where we were the traffic was completely stuck. Those foolish enough to have come by car, or tried to wrestle their way back home got plenty of time to practice their patience.

Vappuaatto was also very nice. Relaxed day, and a relaxed evening before going downtown. We had tickets to a concert of Aikakone, which we didn’t make it to. We ended up elsewhere first for a bit too long, and when we got to the place where the concert was, the line was so endless that we decided not to wait. And so we had a healthy bite of fast food and headed home. We got to our apartment building to find two people having at it in our portal (really, this is not the dodgiest part of town, so we were quite surprised). And not just having at it. The guy had his had up her crotch and her skirt was so far down that a nice tattoo just above the cheeks was prominently visible.
We were by bike, so we went around to the back entrance and got in from there. When we came to the hallway from the back entrance (from where we could see into the portal) the motion detectors switched on the lights, and that kind of snapped our horny visitors back into this world. She pulled up her skirt, he wiped off his hand and they took off. And that was it. Or so we thought.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against sex. I have nothing against porn. I’m a guy, I have no problem admitting I watched some (and -although I have no scientific proof for this- I’m convinced most of the guys have (and most of them who say they don’t are lying ) ). And I have absolutely no problem against people making out on the street, up to a certain extend, of course. And if you’re of the public type, I also have no problems with it if you want to do it in a toilet in a restaurant, bar, or whatever, for all I care you do it in the fitting room of a store.
But there are limits. Now we’re getting again to this point of Vappu, where people are “allowed” to do “anything” without consequences. I’ve been in this country for a decade, and I’ve seen my fair share of funny, questionable, shocking and unethical things. Vappuaatto 2012 takes the prize. By a mile.

We got to our apartment and before heading to bed we looked outside, and guess what…? Our steaming couple from the portal had moved across the street and had continued their session in the all-brightening illumination of the street lights. His hand was yet again in her crotch, and she was enjoying it. Clearly. And after that her head went into his crotch. I kid you not. There were people passing by from both sides and they didn’t even look up. They just went at it. And still for about 40 minutes or so.

I’m typically not a paparazzi. I tend to think I have respect for people and think that you’re free to do what you want (also up to a certain extend, of course). But this was a whole different thing. I took out my camera and put on the 70-200mm. Big Brother’s watching.
What you do in the confines of four walls is your own business. If I would happen to see my neighbors across the street having a go at it in their apartment I turn away. That’s their business, that’s their home, and I respect that.
Maybe you’ll ask: so why put up these pictures? Why not show respect for these people and stay quiet about what you saw? Why embarrass them by putting these pictures for the world to see? And I’ll answer you: why would I have ANY respect for you when you have no respect for yourself? No dignity? When you stoop so low, when you allow yourself to get so drunk that you engage in oral sex on the street in plain sight? When you embarrass yourself and others for having to witness this when they pass you?
My respect for people does go so far that I did blur out the faces. I’m not out to destroying anyone’s life, but I do kind of hope that one of them two happens to come across this blog post and realizes that this is simply not done. And that if I was there with a camera, someone else may have been, too. With less “honorable” intentions…

Anyway… Hope you all had a great and sunny Labour Day, and that y’all behaved

Something completely different from Norway. One of those impulse posts, I guess you could call it.
I’m not one of those groupies who’s scouring the net and the movies for any of those Photoshop bloopers that they haven’t been able to cover up properly, or one of those scenes where they do something physically impossible (duh?? ).
But this afternoon I was going through the local cinema’s offer of new movies. I wanted to go see a movie. I had a few possible ones that I’d like to see. I heard a lot about the Hunger Games, and so I checked a quick synopsis from the cinema’s home page. It was accompanied by this picture (of course the red circles and the enlargements weren’t there, I put them there to show where to look ):

Still from the Hunger Games starring Jennifer Lawrence. Image courtesy Color Force / Larger Than Life Productions / Lionsgate / Ludas Productions

Pretty young lady, Jennifer Lawrence, isn’t she? Cool picture, too. But when you’re done looking at her, go ahead and follow the arrow along her left arm to her hand and her hand itself.
Now… I’m not an archer, I’ve done it a couple of times, but I don’t know anything about it. It could just be that this is some sort of Robin Hood technique that I’m not familiar with, but that arrow is resting on her wrist and in an angle like that it will swerve to the left and miss target, if the tail of the arrow doesn’t bump the hand and topple over. Or maybe the sixth finger on her hand is doing all the correcting there… Who knows…?

So is this one of those Photoshop bloopers? Or has she perfected the archery so much that you can actually shoot like this? Or is she hoping that that stretched out finger, and the extra finger, will force-point the arrow in the right direction?

Comments, suggestions and explanations welcome

Facebook has been flooded with them. Up to the point of nuisance some times.
But there have been some really funny ones among them. And -I can’t quite remember what triggered it- but I made one myself. Several times it’s been that I (over)heard people say or say it straight in my face that everyone can take pictures if they have a good camera.
Of course…. Everyone can take pictures, but that doesn’t make you a photographer. It’s been one of the lines I’ve been using for quite awhile: Buying a (big) camera doesn’t make you a photographer, it makes you a camera owner.
People think they are a photographer, because they have a big camera. They think that if you have an expensive camera with a high pixel count, you make great pictures. They think with a big expensive camera all you have to do is lift, aim, press shutter and you have a perfect picture. Sure, the image quality gets better with a bigger camera, but that doesn’t make the photographs any better. If you don’t have the eye, if you don’t have some sort of technical knowledge of what you’re doing, it makes no difference if you have a big or a small camera. The photographs will be crap no matter what. And Photoshop doesn’t help there either. You can’t make a good picture out of a bad picture.

So for all those who think they photographers are photographers just because they have a big camera, I would like to dedicate this to you (click it, like it and share it, if you will):

I have an old lens for sale. It’s a slower lens, I bought it for about 1200€ back when I was still more of an amateur than I am now. It’s a great lens, but when you’re starting to work on a more advanced level and you need fast glass, this one just doesn’t do the trick anymore. Yet, it’s a beautiful lens and perfect for someone just starting out and wanting something with a long reach. It’s a Sigma 170-500mm, APO, f/5-6.3. Just before the days of image stabilization.

Anyway… I put it up for sale on the Finnish Tori.fi, hoping to find the lens a nice new owner.
I was of course happily surprised that after a week or so I received a message in my inbox through Tori.fi from a guy named Chris Thompson (thomchris2000@gmail.com).
Very short:

hei
Onko sinulla vielä tämän kohteen myynnissä?

Meaning literally translated: “Hi, do you have this item still in sale?” My Finnish is far from perfect, but between the lines that reads already “Google Translate”. But hey… English name of the sender, that’s ok. It’s an effort, I’d say. So, happy I may have found a buyer for my piece of glass I reply to the message in Finnish, confirming that the lens is still for sale.

Several hours later I get a reply from Chris again:

Kiitos vastauksesta. Olisin halunnut tulla katsomaan sitä ja maksaa käteisellä, mutta olen pois kaupungista juuri nyt. Haluan lähettää tämän ystävälleni joka asuu Lagos Nigeriassa lahjaksi. Lähetän rahaa teille, sisältäen postikulut maksut kautta pankkiin, mutta minä tarvitsen sinua assit minulle postitse paketin Nigeriaan haluaisin tietää kuinka paljon se tulee maksamaan postitse Lagos Nigeriassa ja kaikkiaan rahaa maksaa. myös lähettää minulle tilitiedot, jotta voin siirtää rahaa tilillesi mahdollisimman pian.

kiitos
Chris

Thanks for your reply. I would have loved to come and take a look at it and pay you cash, but I’m out of the city right now. I want to send this to my friend who lives in Lagos Nigeria as a gift. I will send the money to you, including postage charges through your bank, but I will need you to assit me post the package to Nigeria.
let me know how much it will cost to post to Lagos Nigeria and the total money to pay. also send me your bank account details so that I can transfer the money to your account as soon as possible.
Thanks
Chris

First in Finnish, and then just to be sure in English, so that if Google Translate has screwed up, I could still understand it from the English version. And I understood it very well. Both the Finnish AND the English version. As soon as I saw Nigeria all the red flags went up and the angels sang Christmas carols with alarm bells.
Nevertheless… I’m always willing to give a person the benefit of the doubt (ahem), so I replied:

Hi Chris,

I’m not sure if you prefer English or Finnish, but I can also write in English.
I’m not in a hurry with selling the lens, so I will wait until you are back in town so you can have a look and pay in cash if you like the lens.
In that case you can also take care of the sending yourself, because if I send it I will only send it insured. The costs for sending this lens insured are about 250€ extra, so that would be quite a big sum extra on top of the 400€.

Let me know when we can meet.

Best,
Arno

Now it takes Chris only one hour to reply:

I would have loved to come and take a look at it and pay you in cash, but I’m buying this as a birthday gift and want it to get to Nigeria before the birthday is over. send me your bank account details so that I can transfer 650 euro to your account. thanks.

Of course it is very likely that Chris is out of town for awhile and that he wants his friend in Nigeria to have this before the birthday is over, so I still give the guy the benefit of the doubt (ahem). So I tell him it’s too bad we don’t get to meet and send him my bank details and ask him from which bank I can expect his payment. To which he fairly immediately replies “Bank of America” (which of course makes perfect sense, his IP being located in the US and Finland not having a Bank of America).

So the next day I get a mail from Chris:

hi
I have transferred the  money to your account. please go to the post and send out the package to Nigeria immediately
this is the name and address of the receiver
Name:      Peter Emmanuel
Address    No. 84, Ijesha Road, Ijeshatedo
City:         Surulere
State:       Lagos
Country:   Nigeria
Zip code:  23401
let me know as soon as you have posted it out.
thanks.

I also get SIX mails from the Bank of America. Or so am I supposed to be thinking. Logos unproportionally stretched into oblivion, AND hot-linked from a variety of other websites (of companies that have done or are still doing business with Bank of America and which have the logo hosted on their website). And the email address it came from was customer_service@net-shopping.com. One would think, logically speaking that is, that it would come from a bankofamerica.com email address, but then again… what do I know…?
The Executive Vice-President Deb Walden of Bank of America tells me that I have just received a payment of €650 from their valuable subscriber Chris Thompson and that all I need to do is send a scan/copy of the package slip as proof of shipment of the item to the bank, so they can release the funds into my account (angels singing ChrisT(hompson)mas carols with alarm bells). So… Off I go to the post office to get me a package slip, fill in the address, and my address, which of course is fake and make a scan of it which I send to the email address of Bank of America (the customer_service@net-shopping.com one). Initially I wanted to make my address Huijaus 4 N 19, but I figured then it may have been a bit too obvious that I had no intention of actually sending the package.

The package slip as proof of me sending my precious lens to Nigeria

I received a reply from the Bank of America that they received my mail and that they would verify the information.

In the mean time I sent Chris a mail informing him that the package was sent, and at the same time I forwarded all the emails, including the Bank of America ones to Bank of America, the FBI, the Helsinki Police, Tori.fi and the African 419 scammers police department, as well as to the websites from which images were hot-linked. I haven’t received a reply from any of them, but I guess that’s not really my problem.

A day passes and I get a message from Bank of America saying that they have been unable to verify the postage of the item from the courier’s website, but I have nothing to worry about, because my money is safe with them.
At the same time I get a mail from Chris, asking me the tracking number for the package. I play stupid, and tell him that according to his bank I should send the tracking number of the package to the buyer unless I have received my money, and that I haven’t received my money yet, so I won’t be sending him the tracking number just yet. He instantly replies:

why have you not received the money? I have paid and the money has already been deducted from my account. so how do I know the status of the package? please let me know the status of the package
thanks for your understanding

To which I reply:

I don’t know why I haven’t got the money, yet. Ask your bank, they are responsible. I sent the package on Monday and sent a scan of the package slip to the email address your bank gave me. I’d prefer to get the money ASAP, too. I just sent off an expensive lens and I haven’t even gotten any money. This is starting to taste very dodgy…

To which he profusely apologizes and asks me if I have got any message from the bank about a shipping document that needs to be verified and I need to let him know so he can contact them about it and ask what’s going on (he’s such a sweet guy! ). I tell him that I got a mail from them saying they couldn’t verify the document, but that it’s probably because of the holiday (Finnish Independence Day was around that time). He writes me back:

okay maybe because of the holiday, that is why they couldn’t verify the postage. I will write them to know exactly what the problem is.  I can assure you that you will get the money. I will write them.
thanks.

So… He assures me I will get the money… And he continues a day later:

hello
I contacted the bank to know why you have not received your money, but they told me that they have not been able to verify the postage.
please did you give them the right information?
what is the status of the package now?
please let me know so that I can talk to them. let them give you the money so that I can have the shipment tracking number to know exactly where my package is.

HIS package?? Riiiiight… So I reply to him:

Yes I gave them the right information. And I want my MONEY!
The package has left the airport of Helsinki, and I’m out of a lens and out of money.
I hope you’re not scamming me, because I will run to the police quicker than you can say package.

And his totally indignant reply:

OMG! how could you think of me scamming you? if I do, how will I be able to get the tracking number? I have been honest to you and I want to make sure that you get your money. I’m a very honest person. I will still contact the bank to make sure that you get your money.

That’s basically where the communication stops.
I got a couple of things in between that took up most of my time. Would’ve loved to keep him on a leash for awhile longer, even only so that he couldn’t go after other people’s stuff, but I think he got wind of it that I was actually pulling his leg.
Next time I’m going to send them an actual package and see what happens with “the money”.

In any case, aside from this being a funny story, it’s more of a warning. I’ve written about scams before, but this is one of those 419 operations that keep on going on all the time, and not only with photography items, but with everything. Be very wary about who you deal with. If people don’t negotiate about prices of items you sell, and are willing to pay a shitload of money extra for shipping without blinking, or if they bid generously over the set price of which you sell your item for, your red flags should go off. And if they want you to send it before paying you, even more red flags should go off. And if they want you to send it to Nigeria the red flags and alarm bells should go off so loudly your neighbors will bang the walls.
Be careful out there!

(By the way… The lens is found an honest new owner in Finland)