Crickets

So, I got another $25 payment as part of the agreed compensation from Asif Zamir. But, from what I can tell, no other victim has heard anything from Asif. The promised payments at the end of February seem not to have materialized.

Every person I have spoken to seems to be #2 or higher on the list of people to be paid, but nobody is #1.

I feel extremely fortunate to have gotten my money back, and I can only think that Asif is compensating me in order to eventually have this blog taken down. I think it might be time to bring the police in to mediate this situation.

Asif Zamir: Accused of massive fraud

Ok, I wasn't sure if I would post this, mainly because I thought it might go somewhere, but now I'm not so sure.

I was contacted by somebody who accuses Asif Zamir of having committed fraud against individuals and a church. The amount that the accuser says he and the others have lost is $450,000. I have no way of verifying if this is true, but as I have said before, if you have been a victim of Asif Zamir, contact the police in Toronto. Provide proof. File a complaint with the RCMP.

Maybe, just maybe, the police will hunt down Asif Zamir and arrest him. It is my most fervent wish that Asif Zamir spends his life hiding, looking over his shoulder and fearing eternal damnation for what he has done.

Asif Zamir: Call the Toronto police

Hi All,

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Here's the deal. The RCMP has the Asif Zamir dossier. They also recommend that each of us contact the Toronto Police Services at the following address:

40 College ST
Toronto,ON
M5G 2J3
(416) 808-7300

Just call them. We all know that the Peel police department doesn't care about this, but seeing as Asif Zamir scams people from the Toronto area, this is the way to go.

Anybody who wants my support on this, just let me know. I will happily spend a few days in Toronto to testify against Asif Zamir.

To RR who left the comment in the last post: Let me know how I can help.

Asif Zamir: What he sounds like...

I have finally obtained a digitized voice recording of Asif Zamir from one of his victims. I can confirm that this is indeed his voice, and all of his other victims will surely recognize its Owen Meany-esque timbre.

Click here to listen to Asif Zamir lie

What you will notice is how nice he sounds. Interesting how Asif Zamir can claim to be a Christian who is involved in homeless charities in Toronto, how he can come across as a benign well-intentioned person on the phone, and then commit acts of fraud that amount to over $30,000 (that we know of).

Asif Zamir continues to hide, to the point of having removed the word "Pickering" from his blog because it may help his victims and the police locate him.

The hunt continues...

Ebay's Opinion? Asif Zamir is a Scammer

I haven't really emphasized this before, but when I filed a dispute on ebay regarding the Asif Zamir's failure to provide the merchandise I paid for, Asif Zamir did not respond. I then filed for compensation as a victim of fraud. Ebay investigated and found in my favour and compensated me $175 USD as a victim of fraud on ebay. $175 is the maximum amount that ebay compensates fraud victims.

So, if anybody has any lingering doubts that Asif Zamir is a crook, think about the above.

Asif Zamir: The Case so Far

I will be taking a break from posting for a little while, so before I go, I want to list the case against Asif Zamir one more time, kind of a one stop shop for people who may be thinking of going anywhere near him:

1. From April 2006 to August 2007, Asif Zamir had received at least $10,000 for camera equipment for which he has provided absolutely nothing in return. This figure is what I have been able to confirm, it is very likely there are other victims of Asif Zamir out there that I don't know about. For all I know, he could have taken ten times as much.

2. Asif Zamir started soliciting "buyers" on ebay. His ebay account was suspended and then cancelled in February 2007. He has never been allowed to advertise on ebay again.

3. Asif Zamir continued to solicit money from others by email right up to July/August 2007.

4. The number of known victims is 8.

5. Despite having many email addreses, at least one of which that was known to be active as recently as October, Asif Zamir has refused to respond to any of the people from which he took money. It goes without saying that he has not taken it upon himself to contact his victims either.

6. Asif Zamir claims to be a charitable Christian. If he performs any charity, it is at the expense of his many victims. If he is a Christian, he flagrantly disregards at least 1 commandment.

7. Asif Zamir has been in hiding since July 2007. His mother claims to not know where he is. The police no longer know where he lives.

I will post again relatively soon. This will not be over for as long as Asif Zamir is not brought to justice.

Stay tuned.

Asif Zamir Strikes Again

I got an email today from a woman named Sue who paid Asif over $600 for a Canon Rebel XT and, surprise! Never saw the camera or her money again. So, we must be pushing at least $10,000 that Asif Zamir has stolen from a total of 8 people.

This blog must be getting boring in its predictability. More victims found, more money stolen and no Asif Zamir to be found anywhere.

Asif Zamir: Who is he?

I have a bit of a description of Asif Zamir's appearance from somebody who has met him face to face that I would like to share with you:

"Asif is about 5'5" give or take. Slim/small frame. Black hair, medium complexion/East Indian. Soft spoken. Wears glasses but I don't think he does all the time."

As I have mentioned before, Asif Zamir has a very particular voice. It is a high-pitched to the point that it can sound androgynous at first. As he continues to talk, however, it is clear that it is the voice of a man.

Still no sign of Asif Zamir. Still no evidence that he was a victim of identity theft. Still no proof that his ebay account was hacked. Plenty of proof that he was paid thousands of dollars by people who trusted him. Plenty of proof that, in the very best possible case, Asif Zamir does not care enough about the people he owes money to to call them. In the worst case, he has planned and executed fraud to the tune of at least nearly $10,000.

Finding Asif Zamir

Asif Zamir is in hiding as I have mentioned, and that's not an accident. He knows the police are on his trail and he knows that there are a bunch of angry victims too. So, how can we find Asif Zamir?

Some of you have met him. Some of you know where he used to work. I would like to have all the information that you have so that we can try to narrow down where he is hiding. The police are limited in their ability to do anything until they can find him.

As I have said before, he can't hide forever. One day he will come out of the woodwork and all of this will be waiting for him. In the meantime, let's do what we can. I know that this blog will go a long way to warning people off doing any kind of business with him, and that's a comfort (for me anyway). Of course that's cold comfort for James, who was bilked out of more than $4,000.

Anyhow, give me the information that you have, and I'll post it here.

Worst Theft to Date

I was just doing a little research on Asif Zamir today to check to see where this blog comes up in the Google results and imagine my surprise when I found this:

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00MpOc

Do a search on the page for "Asif Zamir" (what else?) and you will find a post by a man named James Cripps. This poor guy lost $5000 to Asif Zamir through ebay.

Is there anybody reading this who doesn't believe that Asif Zamir is systematically committing fraud? We are up to almost $10,000 in money owed by Asif.

Here's a quick chronology just to illustrate how absurd the "identity theft" claim is (note how the pattern begins long before Asif Zamir claims to have had his identity stolen):

Spring 2006: Pat pays Asif Zamir $750 for a new camera. Never gets the camera or his money back.

October/November 2006: James Cripps pays Asif Zamir close to $5000 for photographic equipment through an ebay transaction. I need information from James, but from what he wrote, he never saw his goods nor his money ever again.

October/November 2006: Mike pays approximately $1500 to Asif Zamir.

January 2007: I pay Asif Zamir $1190 for a new Nikon D80 with a lens kit. I never see my money again.

January 2007: Asif Zamir gets some bad feedback on ebay claiming he is a liar.

January 2007: Asif Zamir's ebay account is suspended.

January/February 2007: Asif Zamir starts telling people that his identity has been stolen.

Spring 2007: I send Asif Zamir a letter of demand by registered mail. It is returned marked "Refused by addressee".

Spring 2007: A fraud detective from the Peel Police department gets involved. He says that he is in almost daily contact with Asif Zamir, and if everybody is patient, all will be refunded. Some people get refunds, including Mike who is partially refunded.

June 2007: The police detective goes on sick leave until the beginning of August.

Summer 2007: Asif Zamir solicits customers who received goods in previous transactions. Jakub and another man both pay Asif for new Canon lenses.

August 2007: The fraud detective returns to work and reports that Asif Zamir was evicted from his apartment for non-payment and that he can no longer be found.

A New Victim

I have been contacted by yet another victim of Asif Zamir who was solicited this past summer. It's a terrible shame.

So, that brings the number of confirmed victims to 6 and the total of money that Asif Zamir has that does not belong to him up to about $4500.

All of the people who were solicited in the summer were contacted long after this whole claimed "identity theft" issue. Asif Zamir claims to have had his identity stolen, and he uses that as an excuse for not paying me back my $1190. But the people who were solicited this past summer who have had Asif Zamir disappear on them are a completely different story. Asif knew that he hadn't paid me, Mike, Pat or Raymond. But he still went after others. The best that he could have done is stolen from Peter to pay Paul, so to speak.

My belief is that the identity theft claim is a canard. There was no identity theft. Asif Zamir just took a bunch of money from people and thought that he could get the police on his side by claiming it. Has anybody investigated this identity theft? Have the police even been asked to look into it?

If this had really happened, Asif Zamir would have kept in touch with his supposed customers and kept them up to date on what was happening.

Unfortunately, I expect that there are going to be more and more victims of Asif Zamir.

A bit of reality

I tried to contact Asif Zamir on the cell number that he gave Jakub and all of the others that he solicited this past summer. It was not surprising that it was no longer assigned. Let me reiterate that Jakub had dealt with Asif Zamir before and knew his voice well, so when Jakub used this cellphone to talk to him, he knew he was talking to Asif Zamir and not some imaginary identity thief.

What I wanted to tell Asif is that he is making a big mistake. Here he is, hiding from his creditors and hiding from the police. (The police, by the way, seem to get somewhat annoyed with people who hide from them - not to mention people who conspire to hide the person as well. In any case, from what I know, Asif Zamir owes about $3000 to $3500 total to the people I have been in contact with. Maybe there are more out there, but this is what I know. It appears that Asif thinks that not repaying this amount is worth his future. There are a few points that I think make repaying the money a bargain for Asif. Here are some of them:

1) As it stands, this blog is the first thing that you get when you Google Asif Zamir. I am not going to stop this blog until I get my money. So, if Asif ever wants to do legitimate business on the internet, he would not want his illegitimate past documented for all to see.

2) Asif Zamir cannot hide forever, and I will not stop looking. I realize that he is probably living with his mom right now, but I still have to execute the rest of my plan before getting to the point of actually locating him myself. When I do find him, I will drag him to court. He will obviously lose the case, so he will have to pay me. The only way he can get out of paying me is by declaring personal bankruptcy. If he does that, his credit is ruined for 7 years. No loans, no credit cards, nothing.

3) He faces the prospect of being charged with fraud. If convicted he will have a criminal record and he won't be able to go to the US. Not only that, but a civil case is a certainty, so he could well end up a bankrupt convicted fraudster.

So, a rational person would look at these potential outcomes and think "$3500 is a bargain to avoid this!". This is Asif Zamir's reality, and he seems Hell-bent on pretending it is not.

Fairness

I was wondering if Asif Zamir feels like a victim. I know he claims to have been the victim of identity theft - although I must admit, if this is the case, he should have worked with the Detective who was working on his creditors' cases. Let's say he was a victim of identity theft, does he feel more of a victim than, say, me, who is out $1190 because of him? Does he think that I should just forget that I parted with this hard-earned money and got nothing in return?

I can say that if Asif Zamir stayed in touch with me, involved the police, and worked to resolve this, I might have a different perspective. But the truth is that I have not heard from him in about 4 months, and when I did hear from him, it was because a fraud detective was calling him everyday. Also thanks to the detective, I received some "mass emails" promising payback dates that never materialized, and at the very start I got two voicemail messages from him, one saying that my order was fine, then one saying that he would pay me back. Those voice messages were left at my home when I was at work, even though I told him to call me on my cell, and the calls came after I left about 10 messages with him.

So, in over 8 months I have heard almost nothing from him. Had it not been for the police detective, I'm sure I would have heard less than that.

All this to say that if Asif Zamir had demonstrated any kind of goodwill by communicating with me, agreeing to repay me on a schedule, actually entering into some kind of dialogue... Well, I guess if he'd done that, you wouldn't be reading this, the police would not be involved, Asif Zamir would not be hiding.

This takes the cake

I can understand that Asif Zamir went underground when all of the people started demanding money from him. But now he has started his own blog, presumably to counter this blog. Here it is:

http://asifzamir.blogspot.com/

So, let's talk about Asif Zamir's claim that his has had his identity stolen. If he had had his identity stolen, why hasn't ebay restored his account?

But wait a second....

I was going to launch into an impassioned refutation of this claim of identity theft for why Asif Zamir has not paid me and so many others back, but you know what? If he truly has had his identity stolen and if I paid somebody other than him, then we can find out who the culprit is. I sent an Interac email money transfer, as did everybody else. That money will be traceable to a bank account. I am willing to bet that the bank account that received my money belongs to Asif Zamir. We can easily trace that money even if the account has been closed. One way or another, if Asif Zamir is not lying and is truly interested in finding out who stole his identity, he will co-operate with me, the police and all others to have this mystery man charged with fraud. Maybe he can call OJ Simpson, and OJ can help him find the fraudster and afterwards Asif can help find the real killers. What do you think?

So, Asif Zamir, since it is established that you ARE reading this blog, email me and we will get in touch with the police and trace where my money actually went. Then we can establish who stole my money and have them charged with fraud. We can do that with Jakub, Pat, Raymond and Mike too.

This is getting interesting....

P.S. - Notice that Asif Zamir has not allowed people to comment on his blog. Trying to control the message, perhaps?

Why start "Asif Zamir Owes Me Money"?

So, you may wonder why I would have started a blog like this. Ok, there’s the obvious point that Asif Zamir actually does owe me $1190… but now, my chances of getting that money back without a judge’s decree are as close to nil as me winning the 6/49.

There are a few reasons why I write, I suppose. One is that I honestly hope that at least one person will Google Asif Zamir before sending him the money. If a website such as this one existed before I sent money to Asif, obviously I never would have sent it.

My second hopes are really twin hopes: I hope that Asif Zamir is reading this blog and I hope he is not a sociopath. I know it’s a faint hope, but I hope that Asif reads this blog and that his conscience is assaulting him day and night for the money he took from me, Pat, Jakub, Mike, Raymond and all of the other people of whom I am not yet aware. So, this tiny little hope that I have is that Asif Zamir will come clean, and take all of the necessary steps to right the wrongs that he has committed.

(A side note: I don’t know what Christian sect Asif Zamir belongs to, but I really hope it is one where his actions threaten his eternal salvation.)

My third hope is that he realizes that he is not the victim. He has referred to the “hacking” of his account as something that has done him great harm. Asif Zamir, if you are reading, even if you had your identity stolen, you still have the primordial responsibility to repay your customers. We are your victims. There is only one bad guy in this story, and it is you. Everybody else sent you money out of a misplaced trust in your character.

My fourth hope is that this body of evidence might reveal to authorities that Asif Zamir is committing fraud. If I cannot get my money back, I would be somewhat consoled to see a fraud charge laid against Asif Zamir. I will go testify, and I know others who will too. At what point can we consider the repeated soliciting of money and the subsequent failure to provide the promised merchandise a crime?