Complaint Review: Nora Herman

I am a luxury retailer/reseller for rare and hard to find women's handbags, most notably the Hermes Birkin. These handbags sell from $10,000-$100,000+. On occasion I will find private sellers on eBay who are selling their handbags at a reasonable price so that I can mark it up for resell.

In May I noticed a new eBay seller beverlyjhills with a Hermes Birkin I was interested in. Here is the listing:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161036935095

I traded a few emails with her on this bag but it went nowhere. When I followed up she said it had sold.

This month I noticed she had a new listing for this bag:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/161057316751

This time I was able to reach a deal with her to purchase this bag for $10,400. I was concerned that she did not have a PayPal account to accept payment, which would offer me buyer protection, but after speaking with her on the telephone and trading over a dozen emails I decided that she was educated in the product she was selling and believed her to be legitimate so I sent her a wire transfer to the following account for $10,400:

Centris Federal Credit Union
11718 M St.
Omaha, NE 68127
Routing #304082876
â„…
David G. Herman
Account #12446169

I realize some people reading this will say "what kind of moron sends a wire for that kind of money to a stranger" but this is how this industry operated. It is how business is done. I wire tens of thousands of dollars in good faith all over the world and have never had a problem. There is always a risk but that is the cost of doing business.

Prior to sending the wire transfer I asked her to send me an invoice as well as supply her address so I could create a shipping label. The invoice was sent in the name of Le Beau Cheval Farms and the email address used was norajp@ymail.com. All other communication came from beverlyjensen19@gmail.com and the name she called herself was also Beverly.

I sent the wire transfer on July 3rd. Afterwards I followed up with her to let her know I sent it and I received this email:

"Hi, I didn't get the call yesterday, so they probably won't get it until tomorrow. I am going to the lake with my family for the weekend and will be back on Monday. Hopefully my bank will call me tomorrow with the notification.

Are you emailing me the label or sending it in the mail? I don't have a printer at the lake house, otherwise I would ship from there. So I will ship the bag out when I get back. You will have it early next week. I hope this is ok.

If this works out well for us both, I do have some other bags. I was looking on line and see that you are a reseller. Because of my g/f's VIP status, I'm not suppose to resell the bags for profit. But since Hermes bags don't have serial numbers like Chanel, I should be ok as long as I'm reasonably discreet. Let me know if you're interested in other bags. We can talk about it after you get the gold bag."

Of course this seemed reasonable enough so I waited until Monday to follow up again. At that point she said they were returning in the evening and she would ship on Tuesday morning. Tuesday evening I followed up and received the following:

"Yes. it got dropped off late. They should pick up the tracking for you in the am. I'm sorry. We got back much later than I had planned. Some of my husband's family came into visit (unexpected, yay) and he wanted to stay longer. Of course I didn't drive separate. We should have taken two cars. He could have stayed another week. Oh well, live and learn."

When I didn't see any tracking the next morning I smelled a rat. I followed up again and received the following:

"Hi, I will have to check it when I got home. I was sure it went out. But right now, I am not sure of anything. I am at the hospital with my husband. He got into some poison ivy/oak and and had an horrible allergic reaction sending him into shock. He's been hospitalized and until today has been in critical condition and in intensive care. They have him stabilized now, but I have not been able to leave.

I am so sorry. I am going to try and go home tonight to shower, check on your bag, check my dogs, etc. If it's not too late, I will call you later tonight from home as there is no cell service here. Please try and understand this was completely unexpected and a desperate emergency. My mind is all over the place. I can't remember if I took the bag to the Post office or if I had my husband drop it off. If he was to drop it off, the box should be in his car. I will let you know as soon as we have the next nurse check. Then I can leave."

At this point of course I called bulls##t! She followed up with one excuse after another all the while I am calling bulls##t. I checked her eBay feedback and realized that all of her 16 positive feedbacks were from purchasing small inexpensive items. This is common among eBay scammers, they build up feedback quickly to give buyers a fall sense of security. I started emailing these sellers and discovered that I was not the first person this happened to. Each of the sellers said they were previously contacted by MULTIPLE victims. She has since changed her eBay username from beverlyjhills to thejams2012 and made her feedback private. The sellers were able to confirm that the address she gave me is correct, as that is where they sent her merchandise, but the name she used with them and the one that is on her PayPal account is Nora Winkler. I received the following email from another victim:

"My name is Linda and lives in Los Angeles. I really need you do me a big favor. If you go to www.ebay.com, enter 161036935095 then click "search" button, you will see it is a listing for a Hermes birkin bag. The seller is beverlyjhills I made an agreement with her to pay her $7500 for this bag. As you see, I am a top rated powerseller on ebay, my paypal account is used for my business purpose, so I wired transfer her $7500 from my bank account on June 1st to Bank is Centris Federal Credit Union Routing is 304082876 Account is 12446169 The name is David G Herman & Nora J. Peterson Once she received money on June 4th, she provided me the fake USPS express mail tracking number 9472 6036 9930 0000 2988 70 on June 6th. Then she used all the excuses to make a story. On June 24th, I sent her an email said I will ask my lawyer to sue her for fraud, she won't reply my emails anymore. - toplinkinc"

I retained my longtime private investigator and quickly discovered that there is no woman named Beverly or such a farm. The residents at that address are David Herman (the name on the bank account) and his wife Nora Herman (aka Nora Winkler). They filed bankruptcy in 2011. David is an employee at the Kellogg Company. Through contacts at the FBI we were able to obtain a complete file on both of them including full social security numbers, mortgages, cars, everything that you can imagine. I am happy to share these files with anyone who wants them. When I sent all of this data to her so she could realize that the gig was up she had the nerve to call me to see if we could work this out amicably!

THE ANSWER IS NO NORA AND DAVID HERMAN! I AM GOING TO PUT YOU IN PRISON WHERE YOU BELONG. I AM GOING TO TAKE YOUR HOUSE, YOUR CAR, YOUR JEWELRY, AND THE POT THAT YOU PISS IN. YOU ARE GOING TO ROT IN HELL YOU SCUMBAG PIECES OF SH#T!

Because I am in one state, her bank is in another, and she lives in another, she has violated multiple federal and state laws. I have the FBI, eBay, and the police from three states involved in this case. For $10,400 this woman has given up her life. Congratulations!

I am only posting this in the hopes that another unsuspecting consumer does some research before dealing with this con-artist so I can save her this heartache. I do not expect to recover any of the funds, however I have many more resources at my fingertips than most people and I fully expect to put her and anyone else involved in this elaborate scheme behind bars in die time. If anyone else has information related to Nora Herman please contact me.