A federal grand jury today indicted a Summit man on charges he scammed credit card companies and sellers on eBay by purchasing more than $122,000 worth of foreign and antique banknotes then claiming he never received them.

David D'Aries, 50, was charged with one count of mail fraud in the indictment announced by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

In a release issued by his office, Fishman said D'Aries posed as a buyer of rare and antique foreign banknotes on the online auction site eBay between June 2007 and October 2012.

During that period, Fishman said, D'Aries won about 400 bids, paying for the banknotes either through PayPal or by credit card. After the sellers - from around the world - mailed the items to his home or a post office box in Chatham, D'Aries filed claims with PayPal or the credit card companies that he never received the banknotes or that they were unauthorized charges, Fishman said. They often issued him refunds, he said.

In turn, the sellers filed fraud claims with eBay, PayPal, the credit card companies and the U.S. Postal Service, Fishman said.

D'Aries is accused of using three different identities, including his dead father's and a person who lived with him, in the alleged scam.

In a June 30, 2011, search of his home, investigators found in a locked metal filing cabinet in his closet several thousand foreign banknotes and 165 pieces of mail from around the world addressed to him or one of the other identities he allegedly used, Fishman said.

In all, D'Aries scammed eBay, PayPal and the credit card companies out of $148,356, Fishman said.

To read the complete article, see:Summit man accused of scamming banknote sellers on eBay(www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2014/01/summit_man_
accused_of_scamming_banknote_sellers_on_ebay.html)