SCAM?

[skippydiesel]

I hope I am not being alarmist or offending a possible private supplier.

 

I placed a "WANTED" advertisement this Forums .

After 30+  days, I received a Personal Communication from Mikearthur002  (supposedly from Oregon USA) saying he had the part for sale.

• "Still interested in purchasing the tail wheel? i have one for sale"

I answered yes & asked for  details, photo, asking price, etc

7 day later, I received aswears from someone calling themselves Rex.

Negotiations proceeded, price arrived at, etc The price, considering condition of part (new) and its delivery from the USA (high shipping costs) was good .

Rex then asked me to pay via PayPal to his daughters account

• "....send payment as family and friends, this will enable me get quick access to funds in order to process shipping.
• After payment is made kindly send a copy of payment slip."

I started to get "cold feet" - asked internet savvy, young members of family - they thought dodgy.  Younger family member did an internet search and found Mikearthur/Rex to be selling, internationally, a range of unrelated items, through various forums.

 

Concerned, I asked Rex the following questions:

 

• Your name is Rex however your pen name is Mikearthur 002 (Mike Arthur?) – What’s the story?
• How did you come by the API tail wheel you are offering for sale?
• Please take a photo of the wheel ,with your handwritten email address and date.
• You want me to transfer funds to your daughter – not you ?????
• Payment as “family and friends” offers me no protection through PayPal.???
• After payment I am to send you a “payment slip”  - why not your daughter?
• You have zero activity on the Recreational Pilots Forum – how come?

 

8 days latter, no response

 

😈

 

 

[BrendAn]

6 hours ago, skippydiesel said:

I hope I am not being alarmist or offending a possible private supplier.

 

I placed a "WANTED" advertisement this Forums .

After 30+  days, I received a Personal Communication from Mikearthur002  (supposedly from Oregon USA) saying he had the part for sale.

• "Still interested in purchasing the tail wheel? i have one for sale"

I answered yes & asked for  details, photo, asking price, etc

7 day later, I received aswears from someone calling themselves Rex.

Negotiations proceeded, price arrived at, etc The price, considering condition of part (new) and its delivery from the USA (high shipping costs) was good .

Rex then asked me to pay via PayPal to his daughters account

• "....send payment as family and friends, this will enable me get quick access to funds in order to process shipping.
• After payment is made kindly send a copy of payment slip."

I started to get "cold feet" - asked internet savvy, young members of family - they thought dodgy.  Younger family member did an internet search and found Mikearthur/Rex to be selling, internationally, a range of unrelated items, through various forums.

 

Concerned, I asked Rex the following questions:

 

• Your name is Rex however your pen name is Mikearthur 002 (Mike Arthur?) – What’s the story?
• How did you come by the API tail wheel you are offering for sale?
• Please take a photo of the wheel ,with your handwritten email address and date.
• You want me to transfer funds to your daughter – not you ?????
• Payment as “family and friends” offers me no protection through PayPal.???
• After payment I am to send you a “payment slip”  - why not your daughter?
• You have zero activity on the Recreational Pilots Forum – how come?

 

8 days latter, no response

 

😈

 

 

there are a lot of dirtbags that do this on the net.    they steal people's ads and make out they are that person.   facebook market place is bad for it.

[skippydiesel]

Hi BrendAn,

 

Even though I feel a bit of an idiot, felt it's important to post my concerns in this matter - may help another Forum member.😈

[BrendAn]

17 minutes ago, skippydiesel said:

Hi BrendAn,

 

Even though I feel a bit of an idiot, felt it's important to post my concerns in this matter - may help another Forum member.😈

A lot of smart people get conned.

The scammers can be convincing.

[Blueadventures]

I'd give Peter Anson Engineering a call and see if he can make the part and at what price.

[KRviator]

We've got a boat listed for sale on FB Marketplace and have been in negotiations with some bloke from Sydney. He paid, initially, a $200, then another $500 deposit to hold the boat pending him picking it up. The $$ cleared into our account, and are still there and we agreed on a date & time - to the point I knocked back a pair of overtime shifts from work that cost me around $2K. He didn't show. Not happy, but okay, everyone deserves a second chance. We negotiated another time. No show again. Finally a third and even though I followed up the night before to make sure he's coming, there's been no response - nor has he even read that message apparently. 

After the third no-show, I sent him the following message:

Quote

Hi Jim,
Today makes three times we've arranged a date for you to pick up the boat only for you not to show up. On account of your ongoing lack of responses, the boat's been relisted on FB and made available for the other prospective buyer.
 

Moving forward, I'm going to need full payment - including the registration component - transferred before we arrange anything else. Once that occurs, I'll move the boat to our vacant block next door and lock the gate with a combination padlock and give you the code so you can pick it up at a time that suits you.
 

Thank you for your understanding.

I don't get it - we still have his $700 quid, it hasn't been reclaimed, nor have we had a visit from the Fuzz alleging any wrong-doing by us in keeping his dough.

The only thing the KRviatrix and I can come up with - and this is stretching things a bit based on some Reddit research - is he would have pulled out and requested his deposit back. We would have sent his deposit back from our legitimate bank account, and following that, his bank would have reclaimed the original funds he paid claiming he was the victim of a scam. So he gets his (original) money back, and we have doubled it by giving him his deposit back from our legit funds.

IF he's fair dinkum - and not dead - I don't get it. There's not a lot of people that can afford to simply lose $700 a few weeks before Christmas - certainly not if they are married - my missus would be screaming blue murder if the roles were reversed.

I'm still fairly sure there's something sketchy going on - but for the life of me, I can't see what, or how they're now going to pull it off.

[onetrack]

After having been scammed twice by exceptionally cunning scammers (one of whom actually called me in person), I spend a lot of time identifying scammers, and trying to shut them down.

 

There are several things you can do, straight up, to find scammers, especially those selling items. 

 

One, search for their email address using Google Search. It will often come up, inserted into other forums, selling the same scam item/s, with different physical addresses, or different seller names, or different phone numbers.

 

Two, do a Google Image search of the photos. 9 times out of 10, the photos come up on other sites, being sold by genuine people. The scammers also steal eBay photos and re-use them. Sometime they get clever and crop the photos.

 

But you can verify the item by requesting photos taken from specific angles and on a certain plain colour background. If the scammer can't produce those new photos, they haven't got the item they're selling.

 

Thirdly, make phone contact with the person and speak to them directly. Getting a phone number is a good method for ensuring traceability, if things go sour.

 

Speaking to someone usually establishes how genuine they are, using your shrewd judgement skills. Weigh up their circumstances and look for holes in their story - and be cautious about giving out bank details or other useful information until you've established a baseline character judgement about the person.

 

Remember that some people are actually genuine, but they're hopeless organisers, financially inept, and a hassle to deal with. It pays to be wary of these type of genuine buyers and sellers, as well. 

 

KR Aviator, I'd suggest your boat purchaser falls into the latter category, and he's probably a bit of a rabbit, and an exercise in time wasting. Move onto to a genuine buyer with the money, who is properly organised.

 

FB is full of scammers and FB does nothing about them, they're good for driving FB sales income. You can find an obvious scammer on FB and report them and the message always comes back the same - "We have investigated and found no reason to suspend this account". Pigs bum they've investigated them, it's just a bot answering your request.

 

FB don't care one iota about scammers on their site, despite all the mealy-mouthed corporate bleatings about keeping the site free from scams.

[BrendAn]

7 hours ago, KRviator said:

We've got a boat listed for sale on FB Marketplace and have been in negotiations with some bloke from Sydney. He paid, initially, a $200, then another $500 deposit to hold the boat pending him picking it up. The $$ cleared into our account, and are still there and we agreed on a date & time - to the point I knocked back a pair of overtime shifts from work that cost me around $2K. He didn't show. Not happy, but okay, everyone deserves a second chance. We negotiated another time. No show again. Finally a third and even though I followed up the night before to make sure he's coming, there's been no response - nor has he even read that message apparently. 

After the third no-show, I sent him the following message:

I don't get it - we still have his $700 quid, it hasn't been reclaimed, nor have we had a visit from the Fuzz alleging any wrong-doing by us in keeping his dough.

The only thing the KRviatrix and I can come up with - and this is stretching things a bit based on some Reddit research - is he would have pulled out and requested his deposit back. We would have sent his deposit back from our legitimate bank account, and following that, his bank would have reclaimed the original funds he paid claiming he was the victim of a scam. So he gets his (original) money back, and we have doubled it by giving him his deposit back from our legit funds.

IF he's fair dinkum - and not dead - I don't get it. There's not a lot of people that can afford to simply lose $700 a few weeks before Christmas - certainly not if they are married - my missus would be screaming blue murder if the roles were reversed.

I'm still fairly sure there's something sketchy going on - but for the life of me, I can't see what, or how they're now going to pull it off.

probably changed his mind and didn't expect his deposit back.  i know of   someone who sold a corby starlet, buyer paid in full and was never heard from again , no attempt to pick up the plane or any phone contact.  either croaked or forgot about it.

 

and there was the story on the news a while back in florida. authorities had to track down the owner of an abandoned 2 million dollar yacht to get it moved. turned out he had forgotten where he left it 3 years before.