18 months ago I was selling my 116610LV and had it listed on ebay with my telephone number in the listing. I received a phone call off a bloke who wanted to buy it, agreed a deal and gave him my bank details. he paid the agreed amount but on checking my bank account the funds were not cleared funds. I told him he wasn't getting the watch until the funds were clear and I never heard from him again. Sure enough a week later the funds disappeared and I contacted the bank to find that he had deposited a stolen cheque into my account. The cheque was from a cash and carry business that had gone skint about 3 years prior to this happening. I just left it and did no more.
roll on 18 months and I've now got my 116610LN on ebay, again with my phone number in the listing. I received a phone call today from a bloke, the same bloke, wanting to buy it. We agreed the price and I gave him my bank details. Exactly the same thing has happened, he has paid the money into my account, but it is uncleared funds. He has just text me asking for the address for his lad to come and collect, now there are a few choices :
1) Tell him to go away, but in a few more words
2) give him a dodgy address and waste his time
3) give him an address and then be waiting nearby in my car, take a picture of him / his car reg and give it to the police. After all if this slime ball is still doing this 18 months later how many people has he maybe had off ?
What do you think.
Oh, just had another text, I asked him for his name and address so I could make out a receipt. He told me yesterday he was from York but the address he has just given me is in Blackpool.
What bank was the cheque from?
As their fraud department if they are interested in getting involved, if not, like you say, send him to a spurious address or say can you pick it up from my work address, then give him your towns Police Station address.
You knowingly dealt with the same guy a second time?
Tell him you had a family emergency in Cornwall, had to leave suddenly but that his lad is welcome to come and collect it from you there!
Yep, but he'll be getting nothing out of me except wasted time for him !Originally Posted by seadog1408
You knowingly dealt with the same guy a second time?
Why don't you call him out and tell him he will get nothing from you until you have received notification of cleared funds into your account. Tell him you will only accept payment via PayPal with him paying the 4% fees.
Send him the address of the local police station, as someone else has said. Great idea.
Give him a duff address, call the Police and wait for him.
+1 also call an ambulance he may need it if the police don't get there in time😀
Be very careful. Plod unlikely to be interested, sadly. If you annoy him by giving false address etc he might well track down your real address and send the heavies round.... he's obviously a scumbag and I fear could get nasty.
Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app
id be all over this with the police
If they aren't interested ask to speak to the highest officer there
I do like the false address thing though
Be good to try and get car reg etc
Send him to the nearest bail hostel
Just report it to the police just now- don't get involved . Guys using a stolen cheque book ffs. Unless your the Sweeney I'd stay well clear. Oh and putting your phone number in an Ebay listing is rarely a good idea. If you choose to share your phone number after some messages via eBay messaging system then fine but I don't advise what you did in the public listing.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Report it to action fraud
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
2) Tell him to meet you in a random car park in a busy area, some distance away and just before rush hour.
Then completely ignore any further contact with him
He's just called me so I told him I know he'd paid with a stolen cheque. He went all defensive and accused me of trying to scam him, priceless !!!
Fraud team at the bank are now involved who in turn will get the police involved, but you can bet nothing will happen and he's free to scam another day. Be careful out there 👍
I'd have supplied him the address of the local constabulary.
And possibly a follow-up message to ask where he was when he didn't show up.
Good call getting the banks fraud team involved. Sounds like someone will have lost out to this guy in the past
You knowingly dealt with the same guy a second time?
Which was my thought to be honest.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
So you wouldn't want to mess a serial scammer around, even just a little bit ?Which was my thought to be honest.
I'm sure there was somebody on a Rolex forum that was scammed last year and the address was in Blackpool.
Could well be the same person.
I can't recall all the details.
Another member on here has contacted me, we exchanged the scammers details and it seems he tried it on with the other member, luckily he was suspicious and never lost anything
You're correct, I remember reading that one, but didn't he post his and the scammer claimed it was an empty box ? And yes, the scammer was from Blackpool.
Should I share the name and address the scammer has given me, could be fake of course
Someone tried that exact same scam with me a few years ago- tried to purchase a 40k car from my dealership, pretended he had transferred the funds and wanted to pick it up straight away. like you I realised that the funds were showing as paid in at a branch not transfer. Tried The Police and told them the guy would be in the next day and what time to collect his new car. Basically they didn't say want to know took a few details then said they come back to me.
I ended up getting him back the next day, took him into the office sat him down, after a brief chat asked him outright how he paying for it? Cut a long story short he blustered and tried to bulls?!t his way out of it.......needless to say threatening to remove his testicles his knee caps had the desired effect and he scarpered!
Police did turn up a week later stating it'd be very difficult to find this fraudster.... errrr PC Pillock I told where he'd be and what time he'd be there at :-)
What would be nice is if the police could do something like catch the scumbag in the act! Bit of course that would be some human rights violation no doubt.
I've had two thefts on my van and both times the police were not interested at all. Even when I gave them the details of the last thief they just said they can't go round accusing people. My old man's van got nicked years ago and he found it bit the police weren't interested because it was in a traveller site!
You could always meet the scum and beat the heck out of him, well if you want to get sent to prison and watch the guy get compensation and claim disability for the rest of his life.
Yep, dodgy lot them from Blackpool :)
You must bear in mind that the police are very busy writing parking tickets etc.
Sent from my SM-G920F using TZ-UK mobile app
One of my business interests is an umbrella company which bills for the services of several hundred contractors. A couple of years ago we suffered exactly this scam which our payment team let slip through the net amongst several dozen payments that day. We lost £20k. We had the name and address (verified by ID) of the nomark stooge used by the scammer. Police weren't interested, presumably they were too busy looking for motorists doing 5mph over the limit and other serious criminals.
Pointless comment... and parking tickets are a council thing....
Re topic: what others have said - call the police and take it from there.
Just found out which branch he paid the cheque in at.
He told me on the phone yesterday he was in York, then the address he gave me today was in Blackpool and the cheque was paid in at a Halifax branch in Didsbury. Gets around doesn't he
Er, no! Not when he knows my phone number, bank account details and that I have expensive watches in my home. Even though you think he can't do anything with those details, why would you even risk it?
If you're stupid enough to put your phone number on a global sales forum you probably have it coming IMO. Good luck.
Pointless exercise. He may as well take a leak in the face of a force 9 gale. Did you read my first hand account of an identical scam suffered by one of my companies before offering your "expert" opinion?
Re topic: what others have said - call the police and take it from there.
It might be because we ring from a business but ringing 101 will normally get a police response within 1 hour but often quicker. They have always responded to a fraud call out. So worth considering if you know someone is going to show up at a certain time .
Not sure if people are aware but if you text to 999 it will say you are not registered, answer back how do I register and within a few minutes a reply will come back that you answer y . You then have a 999 text message service . Very useful if something unpleasant is happening and you don't want to raise awareness that you are calling.
My guess is that there's probably a network of people involved in this
Yeah, because these are really intelligent scammers aren't they, he doesn't recognise my eBay user name which has been the same for 15 years, he doesn't recognise by phone number which has been the same for 20 years, he doesn't recognise my location which has been the same for 25 years and he doesn't remember my voice from last time I caught him out, which has been the same for as long as I can remember. I'm really up against the creme de la creme here aren't I !!!!!!
Yes we are mate!
Thanks for depositing that cheque too 😉
Personally I'd love to get the police involved in this for getting him bang to rights.
Same thing happen to me about 4 years ago with a gold Daytona on leather. Called me saying would deposit the funds by transfer.
Placed a cheque over the counter in a near by city. Chequed the bank was a cheque no bacs told him it's a cheque never heard from again.
3 days later chequed bounced police contacted me a week later as he bought a camper man for £15k off an old couple with a cheque.
Since then don't put my phone number on listing cause of that reason. Let them contact through eBay first.
Sent from my SM-C7000 using Tapatalk
just call the police and try f*ck him as hard as it gets, otherwise you can call some friends of mine who offer protection at night clubs to do it their way.
heheYes we are mate!
Thanks for depositing that cheque too
They usually do get around and have a good knowledge of the banking system. These people will have multiple frauds on the go at the same time and need to move around so as not to be recognised. If you don't fall for the scam, someone else will.
Sent from my XT1562 using Tapatalk
Im surprised there isn't a IT system in place that detects stolen cheques at the point of entry in the banks, they always seem to be deposited and show up in your account before the flag up, presumably after the bank try to draw from the cheque account.
I do a lot on ebay, dont list your number and dont deal off of ebay and use paypal, its simple lol
Very interesting read this, would love to hear at the end you get him caught!
Relatively simple scam but no doubt will get away with it more often than not- know of quite a few people falling for it in the Motor Trade. Easy just to look and think, yep funds showing rather than checking by what method......
Yes, this scam succeeds many times. However, at least if the scammer had lodged his own cheque with no funds to cover it, my understanding is that, although cars are fairly easily traced, the vehicle is not considered as a 'stolen car' which can be recovered by police and returned to the original owner.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
