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Beware of Hustle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

edclee

Well Known Member
Patron
I was looking for a V6 radio and I got a personal message from a Member Calling himself Alexis:
Not sure if you got one to buy as i have one for sale at $440 shipped

Payment - Paypal ( discreet family and friends)/Cashapp

[email protected]

So I answered that yes I was interested and he also said he had all the paperwork with it and an antenna as well. Said he had stage three cancer and was having to sell of his equipment since he doubted he could finish his build. I sent him the money and days went by and no radio. When I inquired about the status he said his "shipper" got the address wrong and he would get it worked out and on the way to me. More days went by and I got an email (I had given him my email address and he says the "shipper" wants 25$ to straighten it out and have it reshipped to me and he says he doesn't have it and could I give him a $25 Ebay gift card to cover it.

Duh, I was stupid but not that stupid. I am out $440 I am quite sure. Be sure you vet your seller if buying something on the site. I should have noticed he has never made any posts. That would have run the flag up.
Ed

[ed. User 'Alexis' banned, and a good opportunity to remind folks of this document - specifically #4: http://www.vansairforce.net/UsingTheClassifiedsSuggestions.htm v/r,dr]
 
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Yikes.....so sorry to hear that. A quick google search of the email [email protected] shows he's a popular scammer from Nigeria, always uses the "cancer" line and hits lots of different forums from guns to electric skateboards. :mad:
 
Ed,

Sorry about your experience. If you are still in the market, I have a new in the box V16 remote with the Vega control head. Paid 950 for the radio, 245 for the control head on acs. I also purchased the harness for a little over 300. So, about 1500 invested. This has a built in intercom, and I was unable to use it as I went a different direction with a separate audio panel.

If you're interested, I will make you a fair offer. PM me. I'm sure you may be a bit reluctant, but I've been here for a couple of years and you can check out my history. I will do a face time, phone call, whatever. PM if interested, and I will send you my phone number and email address.

Either way, sorry about your experience, and best of luck.
 
When someone requests you send them money via PayPal under the ?friends & family? for an item you want to purchase, don?t do it. You have no chance of getting your money back as you do sending it using their ?goods & services? where PayPal offers money back guarantee. Sure the seller pays a small service fee under goods and services, but it attests to the sellers integrity and gives both the seller and buyer peace of mind. Sorry you took the hit.
 
When someone requests you send them money via PayPal under the ?friends & family? for an item you want to purchase, don?t do it. You have no chance of getting your money back as you do sending it using their ?goods & services? where PayPal offers money back guarantee.

Huhhh... didn't know that... but a while back I was going to purchase something from a guy (not on this site) that wanted funds that way and I declined since I don't have a Paypal account (and won't - long story there). Funny enough, immediately thereafter the item was no longer available.
 
When someone requests you send them money via PayPal under the ?friends & family? for an item you want to purchase, don?t do it. You have no chance of getting your money back as you do sending it using their ?goods & services? where PayPal offers money back guarantee. Sure the seller pays a small service fee under goods and services, but it attests to the sellers integrity and gives both the seller and buyer peace of mind. Sorry you took the hit.

Agree. I bought an instrument here from a new poster a while ago. It was not performed as advertised. The seller tried to switch the blame but PP resolved the situation in my favor rather quickly. Don?t do ?friends and family? unless they are :)
 
There's another story right here on VAF, from maybe 4 years ago. Seller "said" he was selling a Garmin 450 (400 something--I forget) Anyway, potential buyer sent off $7500 bux. Never saw his Nav, and never got his money back.

Everybody---be careful.

Bummer
 
Don't underestimate the scammers

Please don't underestimate these guys. They are far smarter than you would believe, and they only have to get it right once to be in your bank account and clean you out.

Have this conversation with everyone up and down in your family so that they know to be on the lookout. The scams they pull are epic, and they are stealing billions a year from good people like you, your friends, and your family.

They are professionals, despite what you might see as clumsy practices - that is part of their scam. Be careful out there!
 
Sadly they are crimes of opportunity-( Humans are gullible, we tend to believe first doubt later, we often gave it the wrong way around!
 
just an FYI, when someone insists on friends and family I will offer to pay the fee and run it as purchase, real sellers will agree without hesitation because they're getting the same $$. Last time I checked the fee is only 2.9% and is worth it to me for the additional safety.
 
Not really RV related but involved scammers. I would encourage everyone to do this. I changed my bank debit card alerts from email, (which I don't often check), to text alerts. I was home one evening at 10:30 pm. Received a text that my card had just been used. I immediately canceled it. Had I been using the emails.... I wouldn't have known for who knows how long and they could have wiped out the checking acct. I highly recommend using text alerts!!!

And to the OP.... I'm so sorry you took a hit!
 
paypal

I purchased a paint system just this morning from the classifieds. I didn't even ask the seller, I just included 2.9% on top of the price, and chose it as a transaction.
I am 99.99% it's legit, he is legit, so on and so forth.

On another note, I would open a case with paypal and show them your communications. They honestly likely will jump in. Even though you chose friends and family. Use the excuse that you were duped. And I also believe you can (if you paid by CC) dispute even that.

At a minimum they will shut him down, they don't want this activity happening for any reason.
 
One other option for avionics transactions to keep in mind for the future. I believe that Stein Air will act as escrow agent on avionics transactions for a modest fee.

I think the way it works is the seller sends the avionics to Stein and Stein inspects the avionics to be sure they work. The buyer then sends the money to Stein, who once the "check clears", sends the money (less Stein's escrow fee) to the seller and sends the avionics item(s) to the buyer. This protects both the buyer and seller.
 
Thievery

Trust but verify. I trusted but did not verify and my former daughter in law embezzled $138000 from my business over 5 years. Up on two felony charges now. There were 49 misdemeanors and 63 felonies.
Still find it hard to believe. I feel like an idiot for not being more diligent.
 
I don't like to use the words ALWAYS, NEVER, EVERYONE because it's usually not the case. Not everyone who doesn't use Paypal is a scammer.

I've been here on this site for a while now and can't be more open about where I am or where I live and a quick search of my airplane or my airport or my name shows you everything about me. Having said that I recently sold an old Garmin 295 to someone on this forum (I won't say his name because he's not important) and after waiting for a month with his excuses for not sending me his payment he finally paid me by Paypal (something I don't use to accept or request money, ever) and I couldn't get his name or email to show up on Paypal. He decided to say I was a scammer and he was going to report me to Paypal ! I finally was able to create some kind of commercial sale where I had to create an invoice. This isn't a commercial sale, it's my personal gps, but I did it just to convince him I wasn't a scammer.

Even then after asking for his address to send him the gps he hadn't sent it so I asked him for his address again and he said it was on PayPal. Again, I don't use Paypal like that so I didn't t know where to find it since his email won't show up.

Anyway at the beginning of the transaction, over a month and a half earlier, He said he wasn't rushed for me to send him the gps. I still told him I'd send it when I went to the post office to send any other package. I only go to the post office once a week to avoid exposure to the virus so when he gave me his address, 4 days later I went to mail it.

Of course even though I waited a month for him to pay, he texts me "Still waiting". I mailed it that same day on Friday and he got it on Monday. Some people are just like that.
 
Hustle

just an FYI, when someone insists on friends and family I will offer to pay the fee and run it as purchase, real sellers will agree without hesitation because they're getting the same $$. Last time I checked the fee is only 2.9% and is worth it to me for the additional safety.

Thats definitely what I should have done, and will do in the future!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ed
 
Dispute with Paypal

I purchased a paint system just this morning from the classifieds. I didn't even ask the seller, I just included 2.9% on top of the price, and chose it as a transaction.
I am 99.99% it's legit, he is legit, so on and so forth.

On another note, I would open a case with paypal and show them your communications. They honestly likely will jump in. Even though you chose friends and family. Use the excuse that you were duped. And I also believe you can (if you paid by CC) dispute even that.

At a minimum they will shut him down, they don't want this activity happening for any reason.

I tried opening a case and they dont apparently give yo.
u that option with the friends and family thing. I was unable to get it done
Ed
 
You don't need a PayPal account to pay by PayPal

... a while back I was going to purchase something from a guy (not on this site) that wanted funds that way and I declined since I don't have a Paypal account (and won't - long story there).

If they have a PayPal account, they can send a payment request to anyone with an email address. You can then pay on the PayPal site with a credit card.

Anyone that is a legitimate seller will do this, and they also will never request you to pay via "friends & family." That is an unethical request, because they are asking you to lie about the purpose of the transaction to defraud PayPal out of the transaction fee. That transaction fee is what allows PayPal to stay in business, and it also funds their staff dedicated to settling disputes over merchandise not received or not as described.

For several years I had a sideline business selling electronics cables online via eBay & via my own website. All transactions were done via PayPal & it provided great protection for both buyer & seller.

Bottom line, PayPal is well worth what it costs you (absolutely zero, at least directly) due to the protection it provides to you as the buyer. The seller pays a small fee for this assurance to the buyer, less that 3%. They should build that fee into their asking price.
 
I tried opening a case and they dont apparently give yo.
u that option with the friends and family thing. I was unable to get it done
Ed

Try calling them. I really would try everything. Worse case is they tell you no.
I've been on Paypal since 1996 and I've ran into all types of crazy things. Even though they are a massive company, I've always managed to get my issues resolved.

Anyways, if that doesn't pan out, and you paid by CC, you can dispute those charges. I know because I was scammed by someone from the Ukraine. They first tried to get a refund on an iphone I sent them, claiming it was a fake, and paypal denied their claim. They then went to their CC company, and they got their money back. Pissed me off of course, but, now I know that CC overrides Paypal.
 
Try calling them.

Good luck with that. Paypal doesn't have any humans answering their phones since the pandemic started. If you try to contact them via chat it'll take sometimes up to 10 hours to reply and since you're not on your laptop 24/7 waiting for them they'll close the chat and send you an email asking you to let them know when you're connected. You do that and then still have to wait many hours for them to connect. And it goes on and on for days. It happened to me the last couple of weeks.
 
Good luck with that. Paypal doesn't have any humans answering their phones since the pandemic started. If you try to contact them via chat it'll take sometimes up to 10 hours to reply and since you're not on your laptop 24/7 waiting for them they'll close the chat and send you an email asking you to let them know when you're connected. You do that and then still have to wait many hours for them to connect. And it goes on and on for days. It happened to me the last couple of weeks.

Same here, but I eventually got resolution via their chat system and their procedures for contesting a claim after the initial denial. Mine was an attempt to buy a Lego set (the Saturn V set, which has been discontinued). It was immediately obvious upon order confirmation that the seller was bogus and it still took 3 weeks to get resolution.
 
I've had a paypal account since 2007, but haven't used it in years. Then the other day, me and a guy in Wisconsin made a deal, my RV 8 seatbelts to him, his monies to me (Only $90 bux) Anyway, my money is locked at paypal. What I "think" they're doing, is holding my money til the post office tracking number shows it as delivered.

But I'm sure. Its "not" stated in writing anywhere, and then I got some little filipino girl who I ?"later"? found out (after an hour on the phone with her, thought I was trying to send money "to" the US. This is now called "Xoom" a part of paypal, but it appears??? has nothing to do with US to US money payments.

Any of you guys in the know? Is paypal sitting on my money til my customer gets his seat belts? (If that's the case, I don't mind at all---but I wish they'd explain it somewhere.) :confused::confused::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
I've had a paypal account since 2007, but haven't used it in years. Then the other day, me and a guy in Wisconsin made a deal, my RV 8 seatbelts to him, his monies to me (Only $90 bux) Anyway, my money is locked at paypal. What I "think" they're doing, is holding my money til the post office tracking number shows it as delivered.

But I'm sure. Its "not" stated in writing anywhere, and then I got some little filipino girl who I ?"later"? found out (after an hour on the phone with her, thought I was trying to send money "to" the US. This is now called "Xoom" a part of paypal, but it appears??? has nothing to do with US to US money payments.

Any of you guys in the know? Is paypal sitting on my money til my customer gets his seat belts? (If that's the case, I don't mind at all---but I wish they'd explain it somewhere.) :confused::confused::rolleyes::rolleyes:

This is why I don't use PayPal ! I had money sitting in my account and couldn't even get the bank to link to PayPal for many months. The problem is eBay, PayPal, Xoom, are all one company.

Now I use Zelle because it's becoming the standard for US banks and if you have any issues, your local bank resolves it. Zelle is already built in to the major bank apps like BOA and Chase and those are two of the banks I have accounts with. You can also use their website if your local bank still isn't using it.
 
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I ended up actually having to file suit against Paypal some years ago to recover a few thousand dollars that were in my account and they would not transfer it back to my checking account, and it wasn't an issue of just waiting for some mail to clear - this was a 6-month long deal.

Never again.

If a seller or buyer for a transaction I'm involved in requires Paypal, then I'm not involved in it anymore. It's not about the people, it's about Paypal.

Never again.
 
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