Perhaps you guys can offer some insight, apologies for the long explanation but I don't want to leave anything out...
So I'm in NYC and I have items I sell locally on Craigslist using a CL-specific email (always using the relay option so as to not give out the actual email) and I use a dummy number as well for the account to protect my actual. Most transactions are simple enough.. people email or text me about a specific item, I give them the info they need, they come pick said item up with cash, and that's that. I don't like to meet people at specific locations, and I don't like to ship things unless its convenient.. I'd rather people just come by and meet me in my lobby (plenty of people around) and we'll call it a day. Once in a while someone will ask to pay via PayPal or Venmo which is fine, I've never had a problem to-date. I do get scamming messages from time to time but thankfully I've got an eye for spotting them (they'll email me asking me to email them back at a different address, or they'll ask me to ship the item and they'll send me a money order, blah blah etc). This time I'm not quite sure what to make of what seemed like a prospective buyer:
He messages me from a 347 area code (NYC number, so far so good I figured.. most scammers try and contact me from bizarre area codes), and says he loves a $1k watch I'm selling.. says he wants to get it for his uncle. Wanted to know if I could ship it for him if he paid extra (offered $60).. this was not typical but I figured it was fine by me since it was already packaged up and I'd just need to drop it to the UPS store (great experience with the service so its my go-to). He asked for a video of the watch movement, so I obliged. Once he 'approved', he then lays it on me: he asks if he can send payment via Chase QuickPay. Now I don't have Chase, but I know friends who do and given the bank I have, I know its possible to accept payment from Chase to my bank since they are partners.. so I give him the benefit of the doubt and tell him to send payment over (just needs my name and bank-related email, I reluctantly gave it over). Sure enough I get a legit payment notification from the bank, but it's for $1560.. they sent $500 too much. I'm not sure why, so I tell him the deal and he says "oh no problem just go ahead and refund the 500, my mistake". When I asked for the name and email to transfer the $ back over, they say "oh sorry I'd prefer you send me a money order. here's the address: '1234 blah blah lane'.. leave the money order blank, thanks". So begins my suspicions.
As I'm trying to figure out what the guy's deal is in this moment, I then get a message from him saying "OH hey man sorry, I just showed the watch to my uncle and he doesn't like it. Please send all the money back and keep $100 for yourself for the trouble". Now I'm on high alert, realizing that this feels like a clearing scam. So I call my bank and ask when the payment would clear and they said it could take up to 11 business days. FINE BY ME, and I let the prick know I wasn't going to send anything to him until his payment cleared, period. There was ghetto cursing, threats to expose me to "the LAW" if I didn't send the money ASAP but I stood my ground. Today (5 days later) and to my surprise, I found that the payment actually cleared, so I was a bit confused.. as if maybe he wasn't trying to scam me and was actually just an idiot? At that point and after a ton of angry messages on my dummy line, I just wanted the guy out of my hair.. mind you, he has access to my CL listings as well as my actual name and bank email -- so I'd prefer that things didn't escalate with him trying to look me up or something. I told him I wasn't going to send a blank money order bc that sounded fishy. I asked him for the Chase name and email so I could send the money back the way it came, but he kept saying "sorry I don't have that account anymore, you can't send it to me that way".. instead he tells me to take $160 (up'd from $100) of the $1560 for my trouble, gives me a name and tells me to deposit the money at a Wells Fargo for him. Again, just wanting to get the prick out of my hair I oblige while out handling errands (a branch was along the way) -- how about a Wells Fargo manager had to take me aside and tell me that they couldn't accept the deposit for the account?? I'm literally like 'WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON' at this point..
I went off on the guy, asking him what the fuck his deal is considering I was trying to do him a favor.. finally, he just apologized and asked if I could send payment via Western Union. Now I'm sitting on $1400 from a very suspicious dude and I'm not sure what to make of it. Was this guy just an amateur scammer that didn't expect for me to wait for the payment to clear? Am I being overly generous by trying to send the prick's money back? Technically he did nothing wrong besides being a humongous pain in the ass.. but I'm not sure what to do now.
Submitted April 19, 2017 at 09:58PM by hidemyasssss http://ift.tt/2pEmUyS
