I posted an ad for headlight for my 2001 XK8
and received the email from a John Kenneth
with email BWW5325@GMAIL.COM
telling me he had my part and I had to
wire him the money for shipment
As it turns out he gave me an address
in Beaverton Oregon
9450 SW Gemini Drive
Which is a virtual mail hub called LZ Virtual
Mail
The detective at the Beaverton police department told me that I was the 20th person
that got scammed from this location.
He also gave me a checking account
under the same name in San Fransisco California with Wells Fargo Bank
Do not fall for this scammer and send any money because this is his scam and you
will lose your money as I did
I have reported him to the police and
hopefully they will catch up with him
Just be careful
regards
john M

 

Sorry, this happened, man. You probably should have posted some queries here first. Many here can sniff out scams.

Object lesson - NEVER wire money to an online vendor. Huge red flag. ALWAYS use PayPal. NEVER allow them to convince you to use PayPal Friends and Family. Those transactions cannot be disputed and reversed. If PayPal or a credit card are not options, pass unless you have a way of verifying identity, or if they're a trusted long-time board member.

Also, demand pix of the exact unit the vendor is selling. Use Google or TinEye to see if those pix have turned up anywhere else on the web. Scammers love to nab pix of other cars/parts and post them as their own.

Lastly, whenever one posts a "part wanted" message, no matter how rare the part, some guy with zero post history will show up and say he has it. FakeBook is chock full of those guys in all the car pages. They are ALL scams.

 

Sorry to hear this @Mitro, and thanks for the heads up.

 

Known / verified scammers merit their own sticky page.

Z

 

...and a public beat down

 

it would be nice to avoid the misfortunes of others

Z

 

I too am sorry to hear this. Thanks for sharing!

does this give rise to a feature request in the forums…. No PMs and no posting to the wanted ads for newbies, until some milestone is reached??

It is sad that a very few bad apples can mess up your day.

 

Years ago, I was searching for a part for my Lotus Esprit. Checked that the seller had an actual physical address, which I looked up on Google Maps. After I ordered my part, people started chiming in that they had been scammed by this guy, so I guess I got onboard just as he was opening his scamming business. He of course dragged his feet, no response to emails, then reported a fire in his shop. I requested a refund, and that went unanswered. I requested a refund from PayPal, but the 3 months had passed, but luckily I had funded the PayPal transfer with a credit card. The credit card company refunded my money.

Yes, getting pictures of the item, and searching for other people that have been scammed are all good ideas. Sometimes it just doesn't matter, if you are first in the barrel. I rejected a seller once that suggested that I pay via PayPal Family and Friends. I told him I'd rather pay the premium that he paid, then decided that I didn't want to do business with him, as he was a likely scammer. A good seller would eat the PayPal fee, or build it into their price.

 

Yes. I used to sell a fair amount of stuff on eBay, back when I was into older "classic" cars. Building in the eBay fee was just part of the pricing process. As you said, good sellers already do this.

 

If you still need a headlight please let me know.