SCAMMED

[Mike LaCroix]

I recently posted a "Wanted to Buy" in the electronics section looking to buy a Simrad Evo2 nss7.
I was contacted by Thomasrob4 and he referred me to davidstev197@gmail.com Phone number 313-356-5032.
This person said he had a unit that he wanted $575. including shipping. Well I unknowingly sent the $575 via ZELL. Big MISTAKE.
You have no recourse with ZELL. Davidstev emailed me that he needed another $50 because the shipping was much more than he expected.
I replied that I would send the $50 after I received the item. ....crickets....
Please be aware, the scammers are everywhere. Even on Great websites like this one.

 

[Halfhitch]

Sorry to hear that. I had the same thing happen when I put a want to buy ad on here. The same guy sent me that same email address saying a friend of his had what I was looking for. I emailed back with a question about just what components he had and a picture and......silence.

 

[nuclear]

 

[family affair]

Did you talk to someone over the phone or was it all email?

 

[Seafarer228G]

I disabled Thomasrob4 account.

 

[Halfhitch]

Did you talk to someone over the phone or was it all email?

In my case, Thomasrob4 started a direct message to me, giving me the email of his friend. I sent a query to that email asking for details and some photos and never got a reply. I got suspicious and looked at Thomasrobs history on Great Grady and found it was like his first post. At that time I knew it was bogus. I should have checked his history first thing but a guy gets used to all the good people on this site, you forget that there are a lot of assholes in our world.

 

[family affair]

Unfortunately there are always an a-hole or 2 that ruin it for everyone.
Life is tough. I always try to be polite, but when it comes to financial transactions I've learned the legit people don't mind you asking uncomfortable questions.
Selling my engines was a cash deal. When the buyer showed up and planned to pay partially electronically I wasn't happy. I debated about saying something and then called him out on it. He apologized and got his bank on the line to make a non refundable and immediate Zelle transaction to my account. While uncomfortable for a short time, it was water under the bridge thereafter.

 

[Mustang65fbk]

I find that a lot of these scammers are just fishing for information like email addresses, bank accounts, names, dates of birth, SSN's and so on and so forth. When I was searching for my boat, there were a ton of fake/scam ads on Craigslist and even a few on Boat Trader as well as the other paying sites. A few times they tried to get me to put $500 or more down to "hold the boat" for me but I never give money to people over the internet and that I haven't seen or met before. The more common trend seems that they want to get your email address and they did get my backup one. If there's ever an ad, listing or something where you need to provide your email address I'll give them a backup one that I don't use regularly. That way if they spam it with junk mail, which they did right after I replied to the CL ad, then I can just delete it and it doesn't have any of my personal information affiliated with it. That's why I always keep a spare secondary email address and if you're hesitant about calling someone and giving your personal phone number, you can always put *67 in front of the phone number and to where it comes up blocked on their end. Though, if someone sees that then they might not answer, so there are a multitude of free text/calling apps you can download and get a free phone number to call them on. I did that with one of the boats that I was inquiring about that I thought was likely a scam and it turns out that it was. The name of the app that I always use is called TextNow... though there are a few others out there as well called Text Me or TextFree. Good luck!

 

[Hookup1]

Be careful with the fraud department texts and subsequent phone calls. I have had them start a "fraud alert" with me three times this year. They are very good at what they do.

I bank with TD. It starts off with a text message from TD fraud department. You are alerted to a suspicious transaction. If you don't recognize it you are supposed to say NO I don't recognize it. Next they tell you you will get a call - this is the first thing that should alert you. They call you with a spoofed TD fraud department number. At this point you should call your bank's number on the back of your card. What happens next is they call you and get you nice and cozy. Again they are very good at this and sound real. At some point they will ask for your user-id. Sometimes they have that from a data breach. Next they will start a password reset and ask you to read the code back (that the bank says never to read it back). What they are doing is resetting your password and logging into your bank account. If you resist they will tell you to call back in but they will give you the stollen phone number they are using. They will tell you this a direct number and will be easier to get back to them. Do not call back on anything but what is on your card! Eventually I pissed them off and they melted down into "devil" mode - cursed me out, threatened me and hung up. Up to that point they were extremely professional and convincing.

The TD fraud department told me to hang up and call the number on the back of the card.

 

[benny13]

313…

 

[Hookup1]

I do a fair amount of eBay buying and selling. I have had good luck with all my transactions. At least there is a feedback mechanism. If the seller hasn't done many many transactions beware. Again - eBay will back you up if you don't get what you payed for.

I never use Zell. Only PayPal.

 

[glacierbaze]

And don't let anyone talk you into sending money by Paypal "Friends and Family". You lose all protection by doing so. Offer to pay the 3% fee, and if they refuse, beware.

 

[A&J Outdoors]

And don't let anyone talk you into sending money by Paypal "Friends and Family". You lose all protection by doing so. Offer to pay the 3% fee, and if they refuse, beware.

Yup, this is how I got screwed.

 

[Fishtales]

Sorry to hear. The frequency and types of scams are really increasing.

 

[Halfhitch]

I just got another message that I think is bogus. It's a message on my thread on "For Sale" called "Want to buy overboard pumpout". You will see though, instead of a private message the guy responded on the board. He only has 3 posts on the board.

 

[family affair]

Or "randyjudy" is the ebay of the boat forum!
According to all of Alexis's posts "randyjudy" has one of everything on the for sale page!
100% safe to say Alexis and Randy are scammers.

 

[Halfhitch]

Another scammer reached out to me last night. He sent a private message. Note his post count.

 

[Seafarer228G]

Thanks Halfhitch. I disabled his account.

 

[family affair]

You need to add Alexis to that list also.

 

[Parthery]

Assuming you have checked with your bank? I too got scammed with Zelle and it took a number of phone calls and some detective work with Bank of America but I got my money back.

For $575 I'd be blowing up everybody's phone at the bank to see if you can get some help.