This is scary reading from RS

[Doomseeker]

Wow!!!! that's one gigantic clusterfuck of a mess......

 

[Tommy_Garvey]

I don't know what Scott's next move is. Personally, I'd at least consult the authorities, but I don't know if that's the option he'll take.

Tommy

 

[itfciain]

I don't think he has a next move - the whole transfer was done on trust after years of dealing - I imagine there is no contract in place and taking him to court in a different country would be very difficult and probably costly

Seems a shame that it has come down to this when a bit more effort made at the start would probably have bought about a quicker resolution

 

[yoda]

In all fairness, they had been friends for years and had done many deals together. After you feel like you know someone, your radar for potential scams is significantly lessened. But as someone on Facebook said, I suppose that's how confidence scams work. :(

Tommy

Yes I see what you mean I have read some more of the thread. I didn't realise they had done many transactions before. But still it was a big risk to take with so much money involved in my eyes. They seem to have moved alot of big amounts between themselves before.
The truth will probably never be found out why that happened. I do feel sorry for that guy Scott it was some slap on the mouth to take.
Some people said they would have got on a plane and flew to Mexico I don't think that would help your case.
Even if you did find the guy Adolfo if that's even his real name. Did anyone ever meet this guy face to face? What could be done? If he has stolen
$10 000 I would imagine if you met him in Mexico he would probably laugh in your face and tell you to **** off home. It really is a mess and unfortunately a very harsh lesson for Scott.
Colin Martins book "welcome to hell " is a good read he got caught by a scammers. It really opens your eyes how quickly your life can change from a big problem to a living nightmare.

 

[Dannywhiteley]

I'd seriously hunt him down and cut his fingers off.

 

[yoda]

I'd seriously hunt him down and cut his fingers off.

I remember Denzel Washington doing that to a guy against a steering wheel :lol: :lol: It definitely gets the desired effect!
I didn't actually want to post myself what I was thinking I would love to do to someone if they screwed me in that amount of money :lol: :lol:

 

[scott82]

just had a read through this now (its one long read so i didn't read it all).......... But what an ass hat this guy was!
A shame too that something happens like this in a hobby where most people are decent people.

 

[theforceuk]

If a friend ever asks you to lend them a large amount of money, only do it if you feel comfortable never getting that money back. Same with wiring money abroad, whether you have delt with them or not, if their is not a 3rd party insuring 1rst and 2nd party's are playing ball then you have to understand their is an element of risk and personally with my own hard earned cash I would never let a large amount go like this.

In fact if nothing else this thread should serve as a reminder to everyone how easy you can loose money, no matter how well you think you no someone.

PayPal and eBay don't get money for old rope, as many would have you believe. :wink:

 

[Russ J]

Would be nice to have 10 large to play with in the first place ...sad state of affairs though,makes you think you no some one after all those years of dealings only to have your pants down

 

[darth_daddius]

If a friend ever asks you to lend them a large amount of money, only do it if you feel comfortable never getting that money back. Same with wiring money abroad, whether you have delt with them or not, if their is not a 3rd party insuring 1rst and 2nd party's are playing ball then you have to understand their is an element of risk and personally with my own hard earned cash I would never let a large amount go like this.

In fact if nothing else this thread should serve as a reminder to everyone how easy you can loose money, no matter how well you think you no someone.

PayPal and eBay don't get money for old rope, as many would have you believe. :wink:

Maybe...

There are definitely people I trust, even with that amount. I have never commented on the RS thread mostly because I can associate with the buyer. You build relationships with some guys and with that comes trust. I appreciate Tommy's comments that this is how confidence tricksters work, but I don't think that's a good reason not to trust those guys you have dealt with for years. There are certainly a few guys here that I would trust with way more than 10K (if I had it....).

The simple fact is that this is an awful story. Two guys who have been dealing with each other for a long time have come adrift. Doesn't mean that that's how we all should act. It does reinforce the fact that you should use Paypal (as much as I hate the fees). Don't see this as an example not to trust anyone. There was no seeing this - both the seller and the buyer knew each other; the seller was well respected, and there is probably stuff we don't know on both sides. Its completely understandable that the buyer would not fly to Mexico over a $10K deal when they had dealt with the seller so much before. Its a screwed up situation, but its not the norm in our community.

Cheers
Pat

 

[x-pack]

That's too much money to spend on Star Wars toys. Officially crazy.

 

[Russ J]

That's too much money to spend on Star Wars toys. Officially crazy.

Hit the nail on the head right there (imo anyway)....some people have more money than sense....if I had 10 grand to play about with (which I don't) there's a lot more other stuff it would be getting spent on rather than toys ,unless it was just purely a business deal and the toys were getting sold on for profit....can't justify spending that amount just to put it in a display cabinet and oogle at it for a few months until the novelty wore off....

This is purely my opinion only and I mean no disrespect to any collector who would do this.....

 

[maxf]

That's too much money to spend on Star Wars toys. Officially crazy.

How much are we allowed to spend?

 

[yoda]

That's too much money to spend on Star Wars toys. Officially crazy.

Hit the nail on the head right there (imo anyway)....some people have more money than sense....if I had 10 grand to play about with (which I don't) there's a lot more other stuff it would be getting spent on rather than toys ,unless it was just purely a business deal and the toys were getting sold on for profit....can't justify spending that amount just to put it in a display cabinet and oogle at it for a few months until the novelty wore off....

This is purely my opinion only and I mean no disrespect to any collector who would do this.....

From reading the thread I think both guys were dealers if I read it correctly. I am shocked myself at the amounts that are moving around buying these figures.

 

[Palifan]

The money here seems slightly irrelevant as $10K to one person could be equal to $200 to the next. I do think prices have become way out of hand but it's down to the buyer to decide if it's something they can afford. It's not the kind of money that I have to drop on something but then spending $100 on a figure would probably seem like complete madness to someone who collects nothing.

Reading between the lines it seems that there really was no reason to doubt anything going wrong with this deal after all the history between both buyer and seller so it's really sad that it's turned out this way. The seller has screwed their reputation and should realise the $10k is still a lot of money to just brush off not chasing up on, no matter what kind of deals they're used to making. We all know to protect ourselves when sending money to people (for the most part anyway), but there are people who I've felt with before that I would have no reason to doubt anything going wrong, this just shows how things can go wrong no matter who you deal with or what relationship you have with them.

I guess we have to cover ourselves the best we can but if you are sending such a huge amount (or a small amount that's all the money you have), you have to put something in place to cover yourself for anything happening.

It's a sad story but the circumstances don't sound like someone just handed over $10K to someone they didn't know, that really would be insane.

Ian

 

[Palifan]

Just read the last page of the RS thread (page 56), and it seems like the seller had asked the buyer to pay in low instalments so as not to make the Mexican government suspicious, but the buyer was going to get hit with too many fees sending money like this so opted to send the most they could in one hit ($10K). The seller did end up getting investigated and now it looks like he's having to pay undeclared taxes and fines on previous deals and is blaming the buyer for this so keeping their money to pay this all off?!

No matter which way you look at this mess it's the sellers fault for never declaring any money on seemingly anything, and I can see how they may not have the cash to pay the fines without the $10k so they should just send the figure to the buyer and realise that they got caught not ever paying tax. I'm guessing this seller has made a small fortune over the years (and may even do this for a living), so should have to pay something like the rest of us would have to. It might be annoying to them for this to happen but I'm sure if this was a one off they would only have to worry about the tax on this deal.

I'm not sure what will happen in the end with all of this but it doesn't seem quite as straight forward as I first thought and shows you that if you keep making large sums of money selling items then you stand a good chance of getting caught out at some point.

Ian