fabio gentili in Italy Scammed Me, Return My Knife or Pay Me

[robcelani]

Edited 3/2/2021
Title from "Any Italian Members Want To Help Me With A Bad Transaction"

Here's the summary of what happened. fabio gentili (ebay user id- fabigentil-1) contacted me about a ZT0452CFM390BLU (it's a sprint run of the Zero Tolerance 0452) I was selling on ebay. We negotiated terms, most important being that he accepted the risk of loss and usps first class international, which he told me was tracked in Italy, would be used. fabio gentili filed an item not received case with ebay and his money was refunded. My package tracked to Italy and then nothing. I called Italian postal service and they told me usps first class international does not track in Italy. An Italian member here in the thread confirmed that first class does not track in Italy.

fabio gentili lied to me about accepting the risk of loss and the package being trackable. It's possible (likely?) he lied about not receiving the knife. He is a dishonest, lying, scammer and should be avoided by anyone who he tries to deal with.

Here's his complete information. I tried reasoning with him by email and even a phone call. He chose to be a scammer unfortunately.

fabio gentili
via Pordenone 21
roma, RM 00182
Italy

fabigentil-1 on Ebay
fabiolinogentili@gmail.com (he blocked me so please feel free to contact him and give him the link to this thread. We talked about BladeForums in our deal. He claimed to be a lurker here and reddit. Maybe he's man enough to join and explain his actions.)

+39 3201189011 (I called and talked with him last week. I haven't tried again but I'm thinking he probably blocked me.)


I had to take a step back from thinking about this transaction. I was becoming obsessed with it. I feel better about the situation now. I look at it as I'm out my knife, shipping costs, the waisted time and frustration. I got some $ from him and then ebay took it back so I never had it. I did have the knife and that's likely gone. I've lost knives before, it sucks right!

My wife lost her Dalton Titanium Guardian Angel on a hike up a stream. She realized it at the car after the hike. We went back to the creek the next weekend because she thought she knew where it was. We got to the spot, it was at the base of a wood ladder built to climb up a small waterfall, and she found the knife. It spent the week at the bottom of the shallow creek. Screws had patina but that's it for wear.

Anyway, my point is if she can have a crazy knife recovery story maybe I get one right! I'm going to post a picture of the knife in the thread to bump it. Maybe it shows up somewhere online.

I'm also going to see if there's any legal actions I can take. Possibly file a police report in his part of Rome. Possibly contact the customs office in Italy. One of my best friends, trained with me in Mixed Martial Arts for a long time, is a criminal defense attorney in Alaska. It's not his specialty to deal with something like this but I think he's going to help me.

Be careful shipping international. Make sure you're method of choice can be tracked. I'm stepping back from international shipping for a while. If I can get this resolved with either my knife or $ from fabio then I might consider doing it again. This transaction has been a bummer!




Original Post Starts Here
I need some help from people on the ground that speak Italian. I’m at a dead end now on what I think I can do. I’ve talked to a couple members from Italy before but I’m not remembering user names right now. Please send me a pm if you think you can help. I have some information on this guy that should make contacting him easier.

This transaction did not take place on BladeForums. We talked about BladeForums so it’s possible the guy joined. I hope he did so he can come here and explain himself. If he hasn’t I hope someone gets in touch with him with an offer to come give his side.

I’m open to suggestions, comments, questions, criticisms and whatever else from anyone. I needed to get this out to relieve some of my frustration. I’m not putting out personal information beyond his name right now. However, if it will help get the issue resolved I will put all the information I have here.

Ive shipped international probably 20-30 times, using priority flat rate and never had any issues. Once I figured out how to ship international I was willing to do it to help collectors outside the USA.

I stopped during covid because of the issues with the postal service here and everywhere else. This was my first attempt in a couple years. I messed up and switched my service from priority to first class.

Me and the buyer share a favorite knife. I let my desire to help out a fellow collector cloud my judgement of what I needed to do to make sure the transaction happened correctly.

I do my best to be honorable in the way I deal with the world. Especially with knives I feel when I give my word I must hold up what I promised. Maybe it’s just how my mom raised me, maybe the Army, maybe martial arts or maybe just simply trying to live a good life. As good humans we honor our word!

I have screen shots of messages Fabio Gentili sent me. He does a good job of explaining a lot of what I wanted to post about.

For clarification, I sent a ZT0452 sprint run to him. He’s in Rome Italy. I sent it first class which he claimed was trackable but when I called the Italian post office they told me it was not trackable with my number. They assign a new number to the package when it gets to Italy and email it to the customer. They would not give it to me. The lady also said he would get the knife. Their delivery speed on low service packages is slow now.

Fabio claimed he didn’t have the new number. I asked him to contact the post office and get it. He said they wouldn’t give it to him. Huh?

I emailed Fabio maybe a week after the package got to Italy and hadn’t shown any movement in tracking. He told me not to worry about it, it took time to get to him. He didn’t seem worried about it. It’s his country so I figured he knew how to deal with the post office and how they operated.

He agreed that if the knife was lost he would take the loss. So the knife hasn’t shown up, at least that’s what he claims. Since he lied to me about a few things how can I believe that part of his story?

Of course, he proceeded to file an item not received claim against me. Of course he then lied and said I misunderstood him and the seller was responsible for lost items. Of course he then proceeded to admit he lied about not saying he would take the loss. I also got the impression he was going to reimburse me in the email I’ll post below. Of course that didn’t happen and now he’s changed his email address or blocked me maybe.

Anyway, see the next post for some screen shots.

 

[robcelani]

Here's his confirmation to me that he accepts the risk of loss. Also he tells me first class is trackable in Italy. It's not!

Tracking showing the knife got to Italy. He needs to take over here and figure out what's going on. I don't speak Italian so trying to make calls and track down the package is a no go for me. Plus, I know he's a liar at this point. Is he just totally scamming me, getting a refund and a free knife?

Here's one of his last emails to me where he finally come's clean and admits he was lying. He also claims he's the only one out $. What does that mean? He's already ripped me off for the cash.

 

[Bigfattyt]

Seems like a nice little scam. Maybe put his name, address/email and paypal on blast....

Couple of issues. Your knofe is likely gone. You shipped it as a gift, worth $45 dollars so this guy could avoid paying taxes, which also means even if it is not delivered, you can't recover. He has his money back from PayPal and you likely won't win that dispute, even with goods/services. Unless you can show that the item was received.

Bummer.

I have added language to my sales post that I won't misstate value or gift, etc on forms.

Had a Canadian buyer say he would take a custom knife, And then ask me to lie on export forms, greatly understate value etc, after he had paid through PayPal. (He told me to keep some of the money for inconvience, so he was a stand up guy, I refunded in full, and relisted)

I had one Australian buyer of a fixed blade Busse. He said not to insure for value, as it would make it a target for theft. I did anyway (out of pocket just to protect my self). When he received the package and saw I had paid extra for insurance, he paypal'ed me the extra without me asking or even telling him about the insurance).

There are lots of great international buyers. But I typically won't risk the hastle/increased risk of loss these days.

 

[TOMBSTONE]

That's ashame, getting people to conduct international transactions is already limited and stuff like this happening won't help

 

[robcelani]

Seems like a nice little scam. Maybe put his name, address/email and paypal on blast....

Couple of issues. Your knife is likely gone. You shipped it as a gift, worth $45 dollars so this guy could avoid paying taxes, which also means even if it is not delivered, you can't recover. He has his money back from PayPal and you likely won't win that dispute, even with goods/services. Unless you can show that the item was received.

Bummer.

Thanks for the response Bigfattyt. Yeah, I made a big mistake agreeing to his terms on shipping. I don't remember ever doing this before and I won't again. It's weird to me that I let myself get suckered on the shipping request. I only posted a few of his messages and none of mine. We had a bunch of messages back and forth about the condition of the knife, extra pictures and video's of the knife, talking about Italy because I took a trip there a couple years ago with my wife and one of my sons, just general friendly discussion. All of it made me believe I was dealing with a good guy not the lying scammer he turned out to be.


Here's the information I have:

fabio gentili
via Pordenone 21
roma, RM 00182
Italy

fabigentil-1 on Ebay
fabiolinogentili@gmail.com (I tried to email him yesterday and it gave me a message saying the address wasn't valid so maybe he changed email addresses or just blocked me. This was the same email address for the paypal payment.)
+39 3201189011 (I called and talked with him last week. I haven't tried again but I'm thinking he probably blocked me.)

 

[robcelani]

That's ashame, getting people to conduct international transactions is already limited and stuff like this happening won't help

Thanks for the response TOMBSTONE. There's definitely more time and effort for international transactions. There's also higher paypal fees and of course shipping charges. Compare that to shipping in the USA and I get why people don't want to do it.

After this I should probably just stop shipping international as taking $375 losses is really crappy on top of losing the knife. My expensive lesson that is going to sting for a long time!

 

[The Amazing Virginian]

"Yes it is true we had an agreement about the no refund policy, when I said so I did not really believe that anything could go wrong."

WTAF?!?

Geico: "Yes it is true we had an agreement about reimbursing you if your car was stolen, when we said so we did not really believe that anything could go wrong."

This guy is a scumbag, through and through. Zero honor.

I do not ship anything anymore to anyone outside the US under any circumstances. And the thing about the tracking numbers changing is legit. I have received many items from China and Japan and once they are in the hands of the US carrier, a new tracking number is assigned and I get alerted to it. Not sure why the Italian post would not tell him their tracking number - that part does not make sense.

FWIW, I know you feel bad about getting screwed like this, and I would to, but you did not lose $375 "on top of losing the knife." You lost the $375. If the deal went through properly, you still wouldn't have the knife. You never had both the $375 and the knife at any time so that you could have lost both of them.

And also FWIW, losing $375 sucks for sure, but this d-bag has lost any honor he ever had. And he has to look at his face in the mirror for the rest of his life knowing that about himself.

 

[aji1]

As an American living overseas, I often run into reluctance to ship internationally. I would be lying if I said it wasn't an irritant and stories like this definitely don't help. I will say, though, that the OP deserves some share of the blame (not to excuse the shady buyer, of course).

Why would anyone willingly abet the criminal act of avoiding import duties/taxes/fees and, in the process, violate the law themselves? The buyer straight out said he was trying to avoid paying legally mandated fees. As a shipper, when you fill out the export declaration it explicitly states that "civil and criminal penalties...may be imposed for making false or fraudulent statements herein" and cites the applicable sections of the criminal code.

Why would anyone ship an expensive item without door-to-door tracking, signature on delivery, and insurance for the full value of the package contents? These things protect the seller as well as the buyer. This means Priority International or a suitable alternative.

An international buyer is well aware of the costs of doing business. If they want an item badly enough, they will agree to shoulder those costs. If they are unwilling to do so, the seller should very carefully consider whether or not to complete the transaction, with a possible exception for someone they know well.

I usually avoid these topics that aren't explicitly knife related. To add some knife content, here is a picture of a knife I just received from Oklahoma maker Charlie Bell. Fully insured and declared. I had to pay €142 (~ $171) in taxes, duties and fees. Was it worth it? Well, you can't get a C. Bell from a European cutler and it was something I wanted, so it was worth it to me. Heck, even with the fees, it was cheaper than a lot of GECs on the secondary market for a unique, made to order knife! This one got stuck in a USPS hole for a long time, but both Charlie and I knew that we were covered. She's a beauty, right?

 

[robcelani]

@aji1

Cool Knife! Thanks for posting and bringing up those points specifically. I admit that was a stupid decision on my part. Regarding legality and those consequences, that wasn't part of my decision making but should have been. Realistically if I would have refused that request the transaction might not have even happened or it could have led to better results for me. All speculation because it didn't play out that way.

In one of my messages with the buyer I suggested usps priority but he had some reason why that wasn't a good way to ship to Italy. The more I think and dwell on the deal, the more frustrated I get that I was a willing participant in helping this guy scam me. He's claiming to not be a scammer but what I told him is liar=scammer to me. The idea that the he's received the knife and is lying about that is hard for me to shake right now based on what has happened.

 

[The Amazing Virginian]

As an American living overseas, I often run into reluctance to ship internationally. I would be lying if I said it wasn't an irritant and stories like this definitely don't help. I will say, though, that the OP deserves some share of the blame (not to excuse the shady buyer, of course).

Why would anyone willingly abet the criminal act of avoiding import duties/taxes/fees and, in the process, violate the law themselves? The buyer straight out said he was trying to avoid paying legally mandated fees. As a shipper, when you fill out the export declaration it explicitly states that "civil and criminal penalties...may be imposed for making false or fraudulent statements herein" and cites the applicable sections of the criminal code.

Why would anyone ship an expensive item without door-to-door tracking, signature on delivery, and insurance for the full value of the package contents? These things protect the seller as well as the buyer. This means Priority International or a suitable alternative.

An international buyer is well aware of the costs of doing business. If they want an item badly enough, they will agree to shoulder those costs. If they are unwilling to do so, the seller should very carefully consider whether or not to complete the transaction, with a possible exception for someone they know well.

I usually avoid these topics that aren't explicitly knife related. To add some knife content, here is a picture of a knife I just received from Oklahoma maker Charlie Bell. Fully insured and declared. I had to pay €142 (~ $171) in taxes, duties and fees. Was it worth it? Well, you can't get a C. Bell from a European cutler and it was something I wanted, so it was worth it to me. Heck, even with the fees, it was cheaper than a lot of GECs on the secondary market for a unique, made to order knife! This one got stuck in a USPS hole for a long time, but both Charlie and I knew that we were covered. She's a beauty, right?

View attachment 1512966

She is a beauty. Congrats.

 

[aji1]

@aji1
Thanks for posting and bringing up those points specifically. I admit that was a stupid decision on my part.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you were being stupid; my apologies if you interpreted my post that way! I only wanted to point out that an international shipment with the same precautions you would use with a domestic shipment (G&S, tracking, signature, insurance) probably has an equal rate of success and that the buyer was definitely raising some red flags.

Thanks to you and The Amazing Virginian for the compliments on my new knife!

 

[HappyDaddy]

He told you upfront that he wasn't an honest person. You should have believed him. That doesn't mean you deserved to get ripped off, but...

 

[robcelani]

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you were being stupid; my apologies if you interpreted my post that way! I only wanted to point out that an international shipment with the same precautions you would use with a domestic shipment (G&S, tracking, signature, insurance) probably has an equal rate of success and that the buyer was definitely raising some red flags.

Thanks to you and The Amazing Virginian for the compliments on my new knife!

I didn’t take what you said as any kind of cut down or insult. I’m 51 and still do stupid stuff on a regular basis. This deal was just my most obvious recent example.

I’ve generally been able to avoid stupid behavior in collecting, buying and selling knives but not this time. I think it’s the emotions of bonding with someone, sharing this connection and wanting to help the guy out.

Gotta watch out for that in the future!

 

[robcelani]

He told you upfront that he wasn't an honest person. You should have believed him. That doesn't mean you deserved to get ripped off, but...

Thanks for responding HappyDaddy. You are totally correct. That’s the part that’s a little embarrassing to me. When I was going back through my messages with this guy I realized he was dishonest in the beginning and I should have walked.

I got the impression that he regularly bought knives from dealers over here and that he had them ship the knives the way he was asking me to ship my knife.

I was hoping to get someone from Italy to respond but that’s not happened yet. I’m still not giving up on getting my money though. I know now his email address is still active but he blocked me.

I also think he doesn’t want to deal with his postal system because he had me fudge the numbers on the shipping forms. Otherwise I think he would have done more to try and find the package (that’s if he doesn’t already have it!). I think that gives me some leverage but not sure how to use it to get him to do the right thing.

 

[Mister_Punchy]

I really feel bad for you Rob, especially since you really went the extra mile to help a fellow european collector. It's trully a shame that you encountered such a scumbag, and reading his messages to you was really infuriating.

Can't really help since I don't know anybody in Italy, I just can hope that life will give back what was stole to you...

 

[robcelani]

I really feel bad for you Rob, especially since you really went the extra mile to help a fellow european collector. It's trully a shame that you encountered such a scumbag, and reading his messages to you was really infuriating.

Can't really help since I don't know anybody in Italy, I just can hope that life will give back what was stole to you...

Thanks Mister_Punchy, where are you at in Europe?

 

[willy88]

Hi
I'm sorry about what happened.
I'll quickly explain how the Italian postal service works ....
when shipped from the United States with shipments that do not provide tracking or that provide for tracking up to the customs of Milan, then it will not be possible in any way to trace the shipment. customs never respond to emails or calls, so it would be useless to waste time trying to contact them.
when these shipments arrive at customs, the Tracking number is replaced by another and depending on the shipment it could be taken over by secondary shippers linked to the Italian Post Office, it becomes very difficult to trace where it is.
Customs operations for these shipments could take up to 20 days if everything is in order and if a telephone or email number is shown on the shipment to contact the recipient, otherwise the shipment should be returned to the sender.
from what I see your shipment is reported that it was delivered to the Italian forwarder not to the recipient since he resides in Rome.
there is not much to do in this case other than wait for customs to contact the recipient for further documentation for the customs clearance of the goods or even better for it to be delivered without further action.

 

[robcelani]

Thanks for the explanation willy88 . I was able to call the Italian post customer service. They had an option to request someone that spoke English. The lady I spoke with told me he would get the package and that it was slow because of the service level I shipped with. It arrived in Milan on January 12 so it’s been over a month. That’s my concern regarding the knife. I can’t see any movement because of the tracking # change and I’m dealing with a liar.

I tried searching for some type of forum for knife collectors in Italy and couldn’t find one. Do you know of one there? If not an Italian forum, what about an European Union forum?

 

[The Amazing Virginian]

He has the knife. I base this on Occam's Razor.

 

[Lance Leon]

I'm a collector outside of the US and it sucks to see scams turning people away from international deals. I do understand why you might do it though, and it's one of several reasons I have pretty much exclusively used a US forwarding service when buying knives from the states in the last couple years. Nothing can be scammer-proof, even shipping within one's own country, but it does seem to make things easier for US folks that I have dealt with, as well as being more reliable than direct international shipping.

The other thing I'll say is that reputation matters. If a knife is rare or expensive, it's probably best to sell to someone that is has a track record of previous positive deals than a stranger who doesn't even use the same platforms that you do. It's the easiest and best way to protect yourself.