I think I encountered my first scammer

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Vivi

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EDIT: The money order ended up reaching me and Castigar's end of the deal has been completed. The post below will be left as I originally post it, but it does not reflect Castigar's character. I would be willing to deal with him in the future, should he feel the same about me. He is not a scammer.

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I recently posted a Spyderco Manix for sale. I had a member (Castigar) say he'll take it. He only had one post which alone was enough to make me feel quite uneasy. I figured there wasn't any way I could get burned if I waited for the payment to arrive before I mailed the knife like I do with most members here. In the emails he seemed rather anxious to have me send the knife out. I haven't received anything from him in the mail as of today.

Hi Vivi,

This is castigar on Bladeforums. Can you ship it to:

Bobo Li
****
****
****, CA 91126

Send me your mailing address so I can send you the MO.

Thanks,
Bobo Li

------------------

I'll require payment before I can ship out the Manix. You can send the MO to:

Mike Cook
****
**** OH 44720

Thanks
Mike

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Hi, Mike,

I've just sent an $85 money order to your address. When can you ship it?

- Bobo Li

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Bobo Li,

I'll ship the knife when I get the money order and cash it at the Post Office.

Mike




The email saying he sent the MO was sent March 7th.

My apologies to Castigar if I'm wrong, but this whole deal seemed fishy to me.
 
Good move. A new guy has to realize he needs to establish some kind of credibility before we'll take him at his word. I bet he hasn't filled in anything in his profile, either.
 
Agree, the few crooks in this forum and others make the use of caution as shield against rip offs. he should understand, I would
 
if the mo was sent as he said, i would think it should have arrived by now. however, i would give it at least another week, then make contact again.

you havent shipped yet, so you have lost nothing.

i also would leave the listing as spf until i was certain that no money was inbound.
 
:cool:...It's too bad it had to come to the point where ya have to wonder about the credibility of buyers and sellers constantly these days. The many "scammers" have done a first rate job of sowing those seeds of suspicion. It was great to buy from a lot of excellent forum members where the darn knife was delivered to my door before I had a chance to run to the P.O. for the money order...LOL...But then I used to leave my house door open or unlocked 24 hrs. a day many years ago too. That can't happen today. We do have to be careful...and Vivi you don't have much choice but to wait it out...Hope it does go good for the both of ya...:cool:
 
If he was trying to scam you, I'd say he has choosen a dumb way to do it
and scamers usually aren't dumb at all. I wouldn't rush into any conclusions just yet
 
I sold a Busse to a guy with only one post. He wanted to use PP, I said he would have to wait until I got the payment and tranferred it back to my bank account. He said OK, and it all worked out. Hope yours does, too.
 
my first deal on here had the potential to be a disaster. i sent a postal money order that took the scenic route and didn't show up for over a month. i was lucky to be dealing with a trusting and patient seller, and made it a point to keep in touch with him on a regular basis. part of the problem with money orders, although they are my preferred method, is that you can't do anything about them being lost or stolen for 45 days. even if the guy is on the up and up the only way to really expedite things is to have him cut you another one at some agreed upon point and then he can file a claim on the lost one, if it actually is lost or stolen.

i don't think a week is at all unreasonable, and mail sometimes takes longer than that. if you are in contact with the guy then you'll have to decide if you trust him or not. hopefully he's answering e-mails, and hopefully you got his phone number. if he's new at this and this is one of his first online purchases, then keep in mind that he may very well be having doubts about you as well. from his perspective, you may have his money order and be giving him the runaround. your best bet at this point is to try and get some dialogue going with him. good luck,

Winston
 
I sold a Buck Strider to a member with about 4 posts and it worked out just fine. (he had no rating) Then out of the blue I got an email last week from somebody that wanted some Benchmades, I had posted for sale a good while back. Sure I can make you a deal on 2 if you want both I said, just mail me a postal money order. I just got an email, so I have no idea what this guys user name or ratings, post number, date of membership is, or even if he is a member. He sends me his address and has his phone number included and wants mine as well. So I email back and say it's my parents phone and it's unlisted they won't be happy me giving it out to people I met online, if you don't want to deal with me because of this I understand and it's no big deal. So I hear no more from him(I'm thinking he decided to not buy) and yesterday the Money Order is in the mailbox and today his new Benchmades are on the way. I've had great experiences so far with the 3 transactions I've done through this forum. If somebody wants to buy anything I've offered I will only ship when payment is received by me unless they have positive rating on this forum. If they don't then they shouldn't expect knives shipped prior to payment.
 
I sent a MO to a vacation company on Jan.30th and they have not seen it yet (MO not cashed). It is lost in the mail somewhere so I would give it some time, but still good to be cautious.
 
In the last two months I have had three pieces of mail arrive very late ( two outgoing and one incoming).

Tom
 
I'm actually close friends with the guy in question. He's a new knife afi (after a mutual friend of ours got him interested in spydies), and registered an account to respond for the manix for sale (he found out about it because our mutual friend and I both have accounts).

For what it's worth, Vivi, I can verify that the MO is in the mail. It's probably just being slow getting through the system.
 
For what it's worth...
I purchased a knife recently and it took no less than 13 days to get from North Carolina to Washington, standard post. Crazy long!
 
Vivi, give it till the end of next week. if you haven't received the Mo then put the Manix up for sale again. At this point I think you should edit your for sale post to say that there is a pending sale. Give Castigar a fair chance to prove he is a stand up guy.
 
From California to Ohio, mailed on the 7th, but hasn't arrived on the 13th? Relax. Give it another week. Especially if he put it in a drop box on the 7th after that box had already been picked up, then it's just gonna sit in the box overnight and may not move until the afternoon of the 8th. If the sender accidentally copied your address down wrong or something, it can take weeks for it to get back to him "return to sender/address unknown."

So, don't jump to conclusions.
 
The Pony Express was faster! :p

I receive so much misdelivered mail that I often worry about my own outgoing and incoming mail. It's often worth the cost of sending it certified mail with return receipt requested. It's not that expensive. I think it costs $2.70 in addition to regular postage.
 
Of course the Pony Express was faster. It was an express service, like our Express Mail. You can't compare a few mailbags racing to California with the massive volume of ordinary mail around the country today. And it didn't last long. Just as the internet and email have replaced a lot of our hardcopy business mail, the Pony Express was an interim service put in place until the landlines for the telegraph went up.
 
You never know who you're talking to on the net. You make a flippant remark about the US Snail and then you find out you're talking to one of the chief Snaildrivers....
 
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