Scammed on a Rolex.........
Discussion
Posting this on behalf of my little brother so dont hold back on the criticism!
was looking for a rolex submariner at a decent price so after looking on forums, ebay, gumtree I found one that suited me perfectly. The seller and I communicated via email and text for a couple of days, we eventually agreed a price and I proceeded in making a bank transfer to his account. A UK account based in Swindon. I also asked for the receipt to be posted for the original sale that he said took place in Westfield Stratford Goldsmiths.
he had posted pictures of the box and papers and said they were all included in the sale. So he sent it via tracked royal mail last saturday and I received on the Tuesday. The box had a return address but it was totally illegible, i knew straight away the package was too small to have the box etc included so I opened it up and inside was a padded envelope with a brand new looking rolex inside. It was immaculate with no scratches or wear and this made me suspicious. I then looked at the movement, it was automatic but not as smooth as the rolex movement should be. I then identified the serial number and googled it, a known number used in fakes. I immediately text him saying I believed it was a fake, there was no box, receipt or anything. He said he'd refund me and that he had no idea, he bought it believing it was real. So as the week went on the texts got less and less and he was saying he had no time to get to the bank. i texted and emailed him telling him I was going to the police. I had used things like 192.com to find his address and was able to identify a photo of him on facebook wearing another rolex he had advertised on gumtree. He replied saying he would definatly make the payment by Saturday at the latest so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and waited. I heard nothing by Saturday afternoon so began txting and phoning him alot. I identified his partner on facebook who I found out is a primary school teacher so I sent her a message saying did she know that this is what he was at. I emailed him telling him I believed he was a scammer who had stolen a large sum of money and that I would post the details with his picture on every website and forum I could find. Surprise surprise i then got a response saying that he had taken legal advice and that he would not refund me as I could have switched the watch with a fake. If I had video evidence of opening the parcel with the fake inside he would then refund me.
i asked him about the receipt and box etc and he says he won't send me the pictures of this. Obviously I don't think he has them. I have reported it to action fraud who seem rather toothless and are more a 'recording' tool rather than investigatory.
can any please help with this? I'm in Northern Ireland btw.
was looking for a rolex submariner at a decent price so after looking on forums, ebay, gumtree I found one that suited me perfectly. The seller and I communicated via email and text for a couple of days, we eventually agreed a price and I proceeded in making a bank transfer to his account. A UK account based in Swindon. I also asked for the receipt to be posted for the original sale that he said took place in Westfield Stratford Goldsmiths.
he had posted pictures of the box and papers and said they were all included in the sale. So he sent it via tracked royal mail last saturday and I received on the Tuesday. The box had a return address but it was totally illegible, i knew straight away the package was too small to have the box etc included so I opened it up and inside was a padded envelope with a brand new looking rolex inside. It was immaculate with no scratches or wear and this made me suspicious. I then looked at the movement, it was automatic but not as smooth as the rolex movement should be. I then identified the serial number and googled it, a known number used in fakes. I immediately text him saying I believed it was a fake, there was no box, receipt or anything. He said he'd refund me and that he had no idea, he bought it believing it was real. So as the week went on the texts got less and less and he was saying he had no time to get to the bank. i texted and emailed him telling him I was going to the police. I had used things like 192.com to find his address and was able to identify a photo of him on facebook wearing another rolex he had advertised on gumtree. He replied saying he would definatly make the payment by Saturday at the latest so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and waited. I heard nothing by Saturday afternoon so began txting and phoning him alot. I identified his partner on facebook who I found out is a primary school teacher so I sent her a message saying did she know that this is what he was at. I emailed him telling him I believed he was a scammer who had stolen a large sum of money and that I would post the details with his picture on every website and forum I could find. Surprise surprise i then got a response saying that he had taken legal advice and that he would not refund me as I could have switched the watch with a fake. If I had video evidence of opening the parcel with the fake inside he would then refund me.
i asked him about the receipt and box etc and he says he won't send me the pictures of this. Obviously I don't think he has them. I have reported it to action fraud who seem rather toothless and are more a 'recording' tool rather than investigatory.
can any please help with this? I'm in Northern Ireland btw.
i have lots of sympathy for your brother almost the exact same thing happened to my gf
should bought a collection of lego super hero figures
they turned out to be fake, you could tell from the legs, £5 spent on what is basically worthless small bits of coloured plastic
how much was the watch?
should bought a collection of lego super hero figures
they turned out to be fake, you could tell from the legs, £5 spent on what is basically worthless small bits of coloured plastic
how much was the watch?
Sympathy and offer of posse appreciated.
The guy is actually in London. It's for a large enough sum for the little bro to be gutted about. He did everything he thought he should do, ie loads of pictures with the watch beside a bank statement, and a poor quality pic of the original bill of sale. There's a load of things that would be done differently in hindsight, the most obvious one is to not buying it in the 1st place. But what's done is done.
The main thing is now that we know who it is, where they live and what they have done there doesn't really seem to be much interest from the powers that be. You can't get any recourse through the banks, going to the guys house and confronting him is one option, but not likely, posting up his name and address and pictures on the net is another and prob likely one to at least vent some steam. But other than that there doesn't seem to be much to do?
The guy is actually in London. It's for a large enough sum for the little bro to be gutted about. He did everything he thought he should do, ie loads of pictures with the watch beside a bank statement, and a poor quality pic of the original bill of sale. There's a load of things that would be done differently in hindsight, the most obvious one is to not buying it in the 1st place. But what's done is done.
The main thing is now that we know who it is, where they live and what they have done there doesn't really seem to be much interest from the powers that be. You can't get any recourse through the banks, going to the guys house and confronting him is one option, but not likely, posting up his name and address and pictures on the net is another and prob likely one to at least vent some steam. But other than that there doesn't seem to be much to do?
Unfortunately the posse option isn't a great idea, it's highly unlikely the details you have are genuine. Would I be right in saying you went to your local station & were told to report it to the Met, who then told you to report it to Action Fraud or referred it themselves? What Action Fraud do is compare your incident with many hundreds of similar reports & if there are any viable lines of enquiry they will refer it to the Police force best placed to investigate. If there's nothing viable it'll be kept on record & compared against future reports. The upshot of this is that you may never hear anything, or you'll get a phone call in a few weeks / months.
Was it a Nationwide BS account by any chance? Their national HQ is in Swindon.
Was it a Nationwide BS account by any chance? Their national HQ is in Swindon.
A bit late now but the whole point of gumtree is that it's meant for face to face transactions - it even says on their site not to send money to sellers via bank transfers, paypal, the post etc.
That said, we've all done stupid things in our lives.
Let the seller know, in a non threatening way, that you have his address and if he's unwilling to deal with this over the phone you are more than happy to discuss things face to face. It may just spook him into making the refund.
If not let him know that as well as having his address, bank details, mobile number etc you also have his facebook details etc and if no refund is forthcoming within X number of days you'll be going to the police with all the information.
That said, we've all done stupid things in our lives.
Let the seller know, in a non threatening way, that you have his address and if he's unwilling to deal with this over the phone you are more than happy to discuss things face to face. It may just spook him into making the refund.
If not let him know that as well as having his address, bank details, mobile number etc you also have his facebook details etc and if no refund is forthcoming within X number of days you'll be going to the police with all the information.
king hell, he thought he did everything right?! How about completing the transaction face to face!!ging84 said:
i have lots of sympathy for your brother almost the exact same thing happened to my gf
should bought a collection of lego super hero figures
they turned out to be fake, you could tell from the legs, £5 spent on what is basically worthless small bits of coloured plastic
how much was the watch?
Wow, that is scarily similar to what happened with my Mrs.should bought a collection of lego super hero figures
they turned out to be fake, you could tell from the legs, £5 spent on what is basically worthless small bits of coloured plastic
how much was the watch?
She bought some mega-blocks (also made by Lego) off ebay, but when they turned up they were actually a cheaper made lookalike brand.
£8 plus £2.50 postage completely wasted.
I wonder if it was the same people?
ging84 said:
i have lots of sympathy for your brother almost the exact same thing happened to my gf
should bought a collection of lego super hero figures
they turned out to be fake, you could tell from the legs, £5 spent on what is basically worthless small bits of coloured plastic
how much was the watch?
should bought a collection of lego super hero figures
they turned out to be fake, you could tell from the legs, £5 spent on what is basically worthless small bits of coloured plastic
how much was the watch?
ging84 said:
i have lots of sympathy for your brother almost the exact same thing happened to my gf she bought a collection of lego super hero figures they turned out to be fake, you could tell from the legs, £5 spent on what is basically worthless small bits of coloured plastic.
How awful. Is there a JustGiving page?agtlaw said:
How awful. Is there a JustGiving page?
I may set one up, looking for £5 for my gf to cover the original costs , plus £15k for me for my mental trauma of being exposed to inferior productsmy genuine lego robot figure is also fairly upset over the whole experience, he kicked a kinder egg Porsche off the desk like it was a cheap plastic toy
ging84 said:
agtlaw said:
How awful. Is there a JustGiving page?
I may set one up, looking for £5 for my gf to cover the original costs , plus £15k for me for my mental trauma of being exposed to inferior productsmy genuine lego robot figure is also fairly upset over the whole experience, he kicked a kinder egg Porsche off the desk like it was a cheap plastic toy
Edited by Funk on Monday 31st March 09:56
Follow this splendid bloke's lead:-
http://www.geekosystem.com/man-texts-complete-work...
If (a big if) you have a genuine address for the seller, then your brother can sue the seller in the County Court. Your brother would have a claim for breach of contract and probably also a claim for, at least, negligent misrepresention (possiby fradulent misrep, too, but take the easy route). If the address is fake, then an inquiry agent could probably find the seller for a fee of some hundreds of pounds, which could be added to the claim.
http://www.geekosystem.com/man-texts-complete-work...
If (a big if) you have a genuine address for the seller, then your brother can sue the seller in the County Court. Your brother would have a claim for breach of contract and probably also a claim for, at least, negligent misrepresention (possiby fradulent misrep, too, but take the easy route). If the address is fake, then an inquiry agent could probably find the seller for a fee of some hundreds of pounds, which could be added to the claim.
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