scammers alert ** UPDATE _ from WUS

Thanks Alain. Great info. I had a bad experience back in 2002 when I purchased a NOS nondate Submariner. The guy was in FL (don't laugh) and said he had twelve of them. I called the guy, he was some kind of a property manager and even had a secretary. Paid for the watch w/ PayPal and the guy sent me a tracking number.

I patiently waited for my replacement sub to arrive. At the time I ran a digital voice recorder business out of my home so I knew every UPS driver in SE Portland. When the watch didn't show and showed up as undeliverable in the tracking system, I started making calls to drivers. The box was shipped to a fake address 30 blocks away. The box was headed back to FL before they could intercept it.

So call after call the guy had new stories. He must of messed up the address. He has some more and will get another out to me. . . . .

Finally, the secretary called and said she is just sick. She had no idea what was going on. She wondered why her boss had her packing empty boxes. She had quit and her boss had skipped out of town. I called local LE in FL who did not seem interested in helping. I should have called the Department of Justice, but in the immediate wanted my $1,900 back. Called PayPal and they would do nothing.

I ended up initiating a charge back thru my credit card against PayPal. Not sure if it was the right thing to do, but had my $ back..

Anyhow. . . be careful who you do business with. The good news, with my money back I was able to replace my Sub and it came with boxes/paperwork and all the whistles!

At the time, PayPal was not its own credit and users paid either through bank account or credit card. I had my account attached through credit card. So there was a $1,900 charge against my card. VISA and probably other cards allow you to initiate a "charge back" when a vendor fails to provide a good or service. This is always an option available to the consumer. I have only used it once.

I mentioned I was running a business selling digital voice recorders at the time. I had a couple of customers who appeared to be scamming me using chargebacks. Also in FL, there were a couple of orders for higher end Olympus recorders. Transaction went through (matched name, address, zip, CVS) and were shipped to another address. The CC customer said they never ordered the product and never rec. the product. Funny thing was through investigation, it turned out that the owned the other property. As a vendor, the credit card company goes back and forth between you and the customer and as a vendor, you have to prove that they made the purchase and received the merchandise. Almost the exact same scenario happened three times in a row. I think I won two of the three as a vendor. Funny thing was that I lost one that had the customer delivery signature from UPS. . .

There are scumbags everywhere. Keep your eyes open.

You are one of the few "good ones" Duff!