can I suggest you blackout the girls face if you are posting up a pic.
if that was me id not be happy with it being shared.
rubbish to have that happen and helpful for others to not take too much of a risk…
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@vvlv so sorry this happened to you.
No intending to hijack your thread, if you say so, I’ll move my post to another thread.
So, almost the same scam happened to me early in 2019.
I have found an Analog Heat on Ebay Kleinanzeigen and decided to buy it, especially when its price dropped from 700 to 580 euros.
First, a little introduction.
I am Romanian, and have gotten used to people being a little cautious when dealing with my people. I mean, I know all to well some of us don’t have a good reputation abroad and/or online. So persuading people to send stuff over is sometimes hard or impossible.
That said, when the seller agreed to send it to Romania, I was thrilled. I wired the money immediately, then waited for her to respond over Kleinanzeigen and/or Whatsapp messenger.
Needless to say she or they never responded.
In a few days I’ve gotten round the fact that it was a scam and my hypothesis true: that person was victim of identity theft.
I have filled a complaint with the Heilbronn police department and was with someone over the phone and email. Then filled a complaint over to the N26 bank in Germany, where their account was. The bank never responded besides a copy/pasted response and never blocked that account, not to say I’ve never received ANY money back.
From the police and city council of Heilbronn, Germany, I got some papers, a result of a trial that was held, which resulted that the person whose Kleinanzeigen account was, was not guilty of anything and just the victim of identity theft.
And that concluded this adventure.
Bitter and sad, I made an account on this forum, and persuaded a person to send me his AK. Paid with Paypal, covered fees and shipping and there it was, a week later, my first Elektron machine.
To conclude: don’t trust Ebay Kleinanzeigen, don’t fully trust Ebay, only if the person seems legit and can answer questions with details about the product, NEVER send money through anything else than PayPal, and if possible ask to have a video conference with the seller ahowing you the goods. Oh yeah, and safeguard your documents, online accounts, credit details etc.
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Even then, DONT use paypal friends and family. The money gets to the seller VERY quickly and Paypal isn’t responsible for it. If you find out it’s a scam a day or two later, it’s already too late and now your bank/credit card company has to take care of it, not ebay/paypal.
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You’re right. Valid point.
All info relating to the Identity of the supposed seller (who may be another innocent victim) have been redacted, that info could well be fake or stolen
It’s possible that the info could be useful to share with another affected party, but disclosing it into the web when there’s no way to prove that the details relate to the scammer is best avoided
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You did a bank transfer right?
Go to police, than go to the bank
They should refund yoU
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Sad truth is, even PayPal’s buyer protection won’t prevent you from getting scammed…bought an OP-1 a few years ago via eBay Kleinanzeigen for 850€ from a seller in Berlin. Seller claimed it to be in perfect condition. I paid with PayPal. But it was totally screwed, even one of the buttons was missing. I immediately withdrew my transaction by calling my bank account manager, contacted the seller who apologized and claimed he just sold the device for a friend of him. I sent him the OP-1 back.
But then PayPal came at me and told me I didn’t have the right to withdraw the transaction without opening a “buyer protection conflict ticket” at their support and they put a minus of 850€ in my PayPal account until the conflict was solved as they said.
So I opened a ticket, thinking everything would work out fine because the seller and I agreed about the faulty OP-1. That’s why I wrote in the ticket’s free form that we already solved the conflict, that I had sent back the device and that I withdrew the transaction so nobody owed anything anymore. But what resulted is that PayPal closed the case with the minus 850€ STAYING in my account!!! Seems like there was some kind of misunderstanding, but their support told me it’s not possible to reopen closed cases at all. DANG!
I finally contacted the seller to send me my money back because the 850€ were now in HIS PayPal account, but he simply didn’t react and blocked me on WhatsApp…what an A***hole! I even tried to file him with a lawyer, but this would have been more expensive than the 850€…so there I was, no OP-1 and 850 bucks less
…holy sh*t, that is still making me angry while writing it down here!
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This. PayPal F&F offers no buyer protection. If you see someone selling something with Friends and Family, run away.
Bank transfer, yup. Bank is already contacted, and going to the cops tomorrow.
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Man, I feel your pain. Boiling blood over here as well.
Thanks to a decent insurance I can take a lawyer and I guess I’ll do that. Going to the cops first thing tomorrow, then lawyer time. We’ll see.
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This is a brutal story, good luck dude, I have a feeling that you’ll be successful!!! My bet is that I’ll be reading a follow up post about how much you like your OTII in a few weeks once you find a reputable seller and get your cash back.
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Thanks for the positive vibes, appreciated! Definitely gonna post a follow-up once I know what’s up.
And I already gave in and ordered a new OTII even though that means I am broke for this month as early as the 8th. That’s a new record… but the music commands me, and I have to obey 
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Sorry to read that man, truly sucks especially in these times! I did notice quite a few fake ads on Ebay Kleinanzeigen lately (too good to be true offerings, they are on for a while - often too long for the money they are asking - and at one point Ebay sends a msgs warning of that post having potentially been a scam which means that by then at least one person got burned).
I got robbed of 900€ for an RME UFX 2/3 years ago. The whole thing seemed a bit sketchy to my wife (not me though), so she had me ask them for a photo of the device together with their ID card (Personalausweis)…which they actually provided.
The wild thing was that that ID was real, the bank account I wired to was on that name - but later the police told me that the person on that ID had been a victim of identity theft. I did hear that people sometimes get paid to offer up their identity for these scams, so the rabbit hole goes deep.
And of course the account was closed shortly after I wired (was a Postbank account, apparently they are used often for this), and my bank (DB) refused to trace back / recall the transfer as I made it using one of my verification methods (PIN/Mobile TAN etc).
I was very upset for a while then I realised that I had already paid for this lesson in cash and that I shouldn’t add my spiritual and emotional health to the bill and so finally decided to let it go and just move on (the police was exactly of zero help also).
Lesson learned: pay by PayPal (vendor) or if you must wire, use your Credit Card instead, cause that’s retrievable no problem.
Here’s to hoping that you will get something back from this!
x
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Hi vvlv,
I don’t own any elektron gear these days, but had to register for this thread.
I got robbed by the same person on ebay Kleinanzeigen too. In the same way…
I made a transfer on 28th June to buy Moog Grandmother. Today I asked “her” to give me an update on the damaged shipment and “she” started communicating in a completely different way, giving short meaningless responses and at the end insulting me in a very petty way.
Maybe we can somehow coordinate our moves towards the s***bag?
Where are you based? I live in Berlin.
I already reported the situation to my bank N26 and also to ebay-Kleinanzeigen. Don’t know about the police yet, since my German is not very good…
Cheers!
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Hey
I was just reading this and I think I got scammed by the same person. It would be good if we could get in touch. Please text me on Instagram: maaiikes
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But you did a wire transfer to a bank account, right?
So technically the bank should have all her details, you should go to the police and than the bank.
The biggest scam are with Western Union- those are impossible to track as you don’ t beed a bank account to cash the payment
Yes! Everybody get together that has dealt with this ‘person’. Someone call Anonymous to really dox and screw these scammers over 
I can tell you a story too.
A few weeks back I bought a quite cheap Nintendo Switch from ebay. It was a commercial seller – I paid with paypal – it was too good to be true, I knew that. But I thought … well … only 10 left!!! Better be quick! 
So yeah … it was a hacked account.
Then both my ebay and my paypal account got suspended.
It was a nightmare after that. I knew I get my money back. But still. To get the money back I had to make a lot of phone calls. There are no people involved in Paypals hotline. Not even after desperately trying to in the voice menu. It is not possible. So much time wasted waiting for the darn robot. They read out your hole buy history …sloooowly… you can’t even use the number pad – you have to fucking talk to the robot. It was humiliating!
All I can say: Scammers have it really easy with ebay + paypal. They get a lot of time to clear the money. Paypal was not reacting at all. They could have frozen the money immediately (I was calling ebay and tried to contact paypal just a few minutes after ebay send me a scam warning). But it’s all automated – no customer interaction wanted/allowed.
Eventually I got my money back – after 7 weeks. In every form I had to fill out with paypal I said it’s a scam and told them the story with proof. They just don’t care.
So … if a price is too good to be true … it’s too good to be true.
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Yes, it was bank to bank transfer.
I already sent a request for investigation at N26. My biggest concern is that I confirmed the transfer to the scammer’s account and I (really) hope that N26 deals with this type of frauds. Also, I don’t have much experience with it, so any info is appreciated.
Hey,
Can we get in contact? I got scammed by the same person and I also transferred from an N26 bank account.