Some words of warning when buying . .

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

Hi Elektronauts,
I just wanted to warn/update you all in regards to my experience recently while purchasing from an established user on this forum.

I recently paid £285 to @swanage_fan for a Ventris Reverb pedal; with had spoken about it following him advertising the sale of it on this forum.

Having checked out his history on this forum and also on other forums, I was confident he was trustworthy. He has been a member here for over 2 years and has membership of other popular music based forums as 50quidsoundboy for longer periods.

I thought I’d be a good (naïve) buyer and paid PayPal friends and family to help with the costs. He said he’d post the item in the coming couple of days.

That was nearly a month ago. Since that point, I have received no item or communication.
I have contacted him through the forum and direct email linked to his PayPal etc. Although he had signed in here and read the messages I have sent him, he chooses to continue to ignore me.

There is a range of personal information that I have on him based on the relatively transparent nature of the internet and our footprint we leave on it but I will not expose more about him here as yet.

[ Mod Edit : image withdrawn]

The details are with the police. The fraud hotline are involved. I also have a criminal barrister who is a good friend - he is also moving things along for me. I intend to take this as far as possible, and thankfully have my friend’s offer of legal support without incurring extra financial costs.

I’ve been part of this forum for a couple of years myself and consider it to be one of the most positive environments to spend time. I remain confident that the users and motivations here are good natured, and the attitude and behaviour of @swanage_fan is the rarity.

I’ll keep updating this post as things progress to serve as guidance for anyone who sadly finds themselves in a similar predicament.

Take care,
Adam

20 Likes
#2

Link to the sales topic fwiw. This topic and that sales thread need replies and bumps until it gets seen by the seller.

They could both also just be made sticky if there’s no resolution forthcoming.

{link removed to sales topic}

#3

Ugh. Hope this gets resolved.

#4

Hope this is resolved in your favor very soon.

Uncool.

#5

Thanks for your kind comments. I’m hoping for things to be sorted out too.

1 Like
#6

I read the original thread this morning and was bummed for you.

If it doesn’t get resolved we can start a forum pedal fund for you! I will contribute $10!!! Or maybe we just do that. Now???

Sam

4 Likes
#7

Hey man I recently got swindled with some paypal friends and family stuff too, and got all my money back. I had paid via my credit card (not debit, never debit) and told paypal to cancel the payment, but they didn’t get it in time, and they told me to contact my bank/credit card company. So I did that and they had me fill out a form detailing why I was asking for the money back and I basically said “I was scammed.” They told me they’d have to actually go into his bank account and take out the money since it was in there–I said that’s fine.

I got my money back and never heard from the guy again. What’s he going to do, fight it?

Good luck. It makes me happy knowing that this guy woke up one morning and saw some money removed from his bank account because I wouldn’t just lie down and take his shit.

6 Likes
#8

Is he alive? You never know.

2 Likes
#9

True. Please don’t dox the person. Sounds super dodgy but there could always be a reason. Police.

1 Like
#10

I think you overlooked this:

Dead people normally don’t sign in to a forum.

5 Likes
#11

Police and PSA here with the handle of course :slight_smile:

#12

What are the rules in a situation like this, why not give him a week to respond and then post all his information.

[Mod Edit : info redacted pending resolution]

#13

Sorry to hear this.he is a total dick doing this on this forum.i have been a member here for 4 years and never would have thought this would happen.hope it gets resolved one way or another. A sad act to do by him

2 Likes
#14

I did initially think there could be a reason behind this and was concerned that something could have happened. However, his activity on this forum - logging in etc. - removed those ideas.

2 Likes
#15

Cheers Sam,
That’s a really kind post. However, although leaving me out of pocket, I’ll be able to save and replace the money over the coming months. Hopefully, getting the money back from him will be a bonus. However, regardless of the money, the unfairness of this situation and the my intention of seeing a fair outcome motivates me to see this through.

Again, really kind of you to react this way though.
Have a great day.

2 Likes
#16

You do though when you know that the logging in stopped happening just after the moderators were getting directly involved - so the guy was logging in for a fortnight or so, we followed that.

This is clearly opportunistic imho - when the guy accepts that this is not going to quietly go away he should see that easily the best option is to resolve it promptly with the buyer.

Details are purposely being held back to allow the option of a discrete resolution - I suspect if the seller grasps the situation (by merely coming here and reading this) they’ll swiftly resolve it, somehow. It’s seemingly not the act of a seasoned scammer. They’ll be summarily banned from here when this matter is finally resolved, but that’s nothing compared to the impact they’ll otherwise face by the time the police/courts eventually address it.

Probably the best thing folk can do is keep this topic (and advert) active to ensure it eventually somehow gets seen by the seller

1 Like
#17

Assuming it his him who signed in. just seeing it as they would in a court of law. Anyone can access peoples computers these days. Its important to have all the facts. We can surmise but nothing else. He could be incapacitated or worse. You dont know.

2 Likes
#18

We have access to significantly more facts and i can assure you there is nothing flawed with the thinking presented here - this is brazen, but opportunistic deceit and its origins are consistent with those facts (they don’t mitigate what happened) - theories that other people logged in are fanciful and unhelpful - this is a measured way to bring the seller to his senses

The buyer knows what it will take to resolve this, so let’s not derail that determination with undermining and improbable notions that somehow the seller is the one needing more consideration here - the buyer has been extraordinarily composed in the way they’ve approached resolving this - yes, urging caution and discretion is appropriate

plus, separately - i think it’s laudable for Sam above to mention a crowdfunding initiative, but this imho potentially excuses the seller from somehow meeting their moral obligations, best not to introduce doubt at this stage that there isn’t a ‘victim’ out of pocket

8 Likes
#19

Hi Adam, sorry to hear this, it sucks, but thank you for sharing & making the rest of us aware. I applaud your actions, people like this need to be held accountable for their behaviour.

#20

Im with you against brazen fraud. No doubt. But you cant know for sure if it is him logging into the account. There are huge assumptions here that would be laughed out in a court. Its emotional i know and rubs me up the wrong way how people can do this in such a cold hearted way. But logging onto an account simply is not enough to go on.

Somebody could(and its very common) have hijacked his account and be using it to steal money. Thats just one scenario. This is not derailment its how the law works.

2 Likes