kookboy
Key Veteran
Location: Vancouver, BC -up north and Seattle, WA down south
| I have been in a similar situation regarding a laptop I bought on yahoo auctions years back. My igorance led me to losing $500 .
I sent a MO to the guy who lives in Portand,OR.
A lot of people sent him money.
Totalling at least $23,000. over the course of 2 weeks.
He never sent a thing.
He did make a mistake.
I got his name / address from the bank that cashed my MO.
To make the story short:
Tracked him down via email. He left his 'website' attached to his username. Orkidauctions. I looked up the website ID and found his contact info on there. Called him up and he pretended to be someone else. Since I work early at 6am, I made a habit of calling him every morning before I went to work just to be nice. Eventually, I found out he's in an apartment. Called the landlord and asked about him. She was nice and gave me everything I needed to know including signing for MY money order.
I Called the police and emailed everyone who got scammed by him, put together a list of victims and went along with the police and to the Portland couthouse and filed a suit against him.
He obviously wasn't able to pay up but is paying court fees for the next few years.
Knowing that I put his life in financial misery by simply taking the time to follow up and not go down there and beat the living snot out of him made me feel like I lost $500 but in doing so, prevented him from doing any online/auction transactions for a long long time with police/banks monitoring him.
So... advice
If you paid via MO, has the money order been cashed ?
You can check with the bank you had the MO created. They will be able to tell you if it has been cashed. If it has, then they can give you ALL of the contact information of the person who cashed it.
If you paid via Paypal, they can give you his banking contact info as well.
If you have that info, breath deep and keep you cool.
Call him.
Tell him who you are and ask about the engine.
At that point in a cool manner let him know that if you do not receive the engine or you money back within a week, that he will be receiving a call from the "his city/town" police concerning the matter and will escalate from there.
If you get to that point, there is a 50/50% chance you will see your money again. If not, then you might be able to stop him from doing it to someone else (which was my gratification in my case).
Hope this helps.
Good luck
... But honey it was only $$$ |
