User: Arth - SCAMMER (What a Scam Looks Like)
He contacts me less than an hour after I post my WTB:
Here are the pics he linked me to.
[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/193/00624e.jpg/
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... this immediately seemed to good to be true - the pics seemed to be of an authentic BM, but they were too authentic. They look almost like promotional photos. you know - direct from Benchmade? of course not quite the quality... so I continued to speak with the seller.
At this point - I just wanted to agree on a price, before I started getting all paranoid, so I got that out of the way.
He responded fairly quickly.
Mint Razor Sharp? These knives are a couple years old as you all know, so this seemed to good to be true. Also - he was fine with $325.00. Didn't even put up a fight. It was only $25.00, however, so I continued to speak with him.
With a price agreed on, I started to probe him for some assurances that this was a solid deal.
His response was more than unacceptable.
For his vouches he links me to some random eBay account - with thousands of positive reviews and the same name (more or less) as his account on here.
This is the eBay account he showed me.
It had no visible history of ever dealing with any sort of knives / outdoor products of the kind ever. But I still entertained the notion of seeing this to the end. By now, I was extremely hesitant to continue the talks - but I really wanted a BM42 - so I wanted to keep this going until I was sure.
As for the second link he posted... He said that he couldn't show me the visible proof I had asked for with the knife, because he already packed it. To show me he really did this. He sent me this picture.
Because, clearly this box says it all... "See, here's the box. You can trust me." (He didn't say that but he might as well have.)
I wanted to play this out until I couldn't any longer. I asked if he could ship to CT.
He replied...
Davis... @ Japan.com.... Japan.com?! what the hell is japan.com....? I found nothing on google pertaining to this - and it just seemed very very strange to me. I never trust these sort of email domains. On top of that - He gave me that email completely out of context - so I didn't even know what it was...
This made me very very suspicious - so I decided to look at his account page (yes, yes, I know, I know. I should have done this first probably. Also I should have seen if he introduced himself... I'm new to that whole concept of formal introductions on forums - so I didn't think to look into it at first. w/e I did in the end.)
this is what his account page looked like.
Not sure if you can see but it says he joined the forum Apri 29th (yesterday) - the same time i posted about a BM42.
I then confronted him about my findings.
He responded quickly, and rather convincingly - but I still was not willing to give this guy a penny.
He then sent me another message saying:
^^ this I saw right through. His attempt to seem like an understanding, honest seller.
I then pursued the most obvious form of verification that I had overlooked.
The ebay account he linked me to.
no response from him after that.
Soon later, I received this private message from eBay.
Of course this made me absolutely sure it was a scam (not that i would've given him my money anyway. Too little assurance - too fake pictures - too good to be true)
hope you enjoyed this little tale. I thought it was pretty amusing.
-Zebra