Quoted from pinhead_jack:Hey Pinsiders,
I try to keep an eye out for a project TZ machine for my son (13) and me to work on together. TZ just has a special place in my house from episode marathons to the tower of terror at Disney - lots of memories. So a machine pops up on Mr. Pinball classifieds and the description reads like someone with real experience and who knows the machine. I reach out for more information and pictures. He ("Mark Crawford") replies with a bunch of images. I use a couple of reverse image searches to see if I can find them on the web and I cannot. I ask a few questions about how he got the machine and why he is selling it and it all makes sense. So I tell him we have a deal and he provides paypal info.
This is where it got a little crazy as the paypal name was very bazzar. Instead of "Mark Crawford" it was "Zimasa Mati", which was an international account. I ask him about it and he says he sells auto parts international on eBay with a partner and it is his partners account. I don't buy it and go quiet for a day. He texts wanting to know if we have a deal and says that he has it all packaged and ready for shipping. I ask for photos and he sends me one. I do a generic search for pinball on pallet and I find the image. So I call him out and he says it was a mistake and that he sent that photo to his shipping guy to show him how he wanted it wrapped and then sent me another photo. I cannot find this one on the web. But I ask him to confirm where the pin is and he says Maine. But the image of the packaged item has palm trees in the distance outside the garage.
So I dig more and I find out that the whole description and the images came from a post from this site (which sadly I missed out on) https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/for-sale-project-twilight-zone. So I call the guy out on the whole mess and he of course has gone radio silent.
But I was close to pulling the trigger and it got thinking, what do YOU do to verify machines not on pinside?
Thanks
PS - hit me up with all those TZ project machines in the future - LOL
Glad you did your research! The fellow on Pinside called that out and reported it on Mr. Pinball but alas, scams still make it through. If anything seems fishy then don’t do the deal, never give them info and wise choice to reverse image search. Also hop on Pinside since they love stealing our pictures so much. The scammers are usually idiots running off a script, once you can get things to deviate from their script they breakdown FAST.
Call them and ask to speak in person. That’s the easiest way to call someone out on their bullshit! It takes a skilled thief to makeup convincing lies on the spot, and these scammers are not skilled thieves, if they were they’d be out doing a different scam that’s way more lucrative and requires less input.
