scam

Have him pay by plain 'ol personal check.

Wait 3 weeks for it to clear.

Have NAVL pick it up.

Good suggestion. Thanks Vid.

I'm late for this party, but please hear my perspective on it as a non-English speaker:

it must be a scam. Why? Analyze the correspondence between you and him. He never mentions pinball machine or anything real person negotiating terms of sale would use in a normal everyday conversation. He mentions "listing", "item", "this", "satisfied with condition as advertised". Generic speak probably usable to scam people selling everything from toe-nail clippers to lawn machines. I could even hear HAL voice in my head while reading it. No one speaks like that, with that level of avoiding naming the object of sale or his whereabouts. Even pay pal explanation is probably intended to steer someone not using Pay Pal to use it for this for the first time. I'd make him pay cash in person or stay out of it. Classic confidence trick - you can't be scammed unless you bite greedily into something you wouldn't normally receive on such offer - here you get a perfect buyer who will 100% buy pinball unseen and wouldn't nitpick about any possible hidden flaws one might stumble upon such sale, promise of a quick sale with $200 more than asked. 100% scam.

Yep, modern day pigeon drop.

RUN AWAY RUN AWAY! They will take your machine and reverse charges.

paypal offers are about to get a whole lot shadier:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/22/us-nigeria-paypal-launch-idUSKBN0FR22L20140722

(PayPal signs "ten of thousands" customers in Nigerian launch)

I'm relatively new on pinside, but have been collecting pins since the 80s. I use PayPal exclusively for purchasing pins. I've purchased 7 pins in the last six months, all but one were from pinsiders. I could go to the bank and wire money, but it's expensive, and time consuming; a real PITA. PayPal works. I've "gifted" payments well in advance of picking up a game. Only one seller was reluctant, but ended up accepting PayPal after checking out my references from from pinsiders.

I know paypal isn't perfect, but it convienent and quick, just a few keystrokes.

Agreed, just know who you are working with when accepting payments, Paypal is simple to exploit.

Sending money is never an issue, and receiving it from a trustworthy source is also never an issue

This is the exact scam. If it were me, I would open a free gmail account and then send him that info as your paypal account without ever setting up a paypal account. Then when you get the email from him you will know for sure anyway. Then I would send him a bogus address to have the item picked up. That way maybe you can cost him a good bit of money. It would be nice to pay a scammer back for a change.

scam x' a million

@Ida its not being offensive to state that 99.99999% of the poor English speaking people whom want to buy high valued items off of C.L. are scammers because its true. I would make up a game name and see if he wants that one too! I bet he does and would give u even more $ on top of what your asking!

nah they're not after the machine, they just want cash.

i agree, but the key here is "all but one were from pinsiders". to be honest, if you can verify a buyer or seller is a regular pinside poster (and isn't a pariah here) then you can pretty much guarantee you aren't getting outright scammed, in which case any payment method at all works fine.

So for local sales, this is what I follow. Haven't been burned yet.

1 - Ignore poorly written emails, messages that contain links, anything that seems generic or form generated quoting the title of the sale, or offers for more than your asking price. People are always going to barter with you at first unless you have a stupidly low price.

2 - CASH ONLY for local pick-up sales. Never accept anything else. And don't offer to deliver unless you enjoy being low-balled once you show up with the machine.

3 - Never disclose your address or even your phone number until the day they plan to come and see/pick up the machine. Keep everything vague about your location until they commit to a date. Then CALL THEM!!! Ask for their phone number. Speak to them on the phone to get a better gauge of who you are dealing with. If you are selling a high-priced machine, chances are they assume you have other high-priced items in your home. Numbers can be reverse looked-up to trace back to your home quite easily.

I would follow 2 easy rules. It's very simple.

Local Sales = Cash in Hand, It's the only way to guarantee you that the money just handed to you is yours.

Shipped sales = Don't ship until the money is in your "Bank" account. IE if they paypal you it's fine, just watch your actual paypal account, (not just trusting an email that says you got paid) and then transfer the money from paypal to your bank and wait for it to fully clear. Once your bank statement shows the funds no longer pending, ship the machine.

Hey Derek ! I've never even been to Nigeria !!
Lol.
No hard feelings, dude. Cant says I blame ya. Im still drooling over that skee-ball. REALLY wish I was closer !
But jokes aside, I would never scam anybody out of anything. Those fuckers make me sick !! But,...I know you have no way of knowing that. Actually, the reason I even got a quote from Judy at NAVL was because I had been talking to her like, 4 times a day about my JP that I just bought, through Paypal, with a brand new Pinsider actually.
But thanks dude for atleast saying I dont smell scammy !!

I would still love that skee...just dont see it working. But...Im on beer 3 now. So in about 3 hours, I'll pm ya with my latest masterplan.....
Somebody buy that beautiful machine !!!

I think you do an EXCELLENT job with your "non-English speaking"!!! I would never have known by your writing that you were from Serbia! Your command of English is better than some people from here in the States!
Mike in Kentucky

What you missing is that "paypal" can charge-back the amount to you in anyway they deem possible.... including tracking it to your "REAL" paypal account via other transactions / names / ip addresses. Paypal won't send you a check... they will only allow you to 1) use the cash for other transactions (which they can track) or 2) allow you to e-transfer it to your checking account... which they now have access to and can use to pull money back when it goes south.

Further; since an "agent" is picking this up... they you haven't "verified" you gave the item paid for to the buyer. Another out for him and Paypal.

Simple Cash is king kinda thing here.

I understand the desire to "go fishing" for supidity here... (on their part); but I'd just walk FAR AWAY from this deal.

No one I mean no one says US200.00. If they quote denomination country scam.

One word:

CHARGEBACK

Is it really worth the risk of getting burned?

There is no "risk of", it's going to happen, 100%.

The only fun you can have is to keep requesting they send you checks and claiming that each one got wet or damaged.

Tell them you are about to leave on a 1 month job assignment, so they need to expedite the delivery of the check.

This costs them $$$$ for each overnighted check.

Don't actually deposit the checks, because there is a $30 bounced check fee a month latter.

Sometimes you can get them to send 3 checks before they give up.

Nope.

The "bank wire" trick is that they now have your bank address and account number.

They overnight a bad check to your bank branch.

The bank automatically deposits the check in your account.

You check your balance or call the branch and see that the money has been deposited.

You are confident that Bank Wires are airtight, so you send the item.

A month latter the check bounces, you lose the game, the money and a $30 bounce check fee.

What are you doing? You are joking right? Walk away.

The trick is: YOU THINK IT WAS A BANK WIRE.

An overseas bank wire can take 24 hours depending on the time zone.

So when you check your bank balance in the morning, the money is "there".

If you call the bank and ask "Hey, did I get a bank wire overnight?" The bank answers "Sir, we show a deposit of $6000 was made into your account this morning".

The bank never calls you and says "Hey, we just deposited a check in your account !". They always just deposit it, and go along their busy day.

This scam happens 1000s of times every day.

This has gone on long enough don't you think. You asked our advice, we gave it now it's time you ended it and stop messin around. Enough is enough.

Paul... that's kinda harsh.
I for one kinda have a sick fascination with him toying with the idea of messing with the scammer for a while.
But yeah; kinda not work the effort these days.

as far as i know, bank wires to banks arent actual checks ?

ive wired money from here (aust) to the US, its in their account pretty much the next day.. cleared.

if you must use a check, totally just wait until it clears.. get confirmation from the bank.. tell the buyer sorry you'll just have to wait. if they arent prepared to. no sale.

Enough is enough. It's a scam. Tell the scammer to fuck off.

I say go for it and see what happens!

fail-free-candy[2].jpg

Or just tell him to transfer the money to his agent that will pick it up, and have the agent show up with cash!

End of thread.....

CASH! CASH! CASH! CASH. Or if all else fails..........CASH!!!!!!

Nah, Tell 'em you'll accept bitcoin

It can't be explained to you.

EXACTLY !! I cant believe you spent so much time on this as well as others. I just sat back and watched all the replies come in but never really read any of them but yours just to see how far and how long you was gonna mess around with a obvious scammer from the get go.
Someone shut this thread down already and lets move on.

John P. Dayhuff
Battle Creek, Mi.
269-979-3836

Agree. Even if the scammer doesn't successfully complete his scam, the act of engaging them at all may give them insights as to how to craft future scams. Best just to ignore them and move on. Like ignoring a child that has a temper tantrum just to get attention.

You can claim all you want, but when they charge back they do not ask, they do not care, its buyers word. Period.

I know, sorry about that. At least I didn't use any swear words.

Learned a lot by this thread. You went to far when you said you were going to open an account, accept one of their deposits and shut down the bank account after. Most banks charge you if you shut down an account within a certain period of time. You would get a $30 per check return check fee for every bad check (fake wire) they sent you, also. So you would be wasting your money and your time.

The best waste of time is playing pinball!

People like to be able to finance their purchase as well. Some folks can't plunk it all up front but would rather pay over time on their cards via PayPal. It hurts those of us who are legit about paying, unfortunately.

iD1xmkf.gif