Hi all,
I thought I'd share my story with the hope of making everyone a-little more aware of what could go wrong with buying an gift card off another seller on Ozbargain. As much as I expected Ozbargain to be a tight knit community, there are some scumbags out there, so it is very much a case of buyer beware.The intent is not to scare everyone but to remind everyone there are risks and at the end of the day, it's worthwhile to be extra careful. Separately I am hopeful that perhaps there may be people on this forum who may be able to help me track down the seller as I have sufficient information that could lead somewhere.
About 3 weeks ago I had placed a classifieds add on Ozbargain looking for sellers of a $500 JBHiFi gift card for the price of $450. I got a number of responses through by PM and one of them was a user by the name of Fatsquirrel. Fatsquirrel had communicated that they had a $500 gift card and was willing to sell it for $450. Noting seemed unusual and the user had been a member of Ozbargain for a few months with some posts made. Two Fridays ago on Friday the 13th (it was really a black friday) I decided I was ready to buy my phone and reached out to FatSquirrel saying I was ready to buy.
Fatsquirrel provided me with his PayID and mobile phone around 6:40pm of that night for communications noting that I had done a deal with JBHiFi and needed the card ASAP to ensure I could buy before my deal expired. I responded back to Fatsquirrel at 7:30pm requesting for him to confirm his name based of the PayID he provided. He didn't respond, so I followed up with a call for which there was no answer so I followed up with a SMS for which there was an immediate reply over Ozbargain PM confirming his name. With this I had somewhat sufficient confidence to transfer the money to him (with nothing to make me doubt the situation). So at 10:07pm I had transferred to him $450 and responded via PM and SMS for which he responded by SMS saying he would send the gift card straight away. Nothing happened for half an hour and so I followed up with calls and texts for the next 90 minutes. There was absolutely no responses, every call I made went straight to VM. At 11:30pm I SMSed the guy and said if I didn't get a response I would recall the transfer through my bank within the next 15 minutes.
At 11:56pm he responded saying sorry and he was busy dropping his nephew off and then said he would send a gift card through. He ended up sending a $500 gift card screenshot through which on check of the balance on JBHiFi's website had $250 in value with a $0 balance. I think he had intentionally photo-shopped the voucher to read $500. When I questioned why there was a $0 balance with a screenshot he went silent again. The following morning he responded claiming that I had scammed him by recalling the payment and that he had provided the gift card and claimed that I had used the gift card as well. After this he went silent. I requested for him to call be constantly but obviously the scumbag was playing the game and didn't have a bar of it.
Anyway the net result is the money had already been transferred. I had logged a recall through my bank (but they can't do anything unless the other person consents) and his bank's fraud team confirmed separately that the money had been moved out of his up.me bank account. I have since raised a police report for it but I can imagine it'll be at the back of the priority list which is fair enough and haven't heard back since.
Notwithstanding I have the following pieces of information and am hopeful that someone might be able to help and name and shame?
Name from PayID: P A L__NG
PayID details: Happy to disclose but not sure what Ozbargains policy is.
Location: Appears to be from Melbourne asking me to meet up ACE Mechanics Denandong before dissappearing
Phone number: Happy to disclose but not sure what Ozbargains policy is.
Other details: Based on the dodgy JBHifi Gift Card he sent me there was a JBHiFi order number referenced on it for the $250 used. Hoping this order number might lead somewhere if someone can PM me to assist?
IP number: Ozbargain can't disclose unless its to the police I have been informed.
Anyway the moral of the story is use lots of caution in online transactions, even if they happen everyday of the week like the do on Ozbargain.
Thanks for listening and acknowledge I'll get smashed for being stupid.
asked about the scammer's contact details from hamza23, emailed him and he responded 10 months later verifying my ID/situation, apologised and asked for my payment details to refund me, which he did. he also refunded the OP of this post.