Someone did their best to rip me off.

[Edgedamage]

Now that I have my HTPC working great. I thought I would sell it to help fund my next HTPC/PVR project. Sooo I posted a ad on Craigslist. Got a few replies one person started off by asking a few questions then nothing for 4 days. His first emails always mentioned me lowering the price. last night I get a email saying the price is no problem. I reply with a "when would you like to pickup" as the posting is for locals only. He said he would be sending a courier over to pick it up as he is from the UK. I reply by saying I would not feel comfortable shipping a PC overseas as I have seen first hand how shipped PC's arrive. My company had 10 pc's shipped from our LA offices even packaged correctly they stil had some shipping damage. Then he says it's not going to the UK but to the USA and to get it ready as Fed Ex is on it's way to pick it up. I said I will not release the PC until I have the payment in my hand. Then I get a moneygram email saying the buyer will send payment when he gets the parcel. I mail him back saying I got the mail from moneygram but would not ship the PC until I got the money. He replies saying don't worry and has an attachment showing a pickup order from Fed Ex to get my PC today and I must have it ready to ship when the Fex Ex guy shows up. I reply all in caps telling him I won't ship until I get paid and that the Fed Ex guy showed up and I told him there is a misunderstanding and I won't be shipping anything today and sent the Fed Ex guy on his way. Well after that there has been no replies from the guy at all. And we had been going back and forth with mails every 5 mins

[SOAPboy]

Pack a box full of rocks..

[missioncontrol]

should have sent him a P-P-P-PowerBook


 

[ChadTower]

A box of rocks mixed with turds.

[Edgedamage]

A box of rocks mixed with turds.

RATS!! no I mean rats my buddy is a sewer worker I should have asked him to get me some dead ones so I could ship them to him.  Well I sent the loser polite emails about how we didn't see eye to eye and still no responce.

[ChadTower]

So now send him emails about how you don't see your schlong to his eye.

[lcddream]

just built an htpc too...what frontend were you using?...been playing around with meedio over here

[Harry Potter]

Sounds like a form of the 419 scam.

[shmokes]

That's hilarious.  Like I can just call Fed Ex and say, "Yeah....Frank Bensenheimer at 123 Palmeto Ave. is going to ship a package today.  Please go there and pick it up from him."  In order for him to send Fed Ex he had to call and say, "Hi I am Edgedamage.  I live at 123 Palmeto Ave. and I am going to send a package.  Please come get it from me."

I wish there were fewer people in this world that these type of scams worked on.

[Edgedamage]

just built an htpc too...what frontend were you using?...been playing around with meedio over here

Been using GBPVR and it work amazing. And it's free.
http://www.gbpvr.com/

[DrewKaree]

Been using GBPVR and it work amazing. And it's free.
http://www.gbpvr.com/

Someone even wrote up how to run it as a shell like we like to do with our MAME machines and jukes too

[Kremmit]

Been using GBPVR and it work amazing. And it's free.
http://www.gbpvr.com/

Someone even wrote up how to run it as a shell like we like to do with our MAME machines and jukes too

What, this?  Reads like it was written by a moron.    

[Bones]

I got ripped off by a BYOAC member here around 8 months ago. It was my fault, I offered to be a nice bloke and due to my trusting nature I left the door open inviting him to ream me, which he did.

The experience has left me twisted and sour so in reality not much has really changed, but a valuable lesson was learned; Trust nobody.....the saddest realisation of all.

[paigeoliver]

I got ripped off by a BYOAC member here around 8 months ago. It was my fault, I offered to be a nice bloke and due to my trusting nature I left the door open inviting him to ream me, which he did.

The experience has left me twisted and sour so in reality not much has really changed, but a valuable lesson was learned; Trust nobody.....the saddest realisation of all. 

What happened?

[Bones]

I got ripped off by a BYOAC member here around 8 months ago. It was my fault, I offered to be a nice bloke and due to my trusting nature I left the door open inviting him to ream me, which he did.

The experience has left me twisted and sour so in reality not much has really changed, but a valuable lesson was learned; Trust nobody.....the saddest realisation of all. 

What happened?

A dude was in the main forum boasting about his recent Ebay win. I knew the place he had purchased the part from and I PM'd him advising I was going there myself in the next day to look for some parts. If he wanted, I advised, I would pick the part up for him while I was there and promptly dispatch it to him free of charge. He accepted. I picked up the item and paid the seller from my own wallet and sent it off.

The box I picked up was wrapped poorly so I put this package into another box and wrapped it all up. The guy rang me the next day to thank me and also comment that if I hadn't re-wrapped the part the original packaging would not have survived the journey. I said it was my pleasure and gave him my details to forward payment.

He said as way of thanks, if I sent him some discs he would burn some errr.. some mame related files so I purchased $50 worth of CD's and mailed them to him.(He didn't have a DVD burner.)

Long story short, it took me 4 months to get my $60 for the arcade part and the discs were never seen again. He stopped answering my emails months & months ago and his user status here has not been active since this event.

Somehow I imagined that both sharing a similar hobby and both being Aussies he could be trusted. This was my mistake and as I said, I invited the reaming not through lack of intelligence or being naive, I just thought the best of him and his intentions. OK... perhaps I was naive or just plain stupid.

But ahhhh... I have not been left completely sour, I gave a bum $20 a couple of weeks ago for some shoes because his feet looked cold so I still go out of may way to perform random acts of kindness for strangers.

[paigeoliver]

Ah, I have never gotten ripped off by any byoac members. But I have had cases of severe flakage. One guy ordered a custom machine, kept up contact with me right until the pickup date, and then no-showed on the pickup date and never answered my emails again. There I was with a machine I did custom modifications to for him sitting under my carport ready to be picked up, and he drops off the face of the earth.

At that point I started requiring upfront deposits covering 100 percent of my financial costs on anything.

I also used to do a lot of going out to pick up free cabs from my buddies, storing them in my basement, and then offering them up to BYOAC members for prices ranging from free (gutted driving cabs) to $100 (Williams cabinets with sideart). You wouldn't believe the number of people who would not show up, show up and then change their mind, etc.

[Bones]

You know it wasn't even the cash loss that annoyed me. He could have rung and said, hey I don't have the time or his circumstances had changed or he though it was a bad deal, whatever.

I would have accepted 100 pathetic excuses and been happy to come to some type of fair arrangement, like sex with his wife or something.....

Seriously, it was just the principal. Every year my faith in mankind gets just that little more eroded. Sometimes I understand why grumpy old men are grumpy old men.

[JB]

Seriously, it was just the principal. Every year my faith in mankind gets just that little more eroded. Sometimes I understand why grumpy old men are grumpy old men.

I prefer to come at it from the other direction.
I adopted a philosophy of "people suck"so I never expect humanity to do anything other than its worst.

Then someone does something decent, and I'm pleasantly surprised.

[paigeoliver]

I have actually gotten to the point where I expect internet buyers not to actually show up.

In the past week alone I had no-show internet buyers for my Suburban and motorhome. How hard is it to shoot off a quick email to tell the person that you no longer want that $20, $1000, or $2500 item that you agreed to buy?

[DrewKaree]

Been using GBPVR and it work amazing. And it's free.
http://www.gbpvr.com/

Someone even wrote up how to run it as a shell like we like to do with our MAME machines and jukes too

What, this?  Reads like it was written by a moron.    

pssst......it was!

[Bones]

Seriously, it was just the principal. Every year my faith in mankind gets just that little more eroded. Sometimes I understand why grumpy old men are grumpy old men.

I prefer to come at it from the other direction.
I adopted a philosophy of "people suck"so I never expect humanity to do anything other than its worst.

Then someone does something decent, and I'm pleasantly surprised.

Nahh bugger that. I am not prepared to write-off all mankind due to a few hundred million bad eggs....

[DrewKaree]

Nahh bugger that. I am not prepared to write-off all mankind due to a few hundred million bad eggs....

<--------- a few hundred million....AND ONE!

[DemonBrew]

...He said he would be sending a courier over to pick it up as he is from the UK. I reply by saying I would not feel comfortable shipping a PC overseas as I have seen first hand how shipped PC's arrive. My company had 10 pc's shipped from our LA offices even packaged correctly they stil had some shipping damage...

Similar sort of thing almost happened to me. I was trying to sell my car on cars.com. I got an email from a hotmail account. Looked hokey. "I'm very interested in the [car] for the amount of [$4900]" with brackets and all. I responded back, just in case it was legit. Guy writes back, he lives in the UK, but is a US resident. Will have his shipping company pick the car up. He owes some other third person money so.... The buyer will send me a check for $8,000, I take out $5000 for my car, and give the "shipper" a check for the remaining $3000 so he can pay his buddy back.

It's an obvious scam, but apparently people fall for it.

[paigeoliver]

That scam pervades internet commerce at every level.

When I had a room for rent I found that 90 percent of the people who responded where out of the country, but where moving here to work as "oil field consultants" (in my state that has no oil), and wanted to have their former employer send me a cashiers check.

Very few people fall for it, but it is so incredibly profitable when it works that a lot of scammers make a full time job out of it. If their english was better than they would be heaps more successful. And they are careless, often claiming several different names in a single email.

[rampy]

ha, I forgot about the p-p-p-powerbook!

FWIW lcd dream... I think Meedio is pretty cool as the frontend/HTPC framework, but i'm waiting for them to get MeedioTV component a little more refined.   

I'm currently using Beyond Media and BeyondTV, although I've used (and liked) SageTV in the past -- there's even a simple MAME frontend easter egg in SageTV. *shrug*

Sorry to go off topic... glad you didn't fall for it edge... I coulda swore this happened to another byoacer way back in the everythign else archive, fwiw... damned if I can find it since the dawn of the age of the political flame war era started...

rampy