BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

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Richard Kaufman
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BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Richard Kaufman » November 30th, 2022, 7:55 pm

I was contacted by a member who had posted a note here about wanting to buy a particular book. Someone replied, but it was extremely fishy, and demanded money without proof that he had the books to sell.

BE CAREFUL if you are contacted by a person you or your friends do not know about buying something.
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Ted M
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Ted M » November 30th, 2022, 9:06 pm

It's pretty simple: If someone isn't your friend or family member, don't use "Friends/Family" mode in Paypal.

Tarotist
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Tarotist » November 30th, 2022, 10:05 pm

I am always nervous about purchasing from magicians on the internet. Even well known and respected names fail to fulfill orders not necessarily because they are trying to scam you but because they are highly disorganised and inefficient. Not only that they seem to have run into money problems which exacerbate the situation.

disbelief
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby disbelief » December 1st, 2022, 8:10 am

Yes, thanks for posting. I have a wanted ad posted and I have been contacted twice this month by Simone who was a scammer. They say that they know someone who has what I am looking for and to email a “different person” a specific address. Then that person asks for money to be sent before providing pictures or proof they have the item. Be careful out there.

Jon Elion
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Jon Elion » December 1st, 2022, 9:21 am

Tarotist wrote:I am always nervous about purchasing from magicians on the internet. Even well known and respected names fail to fulfill orders not necessarily because they are trying to scam you but because they are highly disorganised and inefficient. Not only that they seem to have run into money problems which exacerbate the situation.

Here is a summary of a recent failed transaction that I tried to have with a well-known magician. I ordered his product on 28 March 2022 and paid via PayPal. Here is a summary of his communications with me about an impending shipment of the product:

  • 28 March: Thanks for the purchase (and your kind words!), it will ship on Thursday.
  • 30 April: You should have received this well before now! I'll send a replacement (with tracking!) straight after the weekend.
  • 30 May: ...new booklets are due to be delivered on June 9th or 10th and all replacements including yours will be posted the same day.
  • 28 June: I'm out of action at the minute, in bed with COVID. I'm hoping to be back in the saddle by the weekend at the latest and will be straight in touch again once I am to let you know what's happening.
  • 16 August: I expect that [another product] will thankfully be with everyone later this week and I will also get all outstanding orders sent asap, including your copy of [what you ordered].
  • 16 August: I can confirm that I will indeed dispatch your [product] package this week, BEFORE I complete work on [the next product] and send that out. I also have a lovely gift that I will put into the package for you, by way of thanks for your forbearance.
  • 27 August: Just a quick note to confirm that your package is being shipped today. I'll email you the tracking info as soon as it has been picked up.
  • 12 September: Your package will get picked up tomorrow and I'll send you the tracking number straight away.
  • 26 September: I'm certain that the package was dropped off, however I'm away from home until the weekend so I have no opportunity to head down to the depot and see what's happening. So, as requested, I have sent you [your money] back... Once I'm back home I'll find out what the issue is and resolve it. Either way, I will make sure that you get that package!

Of course, that was the last that I heard from him. I have chosen to omit his name or that of the product that I ordered, as I continue to want to offer him the benefit of the doubt -- hopefully just disorganized and inefficient.

Stever Cobb
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Stever Cobb » December 1st, 2022, 10:20 am

That exchange seemed to me as total B.S. I got ripped off from the guy in England a few years ago with the cool dice chop cups through Kickstarter. Sent me similar excuses and then fell off the face of the earth.
Most recently tried to order from Boardwalk Magic in California, another rip-off artist. Avoid this outfit at all costs! Lucky that I ordered via credit card, so they took care of it after a few months. It just amazes me that they are still around, ripping people off daily. Why doesn’t the Cc company shut them down?

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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Tarotist » December 1st, 2022, 1:49 pm

I am not 100 percent sure of this but I vaguely remember that you can dispute charges if you paid through paypal. I may be wrong of course. I DO know for sure you can dispute charges if you pay by credit card.

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erdnasephile
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby erdnasephile » December 1st, 2022, 8:01 pm

To Ted M's point above: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/p ... d-security

One of the few positive side-effects of the pandemic is that videoconferencing is much more accessible these days. I would respectfully suggest that if one has trepidation about buying over the internet from a private seller, a Zoom conference where one can see the item up close may be of value. You might also be able to gain some insight into the seller as well (especially if they decline to participate).

Finally, I would also point out that selling to unknown folks has its hazards as well. Sometimes folks pay and then demand returns (or discounts) for either trivial reasons or even switch the working item you sold them for a broken one. (Recording serial numbers (if any) and taking detailed pictures of the item and box prior to shipping can serve as evidence of the condition of the item and also that you at shipped the item).

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Smurf
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Smurf » December 1st, 2022, 8:31 pm

Paypal allows you to open a dispute within 180 days of the purchase date.

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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby PressureFan » December 1st, 2022, 9:11 pm

I don’t know if it’s still the case, but if you close a PayPal dispute, you can't reopen it. With Visa you can.

Years ago, I had a dispute with a magic dealer who kept promising to send the merchandise but never did. I opened a PayPal dispute and once again the dealer promised to send the merchandise, but they needed me to close the dispute so they could print the PayPal shipping label. I didn't dare close it because you only get one bite of the dispute apple.

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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Jon Elion » December 1st, 2022, 9:33 pm

erdnasephile wrote:... Sometimes folks pay and then demand returns (or discounts) for either trivial reasons or even switch the working item you sold them for a broken one. (Recording serial numbers (if any) and taking detailed pictures of the item and box prior to shipping can serve as evidence of the condition of the item and also that you at shipped the item).

I got caught by that recently. Sold a nice Nikon camera lens only to have the seller claim it was broken. I had him return it, but I had not yet learned the lesson of checking serial numbers. I gave him a refund (as I didn't have enough evidence to prove the scam). I include photos of serial numbers in listings now.

Chris Aguilar
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Chris Aguilar » December 1st, 2022, 10:24 pm

Smurf wrote:Paypal allows you to open a dispute within 180 days of the purchase date.

There was a guy some years back (Chad Kidd) scamming here, selling books (never delivering them). I was able to open a paypal dispute and get my money back. So it can/does work in many instances.

Robert77
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Robert77 » December 2nd, 2022, 11:57 pm

This is why I almost never post something anywhere ASKING for an item. Any grifter out there will see that as a mark waiting to be parted from his deng.

Tom Gilbert
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Tom Gilbert » December 3rd, 2022, 8:04 am

I usually give them close to the date for starting a Paypal refund, at that point they'll either ship or try to stall with more excuses. But the Paypal dispute gets started. Years ago on this board, I asked about buying some Irv Weiner manuscripts and a fellow said he had them all.
I said I'd take them. Then it started, he's out of town, his brother was supposed to ship them. At that point, he wanted to send me digital files. Seeing that he was from Romania was a signal from the start, but Paypal came through.

Ted M
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Ted M » December 3rd, 2022, 1:28 pm

Just protect yourself by not sending funds via "friends and family".

I've had to use Paypal's dispute process a handful of times over the years, including with the above-mentioned Chad Kidd. It works. Just don't throw away that protection.

It makes no sense to me how many total strangers have decided entirely on their own to send me money via F/F. They clearly mean it as a kindness, but at some point some other stranger is going to burn them.

Even if you want to think the best of everyone, just think about magician demographics -- your seller could be a 100% honest person, but given the median age in this field they might suffer a surprise heart attack and die before sending your goods. You don't want to bother somebody's widowed spouse to recover your funds, right?

Think of the grieving family, and don't throw away your purchase protection!

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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Ian Kendall » December 3rd, 2022, 2:03 pm

It can be a small problem; last year someone in Canada contacted me, asking if I had a book to sell. I did, and we came to an agreement.

I sent the book over, and I got an email one morning complaining that the spine was slightly sun faded. This was a book where the contents were the important stuff, not the condition of the spine, but I still accepted his reasons and we refunded the book and he sent it back, at considerable expense (which irked me, because he contacted me in the first place, and I ended up losing money).

The pain was that he started a Paypal dispute even before he had spoken to me; so even before I got to say anything, or agree to his terms, I faced the hassle of Paypal taking money out of my account and possibly tying up my end for weeks, when I had done nothing wrong. Luckily, once I explained to him that disputes were for when people were not talking, he retracted it and we concluded amicably, but it left a bitter taste.

The moral; don't sell to people you don't know...

Also; A while back I ordered a book from Phil Willmarth, but nothing arrived, and all emails were ignored. Reluctantly, on the last possible day, I asked for a chargeback from Paypal, which I got. A couple of months later I got an email from Phil's daughter saying that he had been too ill to check his messages, and she had only just got access to his emails (after his death), to find a bunch of orders that were never filled. So, sometimes chargebacks can help...

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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Bob Farmer » December 3rd, 2022, 3:57 pm

For the record I was not the dumb Canadian Ian refers to, I am a completely different dumb Canadain.

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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Tarotist » December 3rd, 2022, 4:30 pm

I always feel a vague discomfort holding other people's money until I have shipped the goods. I won't bank the money until the merchandise is shipped and I can't concentrate on anything else or relax until the item is off my hands. This discomfort is a reason I never take pre-orders.
I am aware of my own inefficiency and disorganization and paradoxically this awareness gets the item shipped to the customer as early as possible so I don't have to worry about it any more.

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Brad Jeffers
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Brad Jeffers » December 4th, 2022, 3:26 am

On a related note, I recently came across this site ... https://www.justpokersupplies.com/

You may ask, "What does this site have to do with magic?"

Good question.

I was lead to this site via a Google search for "Mardo egg bag" and while the site is "Just Poker Supplies" if you type in any magic related word in their search bar you will get a list of things more extensive than you'll find anywhere else!

Type in "Vernon" and you get a list of 493 items that include among other things, copies of three different volumes of the Castle Notebooks for $250 each.

Is this place legit?

Ted M
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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Ted M » December 4th, 2022, 10:44 am

Looks like they're a Murphy's reseller.

The same Castle Notebooks (2,4,5) are the ones that show as available at Penguin.

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Re: BEWARE of Scammers Selling Here

Postby Evil Clown » December 10th, 2022, 5:39 pm

You definitely have to be careful. Recently I saw a review for a book about magician's bookplates (in Genii I think). But when I contacted them about ordering, it was from Europe (not a problem in and of itself) and they wanted PayPal Friends and Family. Now, I am sure they will ship--I mean the book clearly exists and it was reviewed--but I am still not going to do it. I don't know this guy and he is in a foreign country.

PayPal fees, like credit card fees, are a cost of doing business and you need to factor that it your price. It is protection for both the buyer and the seller. I buy and sell a lot of books on Facebook and the Cafe. I only buy with the protection and I would never ask someone to send without it (although some do unasked). I have also delivered the hundreds of items I have sold. I appreciate the magic community and the art too much to do otherwise.

As for Mr. Kidd who was mentioned earlier, I have bought some stuff from him. Did not get everything once (shorted me a couple of books) and have had to chase him for for a few for about a week before receiving them--he did not ship them when he said he did as I realized when he finally sent me tracking a week later. The really odd thing is everything he sent is really new. I almost hesitate to know where they originally came from...


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