BEWARE - fake leather jacket scam. Reportage

jc808

Elmer_Dudd wrote: »

This is a well known scam along with being offered a brand new video camera in a superstore car park by travellers-you will be approached and shown the top of the range camera and be offered it for a unbelievably low price along with some story about it being an unwanted item/off the back of a lorry/etc/etc and when they drive off and you open the box you will find a bag of flour inside instead of the camera!:mad:
They also sell on brand new looking TV's that have little or no innards-just bricks for weight! They have been known to explode when plugged in!:eek:

They rely on you feeling so stupid at being ripped off or so frightened that you may have bought suspect or dodgy goods that these rip offs are hardly ever reported!

Be very careful out there,
Elmer:cool:

The old 'loiters in a van with cheap speakers' trick

cluster4

Just got a similar offer here in Soho, London. A car stopped by and the guy spoke Italian with me, he "thought" I was Italian too. Because I "looked" Italian he wanted to show me something in his car. He let me in his car and told me the story. He said he works for Armani and came just from a fashion show from which he has 4 Emporio Armani jackets left. Tonight he will go to Canada and he doesn't want to take the jackets with him because they will tax him too much on the border. His car was a rented car, he showed me his passport and the car rental receipt. His offer was that I just have to pay 1000£ for all jackets and with this money he will pay the bill for his rented car. He told me the price for each of these jackets is more than 1000-2000£. He also showed me the trick with the lighter on the leather jacket.
I have to say that he is a very good trickster, he seemed in a very good mood, was kind, not intrusive. He often switched to Italian and then said: "Excuse me, I forgot that you don't speak Italian. You just look so Italian". He just played the cool, easy Italian guy. The jackets looked good, probably high quality fakes, but I'm not familiar with fashion clothes.
When he realized that I got suspicious he even offered me to come to his hotel, which would be the Hilton around the corner. He would offer me a coffee there and give me his Armani business card. I refused, lol

heretolearn_2

These people are very good at what they do, and are very convincing. If you are generally a nice person who trusts people (instead of a horrible old cynic like me) then you can end up getting conned. It doesn't make you stupid.

Watch out for 'designer watches' as well. Very similar con, except they have magazines printed up with ads for these watches at ridiculous prices as well to add flavour to the con. The watches are complete cheap carp of course. Mr N wears one - he still thinks it's a designer watch - and I don't have the heart to tell him he was conned. He bought it from a car as a 'leftover sample from a trade show'. I thought he might have twigged when he took it to a posh(ish) jewellers to get a new battery put in and they wouldn't touch it, said they'd never heard of the brand. But no, he still believes in it. And he is perfectly intelligent.

Caught some bloke in his car outside our offices doing the same thing to young man from neighbouring shop - sent him packing pronto.

System

People stop you in the street, try to flog you something expensive and you don't think there is anything dodgy about it?
If he was doing it from a market stall then I could understand it, but on the treet randomly stopping somebody?

Ye gods!

tallyhoh

Wouldnt occur to anyone that they could be buying the proceeds of a robbery & could be charged with recieving stolen goods? I dont think the defence that you bought it off a stranger in a car park would help.

ouseglider

I had a similar experience about 4 years ago on the M62. As I walked into the service station building I noticed this smartly dressed man leaving. A few minutes later I returned to my car and as I unlocked the door his car pulled to a halt right in front of my car. He got out and began his spiel. At first I thought he was trying to distract me so someone could reach into my car and grab my laptop. So I carefully locked my car before giving him my full attention. He then took me to his car boot and told me he was on the way back from an exhibition at Harrogate and on the way to the airport. He had these Armani jackets left over from the show and they would be excess baggage, would I like them for free? I just knew this was a scam but had no idea what it was. When I said no I wasn't interested he just sent me on my way. I've long wondered what the scam was because he was going to give me it for free. Now I know he would have continued to the can you pay for my petrol part?

Brettman

What has this world come too? There is a lesson learned in all this. Thank you for sharing your story.

knightstyle

We have had the gold ring and my child in hospital give me £10 for petrol scam here in Lincolnshire for a while as well.

Tomatoes

SCAM!

I also got conned by this artist in Dubai! I've done quite a lot of research on the web and found out a lot about it!

It's not 1 person operating alone, there's a gang of 20 to 30 people operating this scam in the UAE for the past 6 years (members of the !!!!!). They are originally from Naples, holding fake identities/addresses and they've been searched internationally as they have criminal history in other countries where the scam reached higher levels. They remain in the UAE due to a lack of extradition treaties. This is just one of the many italian organized crimes that have been operated globally.

Organized Crime is nowdays the biggest business in Italy according to the Confesercenti authoritative report, it takes about 250 million dollars a day from retailers and businessmen. The UAE is an important crossroads for business, and as result, also for crime. These gangs normally mantain legitime business holdings worldwide that are offen used as a cover for their criminal operations.

Be aware of this scam! The name Gaetano is associated to a range of other scams worldwide. These people are extremely skilled and enjoy taking honest money from others! The best artists wear suit and tie, and the funny thing is that I recently saw the same guy on a maserati!

DCFC79

Tomatoes wrote: »

SCAM!

I also got conned by this artist in Dubai! I've done quite a lot of research on the web and found out a lot about it!

It's not 1 person operating alone, there's a gang of 20 to 30 people operating this scam in the UAE for the past 6 years (members of the !!!!!). They are originally from Naples, holding fake identities/addresses and they've been searched internationally as they have criminal history in other countries where the scam reached higher levels. They remain in the UAE due to a lack of extradition treaties. This is just one of the many italian organized crimes that have been operated globally.

Organized Crime is nowdays the biggest business in Italy according to the Confesercenti authoritative report, it takes about 250 million dollars a day from retailers and businessmen. The UAE is an important crossroads for business, and as result, also for crime. These gangs normally mantain legitime business holdings worldwide that are offen used as a cover for their criminal operations.

Be aware of this scam! The name Gaetano is associated to a range of other scams worldwide. These people are extremely skilled and enjoy taking honest money from others! The best artists wear suit and tie, and the funny thing is that I recently saw the same guy on a maserati!

Why did you fall for it ?

Did you not at all think it might be too good to be true ?