Are we overthinking

maddie67

My husband had an expensive watch for sale on marketplace.  We had the usual scam messages which we ignored, then a message from a male who seemed genuine and he arranged to come to our home this morning.  We are quite remote so said we would meet him at the local petrol station snd he could follow us back.  He called to say there was nowhere to park at the petrol station and was waiting in the nearby pub car park.  He brought his brother along, they followed us home, they were Irish and were visiting family about 30 minutes from us, but they lived about 5 hours away.   I had a bad feeling about the whole thing, especially when they started asking about our home and who lives with us.  They were happy with the watch and ‘paid’ via bank transfer.  After 20 minutes the money hadn’t reached our account and things were getting a little tense because we wouldn’t let them take the watch.  So tense that I discreetly text my husband to ask if I should call our son & uncle to come over, when my husband replied saying yes, I was worried sick. So. Uncle came over with his wife and we waited for the funds transfer to go through, all the while contacting our banks.  After an hour or so, things were going downhill, the 2 guys were getting agitated, one of them told my aunt to be quiet and keep out of it when we were trying to reason with them.  The strange thing that struck us was every time he called his bank he got through to the same woman and she was not in the least bit helpful, saying the money had left his account and the couldn’t do anything for 24hrs and that it was down to our bank to chase the money, we obviously knew that was wrong, our bank even spoke to the 2 guys and explained it wasn’t in their system so they couldn’t chase it.  We went around in circles for 3 hours with them sat in our home saying we either had to give them the money back or the watch and they weren’t leaving without one or the other  they became threatening and aggressive. At some points they were talking to each other in Irish dialect.  We mentioned the police but my husband said they probably wouldn’t be interested (he was trying to keep things calm) until eventually, an hour later, one of the guys said himself that he was going to ring the police and I told him to do it - that was when they accepted my husbands offer of sending the watch via courier to them once funds cleared, as they lived so far away.  That was over 5 hours ago and we still haven’t had any money come through, but strangely, no further communication from these guys.  We’ve logged it with the police, they have said it was likely a scam, probably didn’t want to park in the petrol station because of cctv etc.   I’m worried sick because they obviously know where we live and I’m scared they will be back. Police told us to keep our eyes open, especially as we are so rural, which only makes me more concerned.  My husband thinks its all way to elaborate to be a scam. Has anyone else heard of anything like this? 

soolin

It doesn’t sound too elaborate for scam to me, it sounds like a classic chance scam. They rely on a lot of people getting anxious enough to allow them to take the goods just to get rid of them, and of course no payment was ever made.

As for your other worries, there’s unlikely to be any follow up, they chanced their arm and didn’t win this scam. They will no doubt find someone tomorrow or even already this afternoon that falls for it , and they will just write you off as a lost scam opportunity. 

GrumpyDil

I'm with the police advice. They hoped you would feel sorry for them and let them take the watch on trust.

bluelad1927

Fairly recently my friend lost a brand new iPhone in exactly the same way to a 'friendly Irish man'. It is most certainly a scam as they are using a fake banking app showing thr money has left their account.

mr_stripey

@soolin is on the mark. It's 100% a scam and works by people crumbling under pressure to get rid of them, on the proviso that the money will arrived shortly. Which of course it never does.

Well done for standing firm. They will move on to someone else. 

Mr.Generous

Cash is the only safe way really with a transaction like that. Good warning to others, thanks for posting OP.  Could you give a ballpark figure of the value of the watch so others are aware of likely scam attracting sale values.

maddie67

Mr.Generous said:

Cash is the only safe way really with a transaction like that. Good warning to others, thanks for posting OP.  Could you give a ballpark figure of the value of the watch so others are aware of likely scam attracting sale values.

Ball park figure is 6k im embarrassed to say.  We are normally so careful with things like this, it was advertised through a collectors page, we’d had all the usual ‘please post for extra money’ scam messages.  These were pretty crafty, even putting on a middle class accent on the phone when they were letting us know where they’d parked.  I’m shocked at the lengths they went to, and the sheer hard faces of them. They somehow worked out that our uncle is ex military, we are guessing they were scanning social media whilst sitting there.  They mentioned it to him as they were leaving.  Maybe that was what made them leave so suddenly after all of the back and forth for 4 hours, who knows.  I’m just glad he got to us quickly.

GadgetGuru

Mr.Generous said:

Cash is the only safe way really with a transaction like that. Good warning to others, thanks for posting OP.  Could you give a ballpark figure of the value of the watch so others are aware of likely scam attracting sale values.

Not always - fake notes are very difficult to spot nowadays. 
Sold an iPhone for £700 - guy paid me in all £20 notes at a station - so covered by CCTV. 
Took the notes to teh bank and the deposit machine wouldn't accept them - spoke to someone at the bank who confirmed they were fake, but the best fakes he had ever seen. The only giveaway was something to do with the serial numbers on the notes. 
The transport police took so long to act that the CCTV footage was overwritten - although that worked in my favour as I complained and because of that I had an officer assigned to the case who took several weeks to try tracking and tracing the phone. Turned out it was resold on Amazon, then returned by the Amazon buyer back to the seller and resold elsewhere.
Never found the handset in the end, but they found the person responsible, and I received my money via the court system soon after!

Hence I tend to favour bank transfer now, but do mention I will only let the item go with cleared funds. For higher value items I provide my bank details before the meeting in case they need to set me up on their online banking etc beforehand. 

Martyn_H

To OP: Please use paragraphs in future posts. It makes reading so much easier.

maddie67

Martyn_H said:

To OP: Please use paragraphs in future posts. It makes reading so much easier.

My apologies, I was really shook up when I wrote the post on my phone.

i wasn’t really thinking straight or paying much attention to the layout.

The small phone screen didn’t help either, as I was only able to see a small area.

It won’t happen again 

thank you 

Pollycat

maddie67 said:

Martyn_H said:

To OP: Please use paragraphs in future posts. It makes reading so much easier.

My apologies, I was really shook up when I wrote the post on my phone.

i wasn’t really thinking straight or paying much attention to the layout.

The small phone screen didn’t help either, as I was only able to see a small area.

It won’t happen again 

thank you 

It's ok, Maddie.
It must have been a very scary incident for you all.