Scammer! Maurice Villalobos

[Zoran]

Hi guys,

Beware of anyone posing as, or being Maurice Villalobos. (VILLALOBOS JIMENEZ LUIS MAURICIO)
He is an active scammer who just scammed a friend of mine out of $6700.
He sold him the watch, but as soon as the funds hit his account, he went silent. When I contacted him about the same watch, he said it was still for sale and wanted me to wire money to him as well.

He uses this email: maurix.pure.tritium@gmail.com
His account was very active since 2006 on Timezone as Maurix, so we believe his account could have been hacked.
The only reason my friend went ahead was because he had dealt with the real Maurice in the past. Not knowing this was a scammer posing to be him.

He will ask you first to wire funds to any of these 3 accounts:

Bank Name: BARCLAYS BANK PLC
Country: United Kingdom
Branch BIC Address: Leicester LE87 2BB
Businessdirect Branch Code 0YE.
Bank BIC: BARCGB21
Account Holder: VILLALOBOS JIMENEZ LUIS MAURICIO
Account: 23587363
Sort code: 204545
IBAN: GB58BARC20454523587363

or

Bank name: Bank of America
Account holders name: Margaret Ann Lortcher
Account number: 237034479836
Routing number: 053000196
Swift:BOFAUS3N
Bank Address : 14500 FALLS OF NEUSE RD RALEIGH NORTH CAROLINA 27614.

or the one he asked me to wire the money to:
Name: Michael D Heathman
Account number:501017208572
Routing number:122400724
Swift:BOFAUS3N
Name: Bank Of America
Bank Address: 710 S Meadows Pkwy, Reno, NV 89521, USA

Please avoid this person at all time!
I hope no-one else has already been affected by this guy.

[Chewbacca]

(sigh.)

[locutus49]

Thanks for exposing yet another scammer. These guys are a plague on civilization.

[lodewieke]

Thanks for your message Zoran

[Zoran]

Originally Posted by lodewieke

Thanks for your message Zoran

Anytime Louis!

Seller also claims to be from Costa Rica but currently residing in the US.
At this point unclear if it is really him or someone who hacked his account pretending to be him.

To be clear, the funds were wired to his account in the UK. From there on they got forwarded to the US.
He first tried to get the funds to North Carolina account. Obviously this was a no-no for obvious reasons. Never send money to an account not belonging to the actual seller. After that he came up with the UK account as an alternative.

To me he claimed the account in Reno was from his assistant, because he couldn't access his Costa Rican account from within the US.
All bullshit excuses to get your money.

Hopefully they can stop this guy before he makes more victims!

[lodewieke]

Michael D Heathman
He lives in Reno and everybody can google this person.
Or in scam or identitytheft

[HunterST]

I purchased from him in the past and had no trouble at all. Perhaps his accounts were hacked? I picked up a 1675/3 from him some years ago and the transaction was flawless. I wired money to Costa Rica and received the watch 3 days later in Los Angeles. I checked his references with 2 well known dealers in the LA area and they gave the thumbs up. It is a serious red flag to wire money to someone else's account instead of the seller. Check the Vintage Rolex Forum for folks that might have more information on him.

[Zoran]

Hi Eli,

Thanks for your input.

I saw you had purchased from him in the past.
This time it was again the same method of advertising on Watchnet and same email address as in the past. This makes us suspect his account and/or email could have been be hacked.
As I said, there have been purchases in the past from Louis' side from Maurice in the past as well without any problems, and shipped from Costa Rica like your 1675/3

The money this time was sent to the account in the UK, which is registered to Villalobos Jimenez Luis Mauricio, which is the full name of Maurix. This was/is the confusing part about the whole ordeal.
Hopefully the real Mauricio will one day read this and chime in to give an explanation, if he really isn't involved.

[lodewieke]

If he really ins't involved it seems that he doesn't have not too many people and friends in the watchcommunity and fora who can give him a message that he is banned.

You can't even reach him by email and no phonenumber seen anywhere
Strange case.

[lapince]

I wonder if it's the same scam as here...

https://www.youcaring.com/michael-heathman-640369

[Zoran]

Originally Posted by lapince

I wonder if it's the same scam as here...

https://www.youcaring.com/michael-heathman-640369

Hey Arnaud,

You suspect the fund raiser to be a scam?
I mean, he is also called Michael Heathman, but seems to be from Missouri rather than from Reno.

Not sure, I kind of hope he isn't

[HunterST]

Was this ever resolved?

[BNA/LION]

Maurice Villalobos my

[Zoran]

Originally Posted by HunterST

Was this ever resolved?

Hi Eli,

Nothing could be done.
The funds were gone as soon as they hit the account and there is no will form banks or agencies in the US to investigate this any further.
Conclusion, the funds are gone....

[Zoran]

Originally Posted by BNALION

Maurice Villalobos my

I fully agree Larry!

[77T]

Just curious - did your friend ever reach out to the real Maurice (who is presumed innocent) to forewarn him that his TZ account is compromised?

Or is your conclusion the real Maurice has gone rogue?

[Zoran]

Originally Posted by 77T

Just curious - did your friend ever reach out to the real Maurice (who is presumed innocent) to forewarn him that his TZ account is compromised?

Or is your conclusion the real Maurice has gone rogue?

Hi Paul,

The funny thing was that the email from Maurice used for the scam was the exact same email that was used by him during the past years. He had done business with him in the past through this email and this was also the email used on TZ.

So it's unclear at this point whether it was the real Maurice or not.
He never reacted through mails via LinkedIn either, where his profile has been active for several years also...

I guess we will never know

[HunterST]

I guess I feel lucky to have done the deal before he was compromised or went rogue. I'm wearing the 1675/3 I bought from him a few years ago. Bummer.

[Zoran]

Originally Posted by HunterST

I guess I feel lucky to have done the deal before he was compromised or went rogue. I'm wearing the 1675/3 I bought from him a few years ago. Bummer.

I agree Eli...
Thanks for your help regarding this matter, I really appreciate it!

[MVP]

Wow, this is a crazy story. Sounds like a movie plot if he actually went rogue...

[Gold Crown]

NEVER EVER wire ANYONE That you don't personally know money. Use PayPal only for all internet transactions.

[novocainekarma]

Unsure if this is the correct place to put this but this thread came up in a Google search.

Just a heads up in case the scammers targeting commercial spread to private sellers and forums.

The spelling of tritium is "interesting"



Nobody opened that malware "excel wish list"

[Mike Wood]

Received the following e-mail, which I choose not to respond to. But the name / e-mail obviously appears to be active in mid-2018:

Maurice Villalobos <maurix.pure.trtium@gmail.com>
15 Jun 2018 (1 day ago)

Hi,
Hope this email finds you well. I am in the market for some set of timepiece preferably in the white dials but any would also be OK. My dad is a big watch collector and I would like to purchase some watches to gift him for his coming birthday. I would appreciate any help you can offer as am open to any make or brand. Wait to hear back from you.

Best,

[Hardy159]

Got following e-mail:


And after my response to the e-mail (had already checked that he was not a member) I received following with a Link to a known Phishing site.

[Hardy159]

New email with new phishing links from him. Composed a reply and wonders if he figured out the anagrams as I have not heard from him for some days now.

[heritagewatchdealers]

I will keep my eye out for that name- SO MANY SCAMMERS

[Humble michael]

Don’t ever ever EVER send a wire to someone you never met- are you crazy??Would you package up a pile of 100 bills (67 of them) and send them to Moris or even someone w references??? That sadly is what your friend did. Use pay pal or AMX or both. No timepiece or defective time piece or you just don’t like it in person - dispute the charge - magic money comes home. Don’t tell me about references , years in business , how Aunt Hattie sold you Uncle George’s timepiece blah, blah , blah. Simple AMX or NO deal - NO exceptions. Show me one , just one buyer who ever got burnt using AMX for payment- you do what you want - I am deeply saddened by stories like this but I can tell you , I just paid $64,500 for a nib Pp and it was missing an extra back it came with. I threatened to dispute charge and unwind deal. Guess what ? The seller found the back - took him some time and I don’t think it was intentional which was fun- I could unwind deal at ANY time I Not he was in control . Just a dumb question for you - do you really think the back would have been found as quickly, if at all if he had all my funds in a wire? Good luck on that- just sayin :-)

[vipereaper30]

These scammers are really starting to get on my nerves. Sorry to hear OP...

[payce]

scammers everywhere :(

[Teleos]

This type of story scares me to death. Only face to face transactions for me.