My story of getting scammed out of $10,300 and then getting my money back....

[zruvalcaba]

Folks, I wanted to share a story of being scammed, getting lucky, and the feeling of real honesty and sincerity by a random kind woman in another state. I hate long posts so I'll try to be as brief as possible and hope that this story prevents another Rolex enthusiast from getting scammed.

Friday Morning (11/27)
I responded to a WTS ad by a user you has been a member here since 2007 (bigmikeXXX...I don't remember the last 3 numbers but he has been banned after I filed a complaint to a moderator). The watch was a 2017 Rolex Submariner ref #116610LN. The price was $10,300 and it came as a complete set. I responded to the ad by first texting the user (Mike) and engaged in a conversation. We went back and forth all morning about the watch, condition, etc. I asked to speak with him on the phone and he agreed. I spoke to Mike for about 30 minutes about his passion for Rolex, cars, etc. He talked about the watch, how he acquired it from an AD....etc. etc. I agreed to the purchase the watch.

Mistakes I made here:

• Admittingly, the price of the watch is below market value. That should've been a red flag.
• Never asked to see the watch or ask him to go on to Facetime or Skype. I just assumed what he was saying was legit.

Friday Afternoon (11/27)
I asked Mike to send me his wire instructions. Mike sent the wire instructions which included his name (Mike L. Smith), his address in New York and his bank information which was Wells Fargo. The Wells Fargo address was for an address in New York as well. Since I had Wells Fargo as well, I went into my bank, and asked to wire the funds. Wires are by appointment only due to COVID and the next appointment wasn't until Monday 11/30 so I decided to write a check and deposit the money into the account he provided instead. The teller told me, there's no Mike on this account. I asked, is the last name right. She said yes. I texted Mike, asked why his name wasn't on the account and he said it was his wife Donna who was on the account and that he uses her account for luxury purchases. So I deposited the money by writing a check into Donna's account. I texted Mike a copy of the deposit receipt and he said he would ship the watch out on Saturday morning (11/28).

Mistakes I made here:

• Wells Fargo is a west coast bank. Their main office (for wires as well) is located in San Antonio I believe. I don't think Wells Fargo even exists in New York but I could be wrong. I should have researched this any way and verified.
• The fact that he didn't tell me initially that "his wife" was the name on the account should've raised red flags. If I'm depositing money into an account, the recipient should know who the primary account name is and tell you that.

Saturday Morning (11/28)
At 10:30am I get a phone call from a Wells Fargo branch in Eugene, OR. The banker (Beth) asks If I knowingly deposited $10,300 into Donna Smith's account. Here's where I got lucky...aside from Beth taking the time out of her day to make a quick phone call to verify. Before Beth could say, okay, thank you I just wanted to verify that you made the deposit....I said "I purchased a luxury watch from her husband yesterday". There was a 2-3 second pause and Beth says "That's not the story my customer is telling me. She's telling me that her fiancé in Afghanistan is having a buddy deposit $10,300 into her account and then she is supposed to Western Union that money to Afghanistan for the purchase of personal protection equipment". Beth immediately places a hold on the funds and informs the customer who is Donna Smith! that we have two completely different stories. Donna is in shock and I can hear her starting to cry in the background. Beth immediately informs me to file a fraud case with Wells Fargo, which I did. Donna is beside herself in the background and immediately tells Beth that she just wants to give the money back...she was the victim of a scam too! Beth puts me on the line with Donna and she's weeping trying to talk to me. We exchange phone numbers and I tell her to call me back once she leaves the bank.

Saturday Afternoon (11/28)
I speak to Donna for about an hour and we exchange scam stories. I told her my story and she told me hers. She's a middle-aged retired woman from Oregon. She met a guy online months ago and he tells her that he's stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan. The whole time he's been ripping her off of money as well. She feels bad for his safety, sends him money, and the cycle continues. He even proposed to her and she referred to him as her fiancé. We put two and two together and realized that there are two people (perhaps more) involved in the scam. The man I spoke to on the phone had a heavy Irish accent. The man Donna has been carrying on with spoke perfect English. The only bits that were off were his grammar in texts. She chalked it up to him wearing gloves, in a hurry, whatever. She also mentioned that she had numerous numbers from him which we concluded were probably burner phones. She confronted him about that and he said that for security reasons the government would change up the numbers. In a nutshell:

The fake Rolex seller would sucker someone in to wire funds into Donna's account. Donna, thinking that her fiancé's buddy was depositing that money would withdrawn the money, and Western Union the money out. Multiple people working in tandem to scam two completely different people from different walks of life from two completely different parts of the country.

Donna was beside herself. Out thousands of dollars to a fake fiancé, in love and then out of love in the blink of an eye, and now holding on to someone else's large sum of money. She was adamant about getting the money back to me ASAP.

Monday Morning (11/30)
I speak to Donna again. She made the one and half hour drive to Wells Fargo in Eugene and attempts to return the money. Because there's a fraud case active, the money is frozen. I call the fraud department, withdrawn the case, and she deposits the money back into my account. This is where I'm at now.

I can say this until I'm blue in the face, but along with being a Pledge Member, 2FA SHOULD ABSOLUTELY be required to be active on a seller account. The guy who I thought I was buying from was a member here since 2007. He should've checked out and even had references that checked out. His account without a doubt was compromised and the scammer was posting using his name. I know for a fact that this has happened to other reputable sellers on here (JUSTROLEXES, DAVIDSW, BRIBOXER, TUKUYA, to name a few) maybe not to this extent but I have had instances where I got an email from what I thought was Tony (JUSTROLEXES) trying to sell me a watch for under current market value. After texting Tony, it clearly was not him. 2FA SHOULD BE REQUIRED MODS!!!!! We're dealing with very very expensive items and the potential for fraud is way to prevalent. 2FA is damn near bullet proof.

Anyway, that's my story. Got scammed, got lucky, got my money back. Crazy holiday break for me. Lesson learned.