Pizza Bob
Member
I purchase quite a few of my guns on-line from individuals or on auction websites or the classifieds on the various gun forums I subscribe to – all legal and above board. I’ve been doing it for years and I guess the law of averages finally caught up with me.
I get a daily e-mail feed from one of the auction/For Sale websites of newly listed Smith & Wesson revolvers. Usually by the time I see them, anything desirable has already been snapped-up. But a couple weeks ago a Model 520 was listed in that feed, at a really great price. The Model 520 was an instant collectible from 1980. These revolvers were made specifically for the NYSP and were not a regularly cataloged item. The NYSP canceled the contract before they were delivered which sent the guns to the civilian market and creating the instant collectible.
I wasn’t actually seeking one, but when one falls in your lap, you have to take advantage of it – which I did. I let my exuberance and enthusiasm overcome my good judgment. I didn’t buy it completely blind – there are checks I do before I send off my money to a stranger, but I did violate one tenet in that this was a brand new seller. He had registered with the website only to sell this gun. The site said he was “verified” – which in retrospect probably only meant that his address had been verified. But I did look at his house on Google earth (two dogs in the yard – how bad could he be?) and searched the name and had it come back to that address – so the newness was the only red flag. I’d say the price of the gun might have been construed as a second red flag – “if it’s too good to be true, etc...”, but he priced it low enough that it garnered immediate attention, but high enough that it was plausible – an uninitiated seller not aware of what he had. One curious thing was that he requested I send the money order with tracking. Something, that while out of the ordinary, served to protect me, more than him.
So I sent off the MO with a tracking number. He received it two days later (he’s in Idaho). I don’t hear anything from him until the day after he receives the MO. Then comes the litany of excuses as to why he can’t ship the gun: The weather, he’s disabled etc. etc. Ten days later I grow tired of his excuses. I had already started to research Idaho law. I wrote to him and gave him an ultimatum: A tracking number in my hand by close of business the following day or I would file a complaint with his local PD. While this was under the monetary value that differentiated petit theft (a misdemeanor) from grand theft (a felony), because it involved a firearm, under Idaho law it automatically rises to the level of grand theft, regardless of value. I also e-mailed the chief of police asking him to intervene – I figured a visit by the local police, before a formal complaint is filed, might be enough to motivate the seller. I never received a response from the chief. Late the following day (the day of the deadline) I got one more e-mail from the seller, claiming that he’d had an (unspecified) attack and had been in the hospital and unable to ship. My reply was, “The deadline stands.” I heard nothing after that. An empty threat is just that – empty, so I followed through and wrote up a formal complaint and e-mailed it to his local PD the next day.
I included two people in all the communications after the point I suspected a scam – my cousin, who is a retired FBI agent out of the Boise field office, and the detective from my local PD that processes all the firearms permits. Neither intervened at that point, but did give me guidance and encouragement. After I filed the complaint, and a few days had passed without me hearing anything, the local detective volunteered to liaise with the Idaho PD. The information his phone call to them garnered was pretty amazing. This guy was a grifter from the word go – not too smart a grifter (we had his name and physical address), but a real scam artist just the same. The investigation has grown into a multi-state, multi-country affair with both the FBI and the BATFE brought in and the scam now involves hundreds of thousands of dollars. In my particular instance, he sold the gun twice (if it ever existed), once to a guy in Texas (who had filed a complaint the same time I did) and then to me. My local detective said that there is a chance that, at some point, way down the road, I may be made whole, but it won’t be until after the guy is prosecuted and ordered to make restitution. Doubtful, at that point, if he’ll have any money so I’m not holding my breath.
That's my story - take heed.
Adios,
Pizza Bob
UPDATE:
Hopefully the scammer is out of business and in jail - but who knows. The way it was explained to me is that he was a small cog in a large international wheel. He simply received the money, took a percentage, and passed it on to the higher-ups. He claimed disability and had some things sent to his wife. It was a valid address and all this info was passed on to the local police.
The ad was on Guns America and he was a "Verified Seller" whatever that meant (apparently not much). Here are his particulars:
Chris Damele
Patricia Katherine Damale
dba: Tottenarms
514 West C St,
Shoshone, ID 83352
There were a lot of red flags that I ignored in my zeal (greed?) to get a bargain 520.
Caveat Emptor
Adios,
Pizza Bob
I get a daily e-mail feed from one of the auction/For Sale websites of newly listed Smith & Wesson revolvers. Usually by the time I see them, anything desirable has already been snapped-up. But a couple weeks ago a Model 520 was listed in that feed, at a really great price. The Model 520 was an instant collectible from 1980. These revolvers were made specifically for the NYSP and were not a regularly cataloged item. The NYSP canceled the contract before they were delivered which sent the guns to the civilian market and creating the instant collectible.
I wasn’t actually seeking one, but when one falls in your lap, you have to take advantage of it – which I did. I let my exuberance and enthusiasm overcome my good judgment. I didn’t buy it completely blind – there are checks I do before I send off my money to a stranger, but I did violate one tenet in that this was a brand new seller. He had registered with the website only to sell this gun. The site said he was “verified” – which in retrospect probably only meant that his address had been verified. But I did look at his house on Google earth (two dogs in the yard – how bad could he be?) and searched the name and had it come back to that address – so the newness was the only red flag. I’d say the price of the gun might have been construed as a second red flag – “if it’s too good to be true, etc...”, but he priced it low enough that it garnered immediate attention, but high enough that it was plausible – an uninitiated seller not aware of what he had. One curious thing was that he requested I send the money order with tracking. Something, that while out of the ordinary, served to protect me, more than him.
So I sent off the MO with a tracking number. He received it two days later (he’s in Idaho). I don’t hear anything from him until the day after he receives the MO. Then comes the litany of excuses as to why he can’t ship the gun: The weather, he’s disabled etc. etc. Ten days later I grow tired of his excuses. I had already started to research Idaho law. I wrote to him and gave him an ultimatum: A tracking number in my hand by close of business the following day or I would file a complaint with his local PD. While this was under the monetary value that differentiated petit theft (a misdemeanor) from grand theft (a felony), because it involved a firearm, under Idaho law it automatically rises to the level of grand theft, regardless of value. I also e-mailed the chief of police asking him to intervene – I figured a visit by the local police, before a formal complaint is filed, might be enough to motivate the seller. I never received a response from the chief. Late the following day (the day of the deadline) I got one more e-mail from the seller, claiming that he’d had an (unspecified) attack and had been in the hospital and unable to ship. My reply was, “The deadline stands.” I heard nothing after that. An empty threat is just that – empty, so I followed through and wrote up a formal complaint and e-mailed it to his local PD the next day.
I included two people in all the communications after the point I suspected a scam – my cousin, who is a retired FBI agent out of the Boise field office, and the detective from my local PD that processes all the firearms permits. Neither intervened at that point, but did give me guidance and encouragement. After I filed the complaint, and a few days had passed without me hearing anything, the local detective volunteered to liaise with the Idaho PD. The information his phone call to them garnered was pretty amazing. This guy was a grifter from the word go – not too smart a grifter (we had his name and physical address), but a real scam artist just the same. The investigation has grown into a multi-state, multi-country affair with both the FBI and the BATFE brought in and the scam now involves hundreds of thousands of dollars. In my particular instance, he sold the gun twice (if it ever existed), once to a guy in Texas (who had filed a complaint the same time I did) and then to me. My local detective said that there is a chance that, at some point, way down the road, I may be made whole, but it won’t be until after the guy is prosecuted and ordered to make restitution. Doubtful, at that point, if he’ll have any money so I’m not holding my breath.
That's my story - take heed.
Adios,
Pizza Bob
UPDATE:
Hopefully the scammer is out of business and in jail - but who knows. The way it was explained to me is that he was a small cog in a large international wheel. He simply received the money, took a percentage, and passed it on to the higher-ups. He claimed disability and had some things sent to his wife. It was a valid address and all this info was passed on to the local police.
The ad was on Guns America and he was a "Verified Seller" whatever that meant (apparently not much). Here are his particulars:
Chris Damele
Patricia Katherine Damale
dba: Tottenarms
514 West C St,
Shoshone, ID 83352
There were a lot of red flags that I ignored in my zeal (greed?) to get a bargain 520.
Caveat Emptor
Adios,
Pizza Bob
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