February 22, 2020 @ 11:53 AM
McDonald’s at Military and Roosevelt
San Antonio, Texas
I have enjoyed learning how to sell on eBay. I
have sold two hundred dollars of merch on eBay, but I’ve enjoyed making every
dollar. I call it merch, short for merchandise, because I don’t have time for
three syllables. I have about five items on sale right now, and I doubt these
items will go anywhere. But who knows? As said in advertising, run a flag up
the pole and see who salutes. I’m going to the “Rodeo Wrap Up” at Market Square
today, looking for free stuff that I can post on eBay. I need more merch!
One must be careful of predators on eBay. I
posted a Motorola Android phone on eBay and fielded two offers fast. I accepted
the offer of fifty dollars and ninety nine cents. The user had zero
transactions on eBay. The more transactions usually means the more honest the
person behind the screen name. Kerry had a FPO address. That’s no issue.
Sending mail to a Foreign Post Office in Iraq or Germany costs the same as
sending mail to a post office in Dearborn. I accepted the offer and awaited
payment.
Kerry had trumped another bid from a FPO, so I
wondered if a market existed for unlocked Android phones at our bases in
distant countries. I looked at the prices of unlocked phones on Amazon. I had
only paid seventy dollars for the secondary phone I kept in my camera bag in
case I left my main phone in a rideshare. Why would a person pay me that much
for a second hand cell phone? Amazon certainly would ship to a FPO. eBay uses
artificial intelligence to speedily suggest selling prices and shipping fees.
The AI even suggests the right category for the item. I can post an item for
sale in minutes. eBay suggested a starting price of twenty dollars.
Most transactions finish as soon as the sale
ends. The auction ends and the buyer pays and you ship. The money hits PayPal
instantaneously. It feels like a cash jet. The money to ship shows up with the
payment in one lump sum. Sergeant Hayes, however, wrote me the next morning
with a cell phone number. He wanted to discuss shipping and payment. I rolled
my eyes. What could he want to say? He bought it. Pay me and let me ship it.
That’s a red flag. eBay has a messaging system
that keeps all communications in a transcript. Disputes can be resolved by
looking at the transcript. He wanted to talk to me without leaving a trace.
I texted him. “Hello Sergeant Hayes. Will the
seller here. Shipping to a FPO is accomplished how?”
“Oh this is sgt. Hayes buyer of your item on
ebay, hope the item is in good condition because I am getting it for my
cousin”.
“I bought it a year ago as a backup phone. Kept
high and dry & rarely used”.
“Good. Can you ship the item today once you
receive payment now”?
That’s a rather clever sentence. It contains
little orders. Today and now are little orders. I looked at the time. It was
going to be tight. He had waited until Four in the afternoon to communicate,
but the U.S. Post Office by the Alamo housed in the Federal Court House waited
five minutes away. Yep, people going to the post office are subject to a search
to reach the post office. All items have to pass through a scanner. I lost a
pair of scissors three days ago because the officer thought they were big
enough to pose a threat. “Not even in a kindergarten”, I thought.
It was a very obvious sentence. It had to be
answered yes. It would be weird if I said no when asked “Can you ship the item
today once you receive payment now”? He wanted to put my mind into a yes, yes,
yes frame. I had pretty much said yes twice.
“Good. Send me your PayPal email so I can make
the payment now”.
He tooled me in three ways with that sentence.
Good gave me approval. After all, he was a Sergeant serving our country in a
foreign land, a military hero. He had picked a guise of authority. Second,
sending my email was quickly and easily done. Third, he used the word now
again. That raised a second red flag. We were having a conversation outside the
eBay transcript. He also wanted a financial transaction outside the eBay app.
So I sent it. It’s cool that anyone who knows my
email address can send me money.
“Yea”! And then he made his real request. He was
merely using eBay to find people to tool and fool.
“Can you get a gift card of $500 inside the
package before you ship it. I will add $500 to your payment for the steam card
so you can purchase it from the store and put it inside the package before you
ship it. Do you understand?”
“Getting the item as a present. That’s why I
want a gift card inside the package before you ship it. I serve the U.S. Army
and I work here in camp and you are shipping it directly to my cousin. Will
also add $50 more to your payment for gas and compensation. Ok”.
I had bought in by now. Poor guy stuck in the
sands of a distant deployment deserved some assistance making a cousin happy.
If he really sends me 550 dollars by PayPal, I would be happy to help. I would
be up one hundred dollars and ninety-nine cents by the end of the transaction,
right? Maybe I could make a living doing footwork in America for our troops on
deployment.
I had one question, one sign that my built in
bullshit detector still had a game. “The 550 would go to PayPal & not
through eBay”?
“Yea. I prefer PayPal because it secures
transactions better. Do you have any store near you either Walmart or Walgreens
or CVS or Target”?
Of course, the answer was yes. I walked to the
Walgreens, five minutes away. The store didn’t sell Steam cards. I was
surprised he led me to take that much action.
How could it be other than a variation on the
Pigeon Drop? I ran it through my mind. I’m standing at the register about to
buy a Steam card for five hundred dollars. He sends the money through PayPal,
usable immediately. I buy the Steam card with my PayPal card, using the funds
just sent. I send the cellphone and Steam card to the address provided when he
completes the eBay sale. What could go wrong?
Could the money be clawed back? The Pigeon Drop
usually relies upon float. The victim has money in a legitimate brick and
mortar account. The victim deposits the check. It takes time for the check to
clear or bounce. The money can be paid out to the victim because of the
balance, which the bank holds as insurance. When the check bounces, the bank
merely seizes the amount disbursed out of the account balance. My uncertainty
halted me. How could a Pigeon Drop work with instantaneous PayPal account?
I reported to him. “Sorry, not here. I’ll have
to go to Best Buy”. I looked up Best Buy. I could take the bus to Best
Buy.
“Okay. Can you go to Best Buy and check if they
have the cards so I can make the payment immediately and you can purchase the
cards and package everything together for shipping immediately”.
He used the word immediately twice. I was tired.
I remember I had just wanted a quick and clean transaction. What could go
wrong? I had no answer for that question, and if anything can go wrong, it
will. Murphy’s Law hardly has an exception. I thought, “What if I could ask him
to buy the phone now? Then I could trust.
“Text me immediately you get Best Buy now”.
Not only does he give me an order, he adds two
suggestions of timing, immediately and now. I wrote back to him.
“Feel free to pay for the phone though eBay.
Then I can run errands”.
“I’m definitely gonna make the payment”.
“Cool”, I text him back. Why call him out and
out a liar?
“Please just go there just to be sure they have
it and see the card’s denomination before I send the package”.
It’s amazing that even as I review this
conversation from a critical standpoint, I worry that I had passed up an
opportunity. But of course Best Buy had them. Denomination wouldn’t matter.
Five cards at one hundred would be as good as one card at one hundred. Going to
Best Buy would make me even more invested in the scam.
I wrote the obvious. “These can be bought
online. Simple”.
That made the conversation go dead. Sergeant
Hayes has yet to buy the phone he promised to buy by stopping my auction with
an offer I thought too good to pass up. I have the chance to report this
account to eBay, but I suspect that the person behind the Sergeant has a knack
for setting up new sock puppets. I might have to wait for three days for his
right to purchase to run out of time. I had lost momentum. But I have a story
to remember whenever an unknown person tries to use my trust and
gullibility.
Now what to do about Opio Reagan, a young man
from Uganda who needs a computer so he can finish his lessons for his computer
programming course. He likes every post I make and writes to me daily. How
could he be a scammer? I’ve seen pictures of his house and his family.
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