Folks Of Interest S C A M ? I ran a want ad

I had guy send me a couple $100 bill from the UK; said throw the change in the box with the parts; good old days.

 

A month ago I mailed a $20 to 37kid for a part. But I’ve dealt with him for years and fully trusted him. If it was someone off the HAMB I’d never have done that.

 

Back in the day I used to help with relays, buy and sell parts on here and never had the first issue. The thought of someone not being honest never even crossed my mind and if you were a HAMBer and you gave your word that was all you needed. I can’t tell you how many times we had some high dollar items in transit with the relays and even though it could take up 6 or so months to get to you nobody would ever think twice about it making it to you. And you were able to meet lots of great people and build relationships, that was just a bonus which I value more than anything.

But ever since the pandemic it seems that the world has changed dramatically and trust is something that is a rare commodity.

 

The world has changed and trust in strangers is indeed a rare thing but, I have had several recent dealings with HAMB members and have no reason to not trust them. There may be a very few on here who aren't worthy of trust but, once they are found out, the only course of action is to never deal with them again. I brought up this issue of trust and using the feedback stats tool in another thread and was derided by older members who thought it was unnecessary. It may be so if dealing with long established members, but I use those feedback stats to determine how I'm going to act with another member whether I'm buying or selling. @Ryan put those feedback stats in place for a reason and so far, the system hasn't failed me.

 

Oh I promise 99.9% or better of the HAMBers are as good as they come, that I have no doubt. But it’s the hackers that try to make a buck off of our trust that gets my goat and I don’t even own a goat.
I bought some NOS parts earlier this year for my 51 from cjshaker and I have yet to open the box that they came in. That’s how much faith I have with folks here and truth be known that box will be put into the attic and never opened until I just need something out of it.

 

I just sold something on fakebook marketplace. Before I responded to the guy I looked at his profile. I could tell we were on the same page. The deal went off perfectly. I think the same goes for HAMB deals. Look at the guy's posts. You can get a pretty good feel for who he is.

 

With respect, I do trust PayPal but, you've put me in the way of some great people on this board and I want to believe that I can trust them as well. Your inclusion of the feedback stats helps me do just that.

 

Unless you’re dealing with Denise @hotrodladycrusr then she would always send cookies and homemade treats!!!
I really miss seeing her posts and pics from her adventures…..

 

To expand on that, only PayPal “Goods and Services”.

If a person uses “Friends and Family” he or she *will* eventually get scammed with no recourse.

Same with money orders. If you only send MOs, you *will* eventually get scammed. Don’t count on the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to bail you out by filing mail fraud charges.

 

I always use a postal money order. The post master general gets really irate with postal fraud.

Sorry you got ripped man. There is a better way to find parts wanted. Drop me a note if you want. it will at least help in the future.

 

Lots of Truth here, however I will only trust PayPal to pay for items using my business credit card. Because of the current climate I will never keep any money in a PayPal account. If you use friends and family, you lose the protections from PayPal, that is just a fact. I value money like anybody else, but I very much like to trust my fellow Car Guys in this Hobby. I have done transports for customers in many countries and several times not taken payments until the transport was done. If I get screwed once in awhile, so be it. If getting screwed once or twice a year bankrupts my business, I had way more problems before that & should not have been in business in the 1st place!

God bless,
Bill

 

Regarding PP, I guess I’ve been lucky on the HAMB. I’ve done F&F for about everything I’ve purchased, only had one hiccup that eventually got rectified by the seller.
But I do look at join date, then search posts title the seller and get an idea
if they live on the classifieds (no issue for me) have a mix of posts (and post count) between the main forums or the classifieds.
Yea, I wind up paying the extra 3% or whatever when I do a F&F transfer, but the only way out of the 3% that I know, is to link my bank account to PP.

Then I could send 10 bucks to Bill, and would only be charged 10 bucks to me, but the PP can then if selling (if I ever did, but somewhat of a hoarder-nothing anyone really wants) would allow PP , as I understand it, to take money out of my account in the case of a discrepancy. I might be wrong, but I don’t buy high dollar stuff, maybe up to 200/300, if I get effed over via the HAMB classifieds over that money, I’ll be pissed, but will eat and pay the bills

 

I bought my M20 here, I checked the seller and he passed the sniff test. I paid with a postal money order and he sent the transmission via Fed Ex to a friend's machine shop.

 

There's no good reason to send cash when there's safe electronic transfers such as PayPal, etc. If you're sending cash, you're just asking to get hit. If it's a friend or fellow trusted HAMBer and one of you don't have PayPal, at least Venmo the payment. Same as PayPal, they'll have it in their account in seconds and can drop ship your parcel ASAP without any sweating where that cash currently rests in the postal system.
Porch pirates are now, not just stealing parcels from residences, but are stealing mail. Not all of the mail, they're cherry picking exclusively for hand addressed personal letters (especially greeting card sized ones) in hopes of scoring cash, gift cards and personal checks (that they bleach and rewrite to themselves). Since the advent of email, personal letters are a rarity and stand out like gold coins in the sea of billings and direct mail.

 

Unfortunately, this is not new. In 1959, right out of high school, I rented an apartment. Usually paid bills with money order but realized I was late on my electric bill. In a panic I stuffed the cash in an envelope and mailed it. Never got there. (Or got there but was intercepted).

 

We have community mailboxes, a bank of many mailboxes with parcel sized boxes, etc. I live in a rural area with many acreage subdivisions and it has been a regular occurrence for those boxes to be broken into and all the mail taken. It's frustrating.

 

Folks around here go to the Post Office and break into the big blue boxes during daylight hours. They have been telling us if you have to drop it off go inside. We even have them robbing the mail delivery people at gun point while they’re in their jeeps delivering it to the houses.

I’m telling you it’s a sad state of affairs

 

Famous dirtbag quote "wow, you got a job in the mailroom".

 

Alan, so you are saying my check was good ? Thanks buddy !

 

As a matter of fact, it was. No surprise there

 

A HAMB member gave me a part for a project, he just asked that I pay postage which I was more than happy to do. I mailed him a postal money order the same day he mailed me the part (which I found out from him later that day). He received my letter the same day I received my part. There is not much better than honesty in a person in my book.

 

I’ve done the same. Sent parts in a flat fat USPS box and told the guy to send the postage to the return address on the front..

 

bttt

 

Several years ago I sent a refund of $200.00 to a HAMB customer via paypal. Dumb Dennis made one mistake. IDENTICAL email but I spelled bear instead bare. Bear would not return the $200.00. Paypal would not do shit. I sent another $200.00 to bare. Out $400.00.

 

Bear was not a scammer but likes free money.

 

bttt

 

What's the point of bumping this thread over and over? You haven't named the HAMBer that supposedly ripped you off and haven't added any relevant information...???

 

bttt

 

I was wondering the same thing?! This thread has run it's course.
Why keep bringing up the fact that you got screwed.