Wire transfer Safe?

He is right in that it is not safe for him. If you pay with a credit card to PayPal you can later contest the charge with PayPal and if that doesn't work, with your credit card company.

On the other hand, a wire transfer is not safe for you. Once the money is gone, it is gone. And if a seller ever insists on Western Union, run away.

 

When you can't meet in person or go through an escrow service, all you have is reputation. Neither of you has any reputation here and one of you will be sending money or sending product first and has to take a risk. Neither is "safe" for the one taking the first step.

Not all sales are meant to be.

 

Yin brings up a good point. Reputation is very important when selling/buying on a car forum. FChat is somewhat of a wild west in that anyone can join and the same day post an expensive item for sale. I am on other forums where in order to post something for sale a person must be a member for a period of time and have also made a minimum number of cogent posts (i.e. not a bunch of one word responses just to build a post count). Additionally, if the asking price is above a certain amount, say $500, then the seller must have at least one other established member vouch for that person.

It's not perfect, but it affords a buyer some greater measure of protection than you will get here. I've read a number of threads here where buyers were defrauded. There was one case where a member in the UK got the money back for a buyer in the US, but that member has since been banned.

 

what happened? I remember that guy. what was his name? he talked like a mafia always about to beat people up.

 

The user you're thinking of was a UK user that assisted a US user in obtaining a cash refund for a limited edition oversize Ferrari book that was valued in the thousands of dollars. Paid for and not received. It took many weeks of public pressure and even a visit from the UK user to obtain the refund, but in the end, it was resolved in favor of the US user. Both the buying US user and helping UK user were long time users and the seller was not an Fchat user at the time.

The UK user was (much) later banned for other behavior not related to his assistance in obtaining restitution for the US user. We were very reluctant to do this since we valued his assistance to the US user and the Fchat community, but the reasons for his ban were not related to this event. Other than that, this is a feel-good story of the benefit of the Fchat community, but it is exceptional in that there are also many stories of users getting taken without the confluence of user assistance and circumstances that allowed the pressure to be effective.

Just because someone sees an ad on Fchat, whether user or sponsor, they should not assume that Fchat has done any verification of their bona fides. We TRY to weed out the obvious Nigerian scammers before they even post, but other than that, we have no idea if a new user making their first ad post is advertising a real or fake item. We simply don't have the resources to track down identifying data, interrogate, verify, examine the item, check references, and otherwise confirm users. Just review the process whereby you became a user and, if it's relatively recent, you'll see that it's not much different than signing up for another gmail account.

We've thought about post count limits or verification limits, but we've seen those subverted too (users willing to post a handful of times or teams of scammers verifying each other). So we don't pretend that we have any handle on a more secure process. Low post count users typically have no skin in the game, no one who knows who they are, and they have an open field. We will ban them if misbehavior comes out, but that doesn't help the one or two users who got taken before it became apparent. We also typically ban half-a-dozen or more new user accounts a day before they even post for something odd about their registration, if that gives you any idea of the number of people that try to scam this community.

That doesn't mean everyone's a scammer, it's certainly a small minority. But unfortunately there are enough scammers that you have to use your best judgement to protect yourself. Look for users who have been around a few years, posted extensively, and have connected with other users in the community over time as enthusiasts. These are users who have invested more than the typical scammer would and have something to lose in the good opinion of other users who have met them in person and who they connect with online on a daily basis.

 

in general when the deal is too good to be true, it is. I learned my lesson wiring some guys $350 for a laptop when I was a lad in school.

 

If you didn't notice in my comments, the verification and integrity issue arises for the buyer too, not just the seller.

Many years ago, my son went on eBay for the first time and sold a Nook book reader. He packed it up carefully and sent it to the buyer, but he was naive enough not to send it via a tracking delivery service. The buyer claimed he never received it and received a refund on the purchase price. My son was out the book reader, even though he had fulfilled what he was supposed to.

When both users are unknowns, it 's not just a question of the seller proving themselves to the buyer, the buyer also has some integrity questions that may need to be proven to the seller.

 

That was an epic thread in the early days. So much drama. Thank you for reminding us. And the twist in the end.

But you said it. One has to enforce some sort of community norms in order to maintain the community for all and have standards.

 

Go with your gut!

 

Why not post this in the regional section, and ask for help from a user near his residence in GA, to verify in person 1. he exists, and 2. they see the part in person?

 

I wondered what happened to Sid. I liked the guy and he backed up his commitment to help get the money back. I do believe, that Fchat performs a great service to the Ferrari community. Fchat has outed multiple international scammers who post high end parts and don't deliver.

 

that should work man.

 

now I remember is daytona355! what thread was that? damn I am bored!

 

Proof of Life for ECUs? .......priceless.

 

Sevak,

When someone gets kidnapped and held for ransom, usually the person paying the ransom requires Proof of Life which usually is a picture of the person holding a newspaper with today's date. When I saw the photo the seller posted with the date and his info.....it reminded me of that.

 

That's right and I swear it will be 100x funnier if the seller also put a middle finger which is censored in the picture, but everyone knows it's a middle finger.