Friday, May 21, 2010

Not so fast Mary Smith....

People are sneaky. Good thing I have some sort of a brain to figure this out. I recently became a home owner. Scary I know, but I decided to join the big girl club and take the plunge. The new joint is below.

It will be finished in about 3 weeks so naturally, I've been trying to figure out how to organize the place. If any of you remember the couch incident, it was the reason I moved out of my old place and ultimately decided to buy. This lovely couch as seen below, has been sitting in my brother's storage unit. Untouched and only sat on two or three times, she's lovely but not exactly what I am looking for to fill my family room space.

I decided to post it on KSL to see what kind of response I would get. Enter Mary Smith. First red flag. Could the name be any more generic?

About an hour after I posted it, I got an email from Mary asking if it was still available because she was interested. I responded and said it was and that I would be happy to show it to her at anytime. She quickly responded saying that she was away doing some contract work and that she would send a check and have her movers come and pick it up. Weird that she doesn't even want to see it before buying it...Red flag #2.

I responded telling her that I needed a cashier's check and a phone number so that I could contact her after I had made sure the check was good. I don't hear anything for a day. Meanwhile, her email address was something I had never heard of before. I decided to look it up. Lo and behold, straight out of India. Last time I checked, there weren't any Indians named Mary Smith.

"Mary" finally responds and says that she has sent the check and that she "accidentally" made it out for $1000 over my asking price and that I could keep $100 of that for the trouble and give the rest to the movers when they pick up my couch. Nice try Mary. I'm not an idiot. Pretty sure that additional money is for whoever is going to help you scam me. She also said she couldn't respond to me because she was typing from a hearing impaired computer. Code for "I don't speak English".

We'll see what this check from India looks like when it arrives but the joke's on you Mary. Next time, try scamming someone who doesn't have half a brain.

On a sidenote, the couch is still available and SOOO comfy if anyone is interested!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are so so so smart Alli. I am glad you figured out it was a scam. I know a friend who actually was scammed the same exact way. Sad for her, she is not nearly as smart as you. -twitch

Michael Williams said...

No check yet?

My friend got scammed out of $16,000 trying to buy a car from Europe. Not smart. Good luck!

-Michael

Rob and Kelli said...

Hi Alli!...so will you email me the details on this couch? (kellishall@msn.com). We are moving back in 4 weeks and this might be something we are interested in. Thanks!