Well we decided in our brilliant minds that we would continue to grow the iPad fund by wisely investing in a bunch of iPhones from craigslist and then fancy them up with my hacker-loving-abilities and then sell them on eBay for hopefully a little more than we got them. VoilĂ . iPad for the sick mom.
Genius!
Except not genius at all.
Kyle found a 3Gs for $275 and we were so excited until we found out he was an hour away in El Cajon. Boo! But worth it. So Kryle haggled him down to $260 and made the drive. (Btw - why do we haggle for like ten dollars? Just for the thrill of it? Or because we like spending money if the amount was our idea instead of theirs? Or we just like to argue with people? Curious.)
Sweet, kind, loving, handsome Kyle then did a not so brilliant, genius, bright, smart thing and handed over the money to the kid even though the phone was in recovery mode. Meaning you have to plug it into iTunes to make it work.
And also meaning we didn't realize it was really a 3G not a 3Gs and we had been ripped off until after he got to Escondido and the kid had probably spent the cash already. Haha. Oops.
We tried to text/call him and say it was an honest mistake and let's just trade back again... No response. We email the link from craigslist... No response. Of course not. Little punk.
By this time (about two hours later) Kyle is truly dejected, and I'm feeling very sad for him. So I bust out my aforementioned hacker skills and find out info about this kid. It takes me a few hours and quite a bit of trickery and online searching, but I find the sneaky thief's first and last name, high school, brother's name, brother's place of employment, and FINALLY, in spite of every privacy precaution possible, his Facebook.
So I quickly change my profile picture from one of me and Kyle to one of just me, and add him as a friend, crossing my fingers that my cute-girl-ness wins over my random-stranger-ness. And it did. He added me within the hour.
He has creepy pictures holding guns and stuff, kind of terrifying. But we fb chatted him, started out nice, ended telling him we would call the police if he didn't meet us for a refund. He blocked me. Kyle left a terrifying legalese-filled voicemail on his phone. He got scared and promptly came back on and said sorry, he'd meet us the next day. I stupidly tried to be nice and say we could leave it jailbroken/unlocked it for him if he wanted. We thought all was well. See you tomorrow.
Kyle gets a message from shady thief's sister the next morning saying our jailbreaking it is illegal and voided the warranty so we aren't getting our money back.
Kyle's response: (skip this paragraph if you're easily bored)
"Either you or your sister or parents can call me back, but here's the deal. I'm entirely within my rights right now. Searching public records is not illegal, jailbreaking is not illegal and even if it was I just called apple and your warranty is expired anyway- and even if it was a factory restore- which we did- will erase any evidence of one, and calling and complaining about a breached contract is not illegal. We were looking around craigslist yesterday and found that you've had that phone up for a while. It was originally described as a 3G, but later you advertised it as a 3GS, which tells me that you knew exactly what it was. Now larceny is a crime involving the wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person. Through fraud and misrepresentation you came in the wrongful possession of my $260- which is not protected by the risks generally associated with craigslist. I've never called the Nonemergency police line to report fraud, but like I said I'm a law student, and i'm not above doing it, and I'm curious to see how the process works. My offer still stands, I can be
at the Wal-Mart at 12, if you're there we'll consider it a miscommunication and no harm is done. If not, we'll take the legal route and the protections craigslist offers against scammers. Should I plan on being there or not?"
(oh, please. law school much?)
...no response.
Ugh. Are you over this story yet? Us, too. Kyle filed police reports today but that's it. The end. We got ripped off by a stupid kid and there isn't anything else we can do. Even though we know exactly who he is. And Kyle learned to not trust people on Craigslist, and check it before you pay. And D-Bag McGee learned at 16 years old that you can lie and steal from people and get away with it. And have your older sister enable you. FAIL.
Well guess what?
HIS NAME IS MARTIN BUT HE SELLS THINGS ONLINE UNDER THE NAME TONY. HIS PHONE NUMBER ON CRAIGSLIST IS (619) 249-9132. HE LIED TO US AND STOLE OUR MONEY.
There. Maybe the next time someone tries to google his name/number after he rips them off, they will have an easier time getting a hold of him. If you are one of those people, email me and I will give you the other info I have.
You're welcome, universe. I hate you, thief/Martin/Tony.
...anyone want an iPhone 3G? Yeah me neither.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:The hospital. Where else?
1 comment :
Stinky, sucky, stupid kid! I almost got ripped off from Craigslist too. One thing you can do is flag anything he is currently scamming as fraud/spam on Craigslist. They will take it down. Since you have some extra time on your hands why not make some use of it:)
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