Card Forum Member Takes 23k and Runs! Scam!

[GoTigers]

I'm not sure if everyone has seen this yet. I'm not a card guy, but this is just terrible. The guy took about 23k and ran.. It's a cautionary tale.

Cliff notes: guy joins forum, basically gives away high end items or sells them very low. Forum members begin to trust him and love the deals. Then he offers high end lots, members scramble to the deals and send funds.. Then he disappears.

http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/member-sales-trade-feedback/415488-haiku-suspended-rumors-massive-scam-emerge.html

[yanks12025]

170 pages in just acouple days, that's alot of posts. Thanks for the notes

[commando]

A classic study of human nature....

A guy appears on that board about six months ago, and begins selling cards very cheaply in their classifieds section. He also gives away prizes in contests. This guy is supposedly rich, and enjoys doing stuff like this just for the fun of it. Lots of happy people find themselves getting great deals through this guy and is reputation goes through the roof. Longtime, reputable board members vouch for this guy.

Then it happened.... This guy had a HUGE "mystery lot" sale, that was supposed to be shipped on December 18th to anyone lucky enough to get in. The buy-in was anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. It looks like over $35,000 was sent to this guy for the purchase of mystery lots.

This guy is nowhere to be found now.

The fallout over the past few days is nothing short of incredible. The accusations, finger-pointing, anger, disbelief and denial that can be read on that thread is a textbook case study of how people react to being duped by a con artist. You can see the exact same type of reactions with others who have been duped in any other Ponzi scheme.

As far as Ponzi schemes go, this was pretty close... The first few people to "buy in" months back did indeed get their cards at great prices. He even had a giveaway to anyone that was involved in the military or law enforcement (think about it... he knew who NOT to sell the mystery lots to!) It is now emerging that the con artist was hustling other members to come up with many of those cards, and in hindsight many of the things this guy did were just bizarre.

Make for a good, long read if anyone is interested.

[trsent]

People sending PayPal gifts because they think they know somoene are just asking for trouble, and this is a perfect example.

[trsent]

People are always complaining about the $500.00 GUU selling limit.

Maybe this is a good thing so major scams like this are avoided though our forum family.

[frikativ54]

People are always complaining about the $500.00 GUU selling limit.

Maybe this is a good thing so major scams like this are avoided though our forum family.

+1

[chakes89]

Stuff like this just makes me laugh to myself. This kinda crap happens all time in the card world and on these dumb card boards, albeit not of this scale of course.