Screwed over on craigslist deal....how to pursue?

[RaWarrior]

So here's another "seller beware" story from craigslist...

I had posted by '99 seadoo with a blown up motor on craigslist for $700. Almost immediately this guy "Jorge" emails me with a phone number saying he's very interested and wants to come see it. I call it, he answers and we set up a time for him to come see it. We originally agreed on 8pm. Around 7pm, he calls me and asks if I can do 8:30 instead, I say sure. I had to drive down from Schroon to the parent's house in Troy where it was stored to meet him, so I stopped for dinner to kill half an hour. I'm just getting in the car in glens falls after dinner, maybe 10 of 8, and he calls me saying he's almost at the house and asking if I'm there yet. I remind him he said 8:30 and I'm half an hour away. 5 minutes later my father calls and says there's some guy wandering around the driveway. This was red flag #1, I was guessing he was hoping nobody was home so he could case the place or something?

Anyway so I get home, he asks me why I was late. He seems to have totally forgotten that he called me and asked for a later time. He looks over the jetski and says he wants to buy it. Of course, cue the complication. He only has $300, the max he can get out of an ATM(which I do know to be true of some banks). But he's in a big rush to get started fixing it, yadda yadda yadda and wants to take it now and promises he'll have the rest of the money tomorrow. I shut him down on that. Just then my father comes out with the signed paperwork, sees the $300 on the seat, and just hands it to the guy. Waitwaitwait....but of course Mr.Jorge snatches up the papers and is suddenly in a huge rush to leave, promising he'll call me tomorrow the whole time. This was why I wanted to get there before him, so I could sort out the papers so my father wouldn't screw things up. I did get a signed bill of sale, which clearly acknowledges that he owes me $400

He actually did call the next day, only to give me some bullshit run-around about how "something came up" and he wouldn't be able to meet me that evening with the money as planned. Of course more promises about that he'll call me first thing tomorrow morning to set something up.

And that was the last I heard from him. Won't answer his phone, return calls, or answer emails. I got a buddy to call the number from his phone and he picked up, so it's obvious he's just avoiding my calls now.

A neighbor up here is a lawyer and said since I have his signature on a statement, I'd easily have a case for small claims court. She said it's a $15 court fee to file a case, but that probably 90% of the time once the deadbeat gets "served" that he's being sued they pay up right away to avoid going to court.

Anybody have experience with this sort of thing? One of my good friends that I ride with wants to try and pose as another seller and try to get this guy face-to-face again, and I guess threaten/strongarm him since that's just his style on things. I'm not really sure that's a good idea or would even work. I got the address off his driver's license and it's a total shithole shack in Cohoes, with a large garage behind it. When I drove by in the evening there were no lights on and no cars visible.

So, should I just take the bill of sale to court and hope when he realizes I'm not bluffing (I've left him a message saying I would go to court over it), he pays up?

 

[Fire-medic]

File now for small claims court. Put the pressure on him. You could ask the local P.D. to check his current status as he probably has a history of scamming people & who knows? Maybe there's a bench warrant out for him.

If you do go to court & get a judgement, there are different ways to collect, sometimes you can get the sheriff to seize his property equal to the judgement. Or, if you don't get paid, then ruin his credit. The judgements expire with the passage of time so be sure to find out the timeframe and renew it (the judgement) until the slimeball pays his debt. In the meantime, any time he wants to open a credit account, take out a mprtgage, finance a car, boat, bike, etc., the judgement will appear and he will be refused. He'll come to you to settle so he can get that new truck or a home improvement loan, or whatever.

Too bad you didn't snatch the paper back from him. When I sell anything, i never meet anyone at the house, I tell them, "call me when you get to the KMart parking lot in Troy, I am 5min. away & I will come to you, park by the garden section, what do you drive?" that way, you are free of waiting for the deadbeats who never show up, & you avoid anyone casing your joint, unless some slimeball tries to follow you home. Then, everything is "cash money," and I check the bills in case someone tries to give me funny money. "No credit, tell the sob story to someone who cares!"

 

[VMike]

Your friend might just create more problems for you if the strong arm doesn't work and you have to go to court.Years ago I had to take a towing company to small claims court for towing a front wheel drive Audi the wrong way and ruining the tranny. My wife and I came to court very prepared and won.It's a shame we have to deal with douche bags like that but they're out there in numbers.If it was me,I would pay the $15 filing fee and have him served.Maybe that's as far as it goes and he pays but if not have your day in court and start keeping track(writing it down or copies of e-mails) of dates,times of all phone calls,any e-mails, (phone records) or other correspondence attempting to collect from this douche bag.You will undoubtedly win it's just sometimes a PIA to go through it and take time off work. Just my .02 and good luck,
Mike

 

[CaptainKyle]

I might be the only one that thinks this but the police around her eare a bunch of fucking deadbeats. I hate to say it but you better off taking care of things your self around here.

 

[KJShover]

That sucks.

Up here that wouldn't be considerd a criminal matter thus not a cop problem.

He left with the paperwork and you have the signed paper stating he owes you $400.00. This makes it a civil matter.

You can repo after a reasonable amount of time. I don't know the laws over there in NY, Reasonable might be one month, or it might be 4. (this is why you see car dealerships repo instead of theft charges)

Or like others has suggested, pay the $15 and go to small claims court. If you get a settlement against him, I'd go straight to the collection agency and get him in the system. ppl like that normally have shit credit anyway, but a little extra never hurts.

Up here they also have this nice little "theft by deception" thing. Itt covers a variety of things. like selling shit that don't work then lying saying it does, saying you'll pay later when you have no intention, Checks that were written on accounts the buyer new were closed or NSF. I'd check to see if you have similar laws there, this will be considered criminal and bring theft charges. But him having the paperwork and the boat all free and clear might throw a monkey wrench in the deal.

 

[RaWarrior]

That's what I heard from my lawyer friend. She said you could call the PD and try to claim it as stolen property since he registered it in his name without fulfilling the sales contract, but the chances of them actually doing anything about it are slim to none. For $400, they just can't be bothered. She said they can't be bothered to go look for people without outstanding warrants, so unless they screw up and get arrested for something else, they're never get hauled in. Cops these days are too busy writing traffic tickets to rake in $$$ for our broke-ass state to be bothered with actual police work.

My buddy wanted to cook up this story about how he "stole" the registration documents, that they were accidentally left in the jetski when he took it but then refused to return them, or they were left on the table and he took them when I wasn't looking, or something like that to back up the "stolen" claim. While I wouldn't have a problem working the cops a little to gets what's rightfully mine, my fear is that would eventually backfire and end up causing more problems for me.

The douche actually called me back today, with the same line as last week, except this time he just bluntly said he wasn't going to pay me for the trailer because the registration was "no good". I told him if that was the case, I would just take the trailer back. So I'm supposed to drive back down to his shithole shop tomorrow (costing me more gas) to "settle this up".

At this point I'd be happy to just get the trailer back and collect the $200 more he owes for the jetski (the original deal was $500 for the ski and $200 for the trailer) and just go about re-selling the trailer later. That'd be my "best case".

But yeah, I can see this turning into a big PITA. Already I have to leave work early tomorrow and drive another 200 miles round trip to (hopefully) meet up with this guy. If he doesn't show, which I think is somewhat likely, then I have to take another day off work to go to the courthouse and file the papers for a claim.

Definitely lesson learned here....

 

[Fire-medic]

If your paperwork has the deal enumerated $500/$200, then get the trailer and if he doesn't pay up, he probably won't be smart enough to ask for any paperwork settling the account anyway. Take the trailer & file for the $. Get the judgement against him and cause him years of bad credit as I said. Renew as required to deny him credit now & in the future. Eventually he will either pay or you will get satisfaction in knowing he has to live from paycheck to paycheck, with no credit available. Keep him in the system and no, it is not a criminal matter, it's civil.

 

[dannymax]

My buddy wanted to cook up this story about how he "stole" the registration documents, that they were accidentally left in the jetski when he took it but then refused to return them, or they were left on the table and he took them when I wasn't looking, or something like that to back up the "stolen" claim. While I wouldn't have a problem working the cops a little to gets what's rightfully mine, my fear is that would eventually backfire and end up causing more problems for me.

....

Don't even THINK about doing something like this....it WILL bite you in the ass! It's tough enough going into court with the truth......something like this will most definitely ruin any shot you have at resolution!

 

[tugla]

Don't even THINK about doing something like this....it WILL bite you in the ass! It's tough enough going into court with the truth......something like this will most definitely ruin any shot you have at resolution!

i second that, you have a signed paper for money owing to you, just go with that for now.

 

[Slacker]

Sorry for your loss. If the a hole has a good, solid job, small claims will prob work. You can get part of his wages till he's paid up.
Had a dork that tried to sell me a stolen motor. Long story short, went to small claims, then filed against him at a job he worked. He was run off and went somewhere else. Found where that was. Called his employer to find if he was there, and why I wanted to know. They fired his fat azz that day. He either quit of was ran off, at least, 6 different times. He lost more money by not paying me, by far. I cost him some good money. Prob 5 to 8 times more. Now he's in the pen. Need to find out where he is. If he's making plates, there goes his smokes money. Found he's been in and out of prison a few times. He has the tats to prove it. I normally don't get too riled, but I truly would like to beat the fat out of him, and he knows it. He has an invite. People like this, and what you've ran into, RA, really pizz me off. Common, worthless, chit'n thieves. I did retrieve most of my money. Every time I seen him out, we'd have a visit and I'd get a little here, a little there.
Like said, you might file charges. It would be cheaper. Hopefully, eventually, he would get a record to warn others of him and you'd get your bucks, or he's headed to the pokey if he disobeyed an order to pay.
Best wishes on you getting your money or justice.
If ya need a gun... Did I say that?:whistlin:

 

[Rusty McNeil]

If you now where he lives just keep it simple...

Verify it's really his house, that no ones in it........................

and then burn it down......:angry flame devil:

 

[Fire-medic]

"Who is this? I don't know you...prank caller! Prank caller!"

"Lance" (Eric Stoltz) to "Vince Vega" (John Travolta) shortly before Uma Thurman gets an intracardiac epinephrine injection, "Pulp Fiction."

 

[1200cc]

I got the address off his driver's license and it's a total shithole shack in Cohoes, with a large garage behind it. When I drove by in the evening there were no lights on and no cars visible.

You can always brighten up the area when there are no lights on, just being some matches and use gas to see what's going on. I hope you don't accidentally spill any on his house, it could set something on fire so be careful.

 

[Blurr]

Call the IRS from a pay phone claiming you're him and say you just got religion and you want to 'even up' on your back taxes from your years of off the books work?

 

[RaWarrior]

Well...here's the resolution to this matter.

It had become pretty clear to me this guy had no intention of ever meeting/paying the rest of the money. I chalked up his attempts at these psuedo-meetings as a way to just get me pissed enough to just forget about it and stop dealing with him.

So me and a buddy decided to play him at his own game. He called, claiming he had a buddy that told him that he did really good work on jetskis and that he had one he wanted fixed. He said a dealer quoted him like $3k to rebuild the motor, and intentionally being a fool, said he'd pay up to $2000 to this guy if he could do the work. Of course this guy starts falling all over himself to meet with my buddy and pick up his ski.

*note.....by this time I'd realized this guy has absolutely zero, squat, nada knowledge about jetskis, or really anything else with a motor. He made a comment about "valvetrain" (it's a 2 stroke), "is it 3 or 4 cylinders?" (seadoo never made anything but twins), ect.

During all this, I don't get any calls from him. Finally yesterday morning he calls me and says he wants to "square up" tonight, now for the third time. As with the other times, he's extremely vague. We'll meet "somewhere" "sometime" tonight, and he'll call me "when he's in the area". When pressed for details, he just parrots "I'll call you". 5pm, still no call. I call him. He answers and starts giving me attitude about "I told you I would call when I was close, I don't appreciate being harassed, yadda yadda yadda", ending with a cordial "now fuck off". Time to play the other guy. Buddy calls him up, now he's nice as can be to him and they agree to meet at his shack around 8. Around 6 he calls me again and says "he's close" and he'll call me again in "a bit". Both of us cruise the neighborhood on the bikes, find his place, and poke around. Several cars were visible in the busted out garage window but no jetski. As we're looking around, a guy comes out of the house across the street, who turns out to be the landlord. Apparently this guy is *surprise* a deadbeat on his shack rent and he's been to court to evict him, but he's there so rarely the cops have never been able to pin him down. The landlord said he frequents trips to NYC and "wouldn't be too surprised" if he was a drug mule. Another shocker.

Anyway....we both show up at the time he said at his shack. Surprise, nobody's there. No lights on, nothing. We cruise down the street, go around the block and make another pass. I turned on the highbeam to light up the inside of the parked cars. Whaddya know, shithead is crouched down behind the steering wheel of a tan sedan. We park on the opposite side of the street. Since my buddy loves to be "confrontational", he walks over to the car(the guy is texting or something on a phone), opens the door, and rips him out of the car. This guy looks like he just shit a brick, he probably thinks he's being mugged or something. Which I guess in a way he is. When he sees me he starts getting all mouthy again, he's all pissed that he didn't "figure this out". Now he's on the spot, he pulls a fat wad of $100s out of his jacket and hands me four of them. We leave.

We get back to the house and he calls my buddy, from a different phone #. Wow, way to throw a curveball, your deep hispanic accent wasn't an instant giveaway or anything. He starts mouthing off some more, he's gonna have his "crew" come after us, we're gonna regret playing him, on and on. Buddy retaliates with an equally spirited verbal barrage. Then he calls my phone, but used whatever that code is that hides your phone #, *67 or whatever it is. Man, this guy is a trickster. My buddy grabs the phone out of my hands and continues ripping on this guy and says if either phone rings again we're tipping off the police, we told him we had someone else tailing him and we knew where he was. He hangs up and neither phone rang again. We called the police anyway and filed a general report for harassment. The dispatcher in cohoes instantly recognized the guy's name, apparently he's one of their perennial pain-in-the-ass citizens.

So I got the money, we had a little fun fucking with a scumbag, and everyone lived happily ever after. The end.

Now it's 8:30. No call to either of us. My friend calls him again and he says he's at his shop and to come on over. When asked what car he has, he replies there isn't one because it broke down.

 

[MR_NST]

very good my friend.... i love the 'hands on' approach. i enjoy reading stories like this and absolutely hate getting fucked over.... dad always told me that honesty and trust are the things that will keep your life happy and rewarding. why cant everyone be somewhat honest... things would be so much easier.

good for getting your money!!!

peace,
evan...

 

[[email protected]]

This guy sounds about as good as the one who stole all of the tools from one of our work trucks and posted them on CL. Wanted by the US Marshalls and state police. Wish I coulda been there when the all jumped out and nabbed him. I gotta go to court over that in a couple weeks.

Good on ya for getting you money back

 

[Slacker]

lol. Love happy endings. Congrats!

 

[The Beekeeper]

I like happy endings too, but remember this cat knows where he picked up the watercraft, I hope he doesn't get any retalitory ideas.............Just thinking.....................Tom.

 

[gamorg02]

I like happy endings too, but remember this cat knows where he picked up the watercraft, I hope he doesn't get any retalitory ideas.............Just thinking.....................Tom.

My concern too!