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mattie_hottie@hotmail.com is a CROOK

11K views 45 replies 32 participants last post by  Meatman 
#1 ·
I just sent 2600.00 to him and I can't get ahold of him ! Boy do I feel stupid ! and MAD ! Manchester N.H. is where he lives any shooters there ?
 
#4 ·
If you guys get an e-mail address such as G-MAIL or HOT MAIL they are usually scammers, if you want to buy something from them look up their name in the average book and look at their address.

Or go to Shoot ATA .com and look at members scores.

This tells you whether he is a member or not and you can check him out.

Then ask for his ATA number and also his name.

Have him take the gun to his FFL dealer and have him inspect the gun and have the FFL of his ship the gun to your FFL

and upon receipt have your FFL dealer inspect the gun before your FFL dealer sends a chec k to him.


Gary Bryant
Dr.longshot
 
#6 ·
"If you guys get an e-mail address such as G-MAIL or HOT MAIL they are usually scammers...."


Just when I thought Doc had said the dumbest thing I ever heard, he beats his own record with stuff like this. What a stupid untrue statement. Gmail is simply and email through Google and Hotmail through Microsoft Windows. I know lots of great people with Gmail email addresses. The same goes for Hotmail. Geez, where do you get this crap?
 
#7 ·
I bought a gun from a guy on here who's name was Mattie Gadwah. He had me wire Transfer $2600.00 to the Bank of America in Manchester, NH to the account names Mary Gadwah and Veronica Lara-Merrell. His real name I have found on Facebook is Mike Faragamo and He and this Veronicas Grandma Mary Gadwah are engaged. I was naiveté (stupid)
 
#8 ·
Guys,

Yes he got me too. Trouble for him is that he sent me two phone numbers, one for him and one for the woman in Manchester. His number did not work. Hers did and I was able to contact her. I sent payment of USPS money order in her name and sent it USPS overnight express so it had to be signed for. She signed for it, cashed the money order and wired the money to him. So, that qualifies as postal fraud. It is also internet fraud by definition and the FBI handles that. If you are a victim, google internet fraud and the website for filing a complaint comes up.
 
#9 ·
I am in contact with some relation of The Veronica her name is Janice Gadwah she is messaging me now on Facebook ? When I found her as a Friend of Veronica I sent her a friend request and she accepted ? She said Javier Luisito told her he was working for Williams Brothers Construction Co. in Houston Texas. She tried his cell phone number and it has been disconnected. I will keep updates on here as I find the SCUM ! I will email you Bobby
 
#11 ·
I take issue with trusting only people with ata cards and not trusting anybody with gmail accounts. I'm not a member of ata because we don't shoot registered targets at my home club, and yes we shoot steel and bios. I also have a gmail account that I use most of the time. I have bought and sold many items on this site and have never had a bad experience. I think the better thing would be too checkout the user on this site and his history
 
#12 ·
Wiring money was your first mistake.

The way these scams work is parties A B & C are involved. You (A) sent the money to a middleman (B). The middleman takes a small cut for being an intermediary, then sends a bulk of the funds to (C), who is more often than not outside of the US. This method offers some legal insulation to (C) as it is usually (B) that takes the fall if anyone even does.

To help prevent yourself from being defrauded:

-Google the sellers name, email address, phone numbers, mailing address, anything you can. Any info you can find helps. And failure to find ANYTHING brings up BIGTIME read flags.

-Ask them for their TS.com signon, and post asking for references if you're concerned.

-Look up their name on ATA/NSSA/NSCA and see if they are/were members.

-Google a few lines of the description of the gun. If they lifted descriptions and pics from a online post, it may cross reference (they are pretty lazy, and will just copy/paste).

-Ask for additional pics. If its fraudulent, they won't be able to provide them. Ask for something obscure but recognizable, such as inside the forend.

I got an email from a scammer a couple months ago. Advertising a barrel as having both fixed and screw in chokes. Was pretty sure it was a scam, but thought there was an outside chance it was just someone who didn't know what they had. Asked for pics, and was sent a picture of a unsingle Kolar trap barrel (he was trying to sell me a over/under Krieghoff barrel). The emails went in the trash.
 
#13 ·
I have bought many guns, and been satisfied all the time. I did, when the price was up there, check out the individual. His law office was listed in the book, and his dealer sent the gun. His dealer sending the gun is a damn good guarantee of no funny biz, ATF complaints are not wanted by FFL guys.


HM
 
#14 ·
"...... Trouble for him is that he sent me two phone numbers, one for him and one for the woman in Manchester. His number did not work. Hers did and I was able to contact her. I sent payment of USPS money order in her name and sent it USPS overnight express so it......"


So the fact that you had to go through someone else and his phone number didn't work didn't tip you off to something fishy? So you went ahead and wired money? I mean come on, you must admit you were pretty damn naive here. Fellas, you need to at least do a little leg work to check people out especially if you don't know them from Adam.
 
#15 ·
I have bought and sold on this forum for probably 10 years. Not a lot of transactions, but the ones that were amounted to pretty good dollar amounts. I have used a hotmail account for the same amount of years. Not all hotmail users are crooks.

Fraud happens on a lot of forums. Some forums have gone and required the seller to post a piece of paper with the screen name and current date in the picture with the item that is being sold. I suppose a really clever crook could photoshop that info into a pic of an item.
 
#16 ·
I've been contacted a number of times by scammers. The almost always have a gmail or yahoo address, but that alone shouldn't indict anyone, just raise the first suspicion.

It's funny how many scammers like NH as their address.

If you want to know if the guys legit, there's an easy litmus test. Go to mapquest, type in the town they claim to be from and find a little town within 20 miles. Then email the person back and tell them that a very good friend on yours lives in that little town and ask if it's ok if he comes over to inspect the gun.

The second they balk with any excuse, it's a scam, run like hell.

Regards,
Chip
 
#23 ·
This is a troubling issue. I have seen it before, and on some rifle based forums, too. In most cases there were more than one that got hit, and also in most cases there was a little more info so the guy was eventually tracked down.

I have responded to a lot of Craig's List ads for quads or trucks that seemed to be priced very low for the machi8ne, and in all cases I volunteered to have a nearby friend or a trucker relative stop in and pay cash. One of the favorite excuses is "deployed to Afghanistan and have no place to store it" etc.

I never get any return emails after offering to be there in person or by proxy.

I'm sorry the victims got scammed but they should have a little more respect for their money. We tell our children to be wary of strangers, and we should be too.

Trust but Verify.

HM
 
#25 ·
Mike - Men live with pain. Men know pain. Men learn from pain.

tgs1420@gmail.com,

You've included your email address in every post on this thread. David, this site's owner and creator, suggests you NOT do that. He says so in a few posts above this one. It's likely the scammer lifted your email address from this site and used it in his initial contact with you. Why don't you just sign your posts with 'tgs'?

$2600 is your cost of learning. Cheap by some standards. My wife once invested $4000 in a TV advertised stock investment program. I pursued my $4000 for months and actually got it back twice, yes twice. Once from my credit card company and once from the investment firm. We told the credit card company about this and they refused to take their money back. We kept it for a year, heard about the investment firm going bankrupt and then spent the money.

We all learn from pain. Your continued pain will come from your attempt to recover your money and cause pain to the scammer. Good luck. I figure the Kuhns learned from a $4000 mistake so they won't make a $10,000 mistake. Cheap by some standards.
 
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