I almost just got scammed buying an RV

I found a 2010 38 foot rv trailer which from the photos appeared to be in excellent shape. They were only asking $2,000. I thought is was a typo because an RV of this size would go for 15k to 20k and I did not want to waste my time buying an expensive RV. I contacted the person and asked if it was 2k and what city was it in. The person gave me this sob story about her husband dying in a reply email two months ago , and that she is changing her life and moving to Iowa to live with her sister. It still did not make sense because they could take the RV back to the dealer they bought and get twice what they were asking on the internet.

So I asked if there was a time I could view the RV, and in what city is the RV. Souix City Iowa is all the way over on the Missouri river on the border of Nebraska and they knew that I lived in the Quad City area of Iowa and Illinois, so they chose the furthest point in Iowa from where I was, and said that EBAY would ship it and I could return it in five days if I did not like it. Well I have shipped RVs before, and the cost to ship it would be at least 500 bucks, and if I did not like it and returned $1,000 cost to the seller. Red flags are going up, so I immediately email back that my wife and I would drive across Iowa and look at it on Thursday at a time she approved. She said NO. It will be handled by the shipping company only.

I then wrote an email giving her 15 minutes to come clean, or I was reporting this posting to the Illinois AG who has an aggressive computer fraud and consumer fraud division. She stopped responding.....probably not even a she......and I simply emailed her saying that I was going to make a complaint and it usually takes 3 weeks for their forensic people to locate the person responsible for computer fraud. I then took 10 minutes to make the online AG complaint, and then sent her the receipt of the complaint.....the only response I got was wow. It would take greedy people wanting to take advantage of a widow to fall for this scam. I am willing to pay a fair price for a item, but unlike Bob, I take no pride in stealing something of value from a widow. How many thousands of dollars are sent into these scams every day where somebody wants to get something for nothing. I lived a period of greed which causes a person to lose what is important in life, and scammers know that most people have some element of greed in their make up. I will advise if the AG catches the scammers, but the truth is they do not have the resources, so all I can do is give em a scare for three weeks.

Now we just got a cloaked skype call where when my wife ran the number in the computer, it said a high probability of low level fraud.

2seaoat wrote:Now we just got a cloaked skype call where when my wife ran the number in the computer, it said a high probability of low level fraud.

Glad you caught it.

Glad you caught it.


You have to act quickly on fraud because they will stick it to multiple people selling the same RV and makes 10k and then shut it down. The phone call was from a male asking if our home phone was a landscaping company. It was in the same area code as where the rv was listed. It also could be a slimy way the rv dealers get potential buyers by then saying the rv is sold, and then they slam your email with their rvs. In any case, I hope nobody paid the $2,000.

That is a common scam on Craigslist. I once emailed about a car that was woefully underpriced and they said the car belonged to a soldier at Minot ,ND who was being shipped overseas. The car was ready to be shipped and if you didn't like it they would pay for it to be shipped back. That didn't sit well w/ me because of the expense they would incur so I said my dad was in Minot and would come by and see it. They gave an excuse it was sealed up for shipping and couldn't be viewed. I knew then it was scam, however, a friend of my daughter's lost $4500 by being stupid and fell for a similar scam.

These internet scams have to be preemptively prosecuted. It does little good to try to get that $4,500 back. I am appalled by how easy it is on the internet to cheat and steal. Craigslist and Ebay need to self police their websites besides more aggressive enforcement by law enforcement. I would rather have LEO not entrapping horny kids on the internet, and would rather they entrap crooks who have and will hurt people over and over again. Great headlines on a sexual sting, but hard investigatory work which gets fraud convictions....not so much.

Many of these scammers are in another country. I regularly go on Craigslist and delete the scammer ads. One time I went through the whole scam w/ them asking for a phone number to verify Ebay would send my money back. They sent me a phone # (a throwaway phone I'm sure) and a guy w/ a deep Indian accent answered who said he was from Ebay and verified they would send my money back. Ithen sent them a text saying FU scammers. They text me back and said FU bitch. Craigslist puts out a warning saying never buy a car you can't see and lists the different scams. People do it anyway.

You can only scam a greedy person. I mean I wanted that RV, and it fit our needs perfectly. However, the price was so absurd and the shipping at that low price was absurd, but I could see where a person would think they were taking advantage of a widow who did not know the value of the RV. I would not buy anything unseen which was a vehicle, trailer, or RV.

2seaoat wrote: I would rather have LEO not entrapping horny kids on the internet, and would rather they entrap crooks who have and will hurt people over and over again.   Great headlines on a sexual sting, but hard investigatory work which gets fraud convictions....not so much.

So I guess we can clearly see where your priorities lie. OMG.

Look, the Pensacola community just lost a sweet 12-year-old girl to murder by a previously convicted sexual predator, and social media sites were involved. I think it's safe to say her parents would protest that her life was priceless -- certainly worth far more than someone's lost $4,500, for pity's sake -- and that they would wish beyond wishing that someone had conducted a sting to entrap this particular male monster before he preyed on their precious child.

Get it together! "Horny kids on the Internet" is putting an unforgivably innocent face on a hideous evil -- a far greater evil than financial fraud in most any right thinking person's book.

(And of course now Sea will go on a long rant trying to walk his comments back or justify them in some way -- but there IS no justification in such a screwed-up -- or at best seriously misinformed -- view of our justice system's priorities.)

Every word I stated was correct. I happen to know a great deal about this subject. The person who hurts a child is usually a ped. They are usually caught early on some inappropriate behavior with a child. The problem is NOT scoping the internet, rather monitoring those known perps who are sexually attracted to children. A stupid 18 year old boy being entrapped by someone who starts by saying she is 18, and then goes to talking about her 14 year old sister is NOT a person who is sexually attracted to children. Yet the resources to monitor the monsters which are loose in the community are being cut in every state, because of grandstanding publicity stunts like internet entrapment.

Sorry, If you took 100% of the budget away from these internet entrapments and put it all in probation and supervision of sexual peds, it would be ten fold more effective. I have a close friend who has been testing people's sexual attraction to things as a condition of probation, and they can with 99% certainty identify those people sexually attracted to children, and almost half will strike again, and in the most famous example of one of those perps not being monitored, he kidnapped a young girl and had her in his home, but probation repeatedly did not do what they needed to do because of a caseload caused by no money.......which of course is being wasted on internet screenings. Almost 90% of sexual abuse of children is not from strangers but somebody they know. So, yes take the money away from boondoggles and hot dogging media hype, and put the money where real criminals can be monitored and caught.

Linda, with all due respect, you do not have a clue about this subject if you think on line government employees were going to help that 12 year old girl, and it may feel good thinking that all resources are equally effective, but talk to somebody who actually is dealing with these deeply disturbed individuals, and they are neither stupid to get caught on the internet trying to go after a stranger, or curable. Yet, we take away resources from where they are needed most. My priorities are based on knowledge, and in this regard first hand knowledge which I can not share here.

Thank you for proving me right in exactly what I predicted of you.

Your arrogance and pridefulness know no bounds.

There is nothing prideful about knowing falsely accused innocent people, and knowing scary peds who take jobs to be near children and abuse them in the real world. You are intelligent person. Please do a little research before you find an easy answer that I am prideful. I am knowledgeable about this subject because of experience over 35 years, and I have seen some horrible things, but there is one thing certain when playing poker with others in the field, the so called catch a predator stings are a waste of precious resources which completely avoids the real problem......people are identified as being sexually aroused by children. They harm children, and then eventually are released by court services into the community. You may think in your ignorance that these very dangerous people are being monitored, but they are not as caseloads have doubled in the last twenty years while the hollywood BS captures American's hearts. Simple education and getting involved in local budgeting is required of good citizens. I get involved. I go before city councils and county boards and I am usually a jerk, much more than here, because the arrogance and hubris of folks who think they understand have never once dealt with the actual child who has been abused by somebody they knew, and who gets released to harm again.......internet predators......fantasy and statistically insignificant. Learn what the real problems are before you judge my knowledge.

I have also had to go to the board of women shelters when play therapy was all the rage and therapist always found sexual abuse 100% on those close to the child. I finally had enough because the police make mistakes, the courts make mistakes, and yes women shelters who are suppose to protect children and familes were actually hurting children finding peds under every contact with a child, when in fact through expert testimony of a pediatrician it was found out that the mother had inserted her fingernail into her own child's vagina after giving the child a massive dose of cough medicine where she was unconcious, and then in an attempt to take joint custody, called the doctor and said her daughter had the flu......when the doctor could not find the flu, the mother told the doctor that the child was being sexually abused by the father. The doctor found the scratch. He was a mandated reporter, and the woman's shelter had their play therapist get the child to tell her that daddy touched her there, and in Illinois it was a DCFS indicated finding of abuse......the trial proceeded, the false testimony was entered......the play therapist in open court said she always found child abuse in 100% of her cases, and then the bomb was dropped by a very good attorney......he called the pediatrician to explain the time table of a scratch healing in the vagina. He proved in open court that only the other could have scratched her child, got the landlord to testify he heard the mother repeatedly giving her child cough medicine to silence her when she had boyfriends over and heard that weekend the same forcing of cough medicine on a five year old girl.....The judge immediately transferred custody to the father, and a week later the mother was charged with a felony for writing prescriptions for vicadine, but did the board of the women's shelter admit they made a mistake.....no more than the folks who entrap people on the internet.......people either know what they are talking about, or they do not. My court service guy who has to test every sex offender going on probation or parole just laughs at how stupid internet stings are because they do not identify the real predators.....just horny kids. I could tell a hundred more real life stories, but why bother when you think it has anything to do with pride, you evidently have never had to deal with an abused child and like hollywood presentations of an alternative reality.

Sounds like a real bullshit story, Oatie. Since when do play therapists at women's shelters interview sexually abused kids? That is done at sexual abuse advocacy centers w/ trained interviewers.

Sounds like a real bullshit story, Oatie. Since when do play therapists at women's shelters interview sexually abused kids? That is done at sexual abuse advocacy centers w/ trained interviewers.


In Illinois where a mandated reporter reports a possible child being sexually abused as the doctor did here, they send the children to licensed facilities for evaluation. After the evaluation there is a determination of a indicated finding of sexual abuse, and there is a DCFS hearing where evidence is presented. The licensed facility was the largest woman's shelter in a two county area which had been getting more sloppy with the play therapy as judges were no longer finding their testimony credible before this case, and later there was a real revolution in play therapy as the lady who scratched her daughter's vagina ended up suing the director of DCFS for millions and it is never good when you arrive at your office with CBS and ABC tv trucks in your driveway wanting interviews. The good news is the little girl became a straight A student and became a soccer star in high school and went off to college after living with the accused father and step mother. The drug addicted mother who perpetrated this horror on a five year old girl spent years in the courts and suffered from borderline personality disorder and had been sexually abused as a child by her father. The play therapy fell into disfavor in the courts and DCFS, and other modalities and investigative tools regain credibility. The woman's shelter is still going strong, and now families are being counseled to stay together and careless judgments have this case to shine the light that good investigations require less Hollywood and good old hard work. Every word of just this one story is true and I have hundreds more which would sicken most. Beware of any adult who works around kids. I do not trust coaches, school bus drivers, teachers, and youth church adults who seem out of place and do not have a child in the organization. Vigilance because it is not stranger on the internet who hurt our children.

Denny Haesert the former Speaker of the House was a respected coach, had a wife, kids, and a lab. The perfect cover. I first began dealing with him in 1984 and never had a clue. Yet , his first victim was a minister's son and a brother of a friend where it is alleged that Denny followed this 10 year old into the bathroom in a summer park program and physically sodomized this child, who lived in terror because later he was threatened, and would have to see him in charge of gym classes in his school. It is not an internet perp who harms children. It happens, but those who actually deal with these problems know the truth......it is somebody the child knows or should trust who predominately abuse children. I have talked to wrestlers who wrestled for Denny and now tell stories of him putting his chair at the entrance of the shower as he checked out freshman boys in gym class taking showers. Nobody suspected, but once this thing broke out people began talking. If something makes a child uncomfortable, there should be an environment which encourages them to talk about it. I have told the horrible story of a local realtor who worked part time driving a school bus. It was a classic child abuse story and even though I repeated this in the PNJ years ago, I will do it again, because people really do not fully understand how fricking scary this problem is, and it has NOTHING to do with stranger danger or the internet.

2seaoat wrote:Sounds like a real bullshit story, Oatie. Since when do play therapists at women's shelters interview sexually abused kids? That is done at sexual abuse advocacy centers w/ trained interviewers.


In Illinois where a mandated reporter reports a possible child being sexually abused as the doctor did here, they send the children to licensed facilities for evaluation.   After the evaluation there is a determination of a indicated finding of sexual abuse, and there is a DCFS hearing where evidence is presented.   The licensed facility was the largest woman's shelter in a two county area which had been getting more sloppy with the play therapy as judges were no longer finding their testimony credible before this case, and later there was a real revolution in play therapy as the lady who scratched her daughter's vagina ended up suing the director of DCFS for millions and it is never good when you arrive at your office with CBS and ABC tv trucks in your driveway wanting interviews.   The good news is the little girl became a straight A student and became a soccer star in high school and went off to college after living with the accused father and step mother.   The drug addicted mother who perpetrated this horror on a five year old girl spent years in the courts and suffered from borderline personality disorder and had been sexually abused as a child by her father.   The play therapy fell into disfavor in the courts and DCFS, and other modalities and investigative tools regain credibility.   The woman's shelter is still going strong, and now families are being counseled to stay together and careless judgments have this case to shine the light that good investigations require less Hollywood and good old hard work.   Every word of just this one story is true and I have hundreds more which would sicken most.  Beware of any adult who works around kids.   I do not trust coaches, school bus drivers, teachers, and youth church adults who seem out of place and do not have a child in the organization.   Vigilance because it is not stranger on the internet who hurt our children.

I know Oatie. I did it for a living. The point is DCF must have found the child credible for them to take it to court. They would not have relied on the play therapist's evaluation. They would have had the child interviewed at a Kid's House. Are you saying DCF took the father's side?

No they immediately got the report from the play therapist, and made an indicated finding. The father and mother were in a divorce proceeding where the mother was trying to get full custody. An emergency change of custody hearing was before the judge, with the lawyer for the mother in her motion claiming the father sexually abused the child, talked about him scratching her vagina as reported by the doctor, and the indicated finding from DCFS. She had borderline personality disorder and thought she had covered all her bases, but the one thing she never figured out was the timeline of the injury to the vagina. The tissue in the mouth and vagina is configured for quick repair when damaged. The healing process is 24 hours. The father saw his daughter Friday night at a pizza birthday party, and as a plumber was gone all day saturday where the child spent time with the step mother and other children. The father got home at 5pm showered and they went to a movie with the father going to bed when they returned home. They went to church in the morning and the mother had the child at 4pm on Sunday. The father was never alone with the child the entire weekend as there were multiple adult family members who spent the weekend with the family to celebrate the birthday party.

The mother around 9 pm gave the child cough medicine. What she did not count on that the landlord who lived below them had heating duct work where he could hear her on repeated times coaxing her child to take the cough syrup. This was usually done when she had a male friend, and after the child was doped up, the mother would have sex with her male friend. That Sunday the landlord heard the usual argument. On Monday around 10 am the mother called the doctor telling the doctor that the child was sick with flu like symptoms. The doctor did the examination around 3pm that day and did not find any flu like symptoms. The mother then tells the doctor that she has been acting strange after visitation and she is afraid the father is sexually abusing the daughter. The doctor finds on examination a scratch, and as a mandated reporter contacts DCFS. DCFS makes the referral to play thearapy and the investigator and the play therapist interview the child. DCFS issues an indicated finding. The lawyer for the mother then goes to the States Attorney's office and gives all the facts to the state seeking to have the father criminally prosecuted. The lawyer then files an emergency motion to deny any future visitation, and allow the father to only see the child in a supervised visitation through DCFS.

The problem was that they did not know that the father had not really been with the child the entire weekend. So the lawyer representing the father called the doctor and asked is there anyway to know when the scratch happened. He responded with medical certainty the scratch happened within 12 hours of his seeing the child at 3pm. This suggested that the injury happened while in custody of the mother. They interviewed the landlord and got him to testify, they interviewed the family members who accounted for the father's whereabouts the entire weekend, and then the home run. The Doctor voluntarily came to court without subpoena because he was deeply disturbed with what was represented to him, and how from a flu examination the mother suggested a vaginal examination. While on the stand confirming that only the mother could have created the injury, the lawyer who had tried to get criminal charges against the father, objects to any further testimony, and advised his client in open court not to answer any more questions, after it was pointed out while she was on the stand how long her fingernails were after the doctor had testified that the injury looked like it was done by long fingernails.

The judge immediately changed temporary custody, and only allowed the mother to have supervised visitation. Father won permanent custody, DCFS had the indicated finding hearing, and found for the father where the judges in a three county circuit no longer would accept testimony from that play therapist. The ironic thing is that after she lost her appeals to DCFS, she sued them for millions after a new lawyer took the case, and before it was dismissed she attempted to write fake prescriptions and was convicted of a felony. The entire DCFS system failed because the investigators and play therapist never did a proper investigation and in the legal community there was an immediate change in how play therapist were qualified as expert witnesses. The good news is the little girl lived a normal healthy life and was an A student and a great soccer player. The system ultimately worked, but I could give multiple examples where Illinois DCFS because of unbearable case loads on their investigators almost collapsed with this kind of negligence. So when I get angry with the dollars being spent on Hollywood catch a predator nonsense, real people who are attracted to children are released from jail and back into the community with NO money to properly supervise these very dangerous people.

Seaoat, you previously stated, very early in this thread (which was, after all, supposedly about sales SCAMS, remember?), "I would rather have LEO not entrapping horny kids on the internet, and would rather they entrap crooks who have and will hurt people over and over again. Great headlines on a sexual sting, but hard investigatory work which gets fraud convictions....not so much."

Soon afterward, following some criticism I levied against that highly questionable statement of priorities, you began -- and have continued ever since -- to morph your 'druthers' into such as this:  "So when I get angry with the dollars being spent on Hollywood catch a predator nonsense, real people who are attracted to children are released from jail and back into the community with NO money to properly supervise these very dangerous people."

Yes indeed, but as you know that posits an ENTIRELY different scenario - a COMPLETELY different value comparison -- from your original statement about resources devoted to "horny kids on the internet" vs. to perpetrators of monetary fraud -- which position of yours, I still say, was and remains a highly improper juxtaposition of priorities.  

You're getting almost as good as Trump at diverting discussion away from the subject at hand when that subject involves any perceived criticism or questioning of your position on anything at all.  

(Note to readers:  This will guarantee another several paragraphs of defensive and/or offensive protests from Seaoat as, like Trump, he's entirely incapable of ever admitting he's wrong on any topic whatsoever.  He'll twist himself into verbal knots first, and/or call the critic ignorant or toss out other insults.  Sit back and watch!  It's rather entertaining.   )

It is simple. Real people get hurt by fraud on the internet. ID theft, and fraud has become common place. Actually catching a real ped with massive LEO investment in Hollywood catch a predator TV is a misnomer. It really is the exception. There are no resources to properly monitor paroled peds. Both of my examples are why I think wasting money on Hollywood entrapment is pleasing for uninformed people. I think you are uninformed on the efficacy of Hollywood in law enforcement, and I remain an advocate for greater budgets for internet fraud and supervision of peds released back into the public. I will not send you the shade which you invite, but sadly too many good people are bamboozled by Hollywood.

The original post of yours I quoted said NOTHING about Hollywood, but only about "LEO". Don't know about where you are, but our area LEO efforts at 'entrapping' people (your term, not mine)on the Internet has done a lot of good and is one of the most important tools they use to also fight human trafficking. It's worth every penny spent, IMHO.

"Hollywood" is another issue entirely, as is the need for more active follow-up on released peds (without, of course, illegally compromising their civil rights in the process). I am not arguing with those issues, and never was. But I do and will continue to stand by my criticism of your ORIGINAL statement -- not what it morphed into.

Further, I am not inviting "shade" from you, whatever the heck that even means.

I have seen the media "hollywood approach to Law enforcement" put too many innocent people in jail. The only point I will make is that law enforcement is not in the slightest stopping children from being abused, and in fact when there is a limited budget the very sting programs are hurting children when real dangerous people go free and there are not enough funds to properly monitor these people.

I will say that having 1 in 20 peds caught in an entrapment net is not an efficient use of LEO resources, and that sexual fantasy of teenage boys is not the same as people who are hardwired to be attracted to children. I am interested in this human traffic argument. I am unaware of any LEO internet sting operation which has been successful in stopping human traffic. I do not like mice getting into our rural home. I make decisions on how I can wisely eradicate the mice without negligently killing innocent children, pets, or adults. However, my decision to target, be precise and efficient in the eradication of mice does not get me reelected sheriff. So when they throw a stick of dynamite into my home and get headlines about alleged vermin caught in their better mouse trap, an intelligent and knowledgeable person on mouse eradication simply would say what about the cost of that mouse eradication, and the innocent who are damaged by headline hunting. I have seen the worse type of child sexual abuse, and I have seen the lifetime of pain associated with the victims, but to suggest somebody has the wrong priorities because they are knowledgeable about the issues, either requires further education, or maybe acknowledging that there is a latent sexual repression which finds any kind of sexual attraction repulsive. In either case, it does not change the reality. Internet entrapment by law enforcement is an inefficient use of limited resources and causes more harm, but in Santa Rosa County where there are more churches per capita than anywhere in America that repulsion of sexual attraction makes sense.......just like not selling liquor on Sundays.

2seaoat wrote: but to suggest somebody has the wrong priorities because they are knowledgeable about the issues, either requires further education, or maybe acknowledging that there is a latent sexual repression which finds any kind of sexual attraction repulsive.

Now just what in hell does THAT mean??

2seaoat wrote:I am unaware of any LEO internet sting operation which has been successful in stopping human traffic.

What you're unaware of here is not the issue. Further, I never said the area LEO's Internet work has "been successful in stopping" human trafficking; only that it's proven a valuable tool in the effort.

I would like to know more about the human traffic and how LEO is stopping the same. I know before the internet that peds would exchange child pornography via the mail, and they would abuse and intimidate children they knew. When they sent out the photos of children being raped, they would put notes on the photo copies that they were not to distribute them on the west coast or some geographic area because they feared somebody might recognize the perp.

These networks were completely invisible to most LEO, yet they were rampant until finally a law was passed concerning the possession of child pornography. You see some of these monsters made profits distributing child porn, and our lawmakers wisely decided to stop this growth pre internet by making the possession of the same a crime. Now human traffic, like drug traffic is very very clandestine, and not easily preemptively stopped, so I would be interested in your understanding of how LEO using the internet has cracked these networks. The level of sophistication of encryption in the last 10 years can have a person who has a website which sells pots and pans using html code on an image, and completely in what is called white space put hidden messages which require ultra sophisticated decryption software where the internet has literally billions of images posted every day. I am not trying to argue with you, but honestly would like to know what you have sourced as how LEO is tracking human traffic on the internet. I am honestly not aware of what agency you are referencing.