Scam Alert

I posted a wanted ad for a Schmidt Newtonian and a gentleman by the name of Yuri Elson responded and said he had one available and even sent me a few pictures. I realized something was wrong when he did not return my emails and did not provide a tracking number and then his account disappeared from Astromart.  He was using the email [email protected] and [email protected] and his contact name was bikbtn. PayPal flagged the invoice as fake and I was able to get my money back.  Just an FYI for everyone. 

Yep

We are tracking him

Glad you didn't get screwed

Herb

The same thing happened to me with one of my Wanted ads.  I'm lucky in that I can afford the loss (I own 26 telescopes), but let's nail this guy.  His account is now deleted, but while it was up he had a list of previous feedback that appeared to check out.

He almost got me for $4000.  'Yuri' used the E-mail: [email protected]

I noted that when he invoiced me through Paypal that I was invoice number 5.   Guessing he got 4 others to pay him.  I was going to pay by the end of the day but noticed later that day, Paypal deleted the invoice he had sent me saving my A**.

David

I just got scammed by him also. $650. I placed a wanted ad and he offered a price that was good and about normal. I should have bailed when he started getting pushy but he somehow had good feedback from 2020 and seemed to know about astro hardware.

One problem here is that someone can leave feedback when they never actually bought something. All you need is to have contacted the person regarding an ad.

Originally Posted by David Standen

He almost got me for $4000.  'Yuri' used the E-mail: [email protected]

I noted that when he invoiced me through Paypal that I was invoice number 5.   Guessing he got 4 others to pay him.  I was going to pay by the end of the day but noticed later that day, Paypal deleted the invoice he had sent me saving my A**.

David

He also uses [email protected].

Originally Posted by David Standen

He almost got me for $4000.  'Yuri' used the E-mail: [email protected]

I noted that when he invoiced me through Paypal that I was invoice number 5.   Guessing he got 4 others to pay him.  I was going to pay by the end of the day but noticed later that day, Paypal deleted the invoice he had sent me saving my A**.

David

He invoiced me also but I bypassed it and went directly to PP and did a normal payment via his email address. Luckily I did not do F&F or Zelle as he suggested. For some reason I had issues sending the money. I eventually broke the payment up into three pieces and they unfortunately went through.

Edit: Sorry. Must have hit send twice

Just some observations after being here for many years. Putting up wanted ads seems to draw scammers like flies to sugar water..... An overabundance of caution should be applied when doing so. Not saying dont do it but be really cautious.

It is nice to hear paypal is being proactive in weeding out the dirt bags as well.....a bit disappointed to see got me too posts though. I would suggest if you get scammed report it here immediately as well as send Herb notification to [email protected], dont be embarrassed to do so. It can happen to the best of us. I have managed to trade here for a lot of years and most of my astrogear was bought via AM without getting burned even once.

I am betting I passed on more than a couple of deals that were actually legit out of caution over the years as well..... If my spidey sense goes off the least bit I insist on a live conversation by phone. Certainly not a cure all but if they are not willing to do so then I am out immediately. If the email being used doesnt match up with their paypal email I nix the deal period right out of the gate as well. Picture searching is your friend as well.....