Posts Made By: Ilya Kachkovskiy

Hi All,

I believe this

https://astromart.com/classifieds/astromart-classifieds/telescope-refractor/show/stellarvue-sv115-t-20

is the same person.

They also requested Amazon gift cards, but eventually sent paypal money request. The item was marked as shipped, but no tracking number, no real name and no address on the account.

I have reported them to Paypal. It was an "official" transaction (pay for goods) with specific Astromart ad reference, so I should be protected.

Hopefully not too many people "ordered" this item.

Originally Posted by Ed Rafferty

Do you remember What/who was the user name who posted that Ad? 

In the future, if  anyone in the user group should make a contact with a seller offering goods / or services that appear suspect,  you are welcome to post their user names here, and likewise , take a moment send an email to [email protected]  to let them know as well.  Most recently some members have been successful at identifying and ejecting these frauds who attempt to rip off our community.

Hi Ed,

His name was "Mikayla solov", located in Port Allen, LA (same location as one of the previous scams, according to this thread). He was selling Stellarvue SV115 T-20 triplet (the one in blue casing).

I reported him to [email protected] before my first message, which is probably what had his ad removed.

Paypal was very helpful. At the day of my last message, I submitted a paypal claim (because it became very clear that I'm not getting the item). Normally, there is a certain time before the claim escalates, to give the seller a chance. I called Paypal and explained that they can wait but it should be clear for them by now that this person is a scammer, so it may be safer to close him now (who knows what kind of cash out plan he has). They agreed and escalated, the claim was closed the same day. The guy appealed, and the appeal was denied next day. He tried to add some gibberish as a tracking number.

I've spotted a few similar ads later. I was wondering how they are getting the photos. In both cases, there was an ad for a similar (rare) item. One possibility is that they ask the seller privately for more photos, and make a new fake ad based on them. Anyway, I emailed these thoughts to admins, I clearly do not have enough data to say for sure.