Recently Scammed by Seller on BimmerPost and how to Prevent it

[supremexlonly]

Hello!

So I have been trying to be active on BimmerPost as I enjoy our BMW's we drive, work on, or want. As some like to modify and upgrade (like myself), there are times we buy from big companies, manufacturers, or even other peers which we hope is good, but I had sadly experienced a scammer.

They had approached me on my last classified listing for the Frequency Intelligent Exhaust which there number (815-556-9722) had the exhaust I wanted which pictures were pretty authentic and seemed valid. When I had asked them on payment, they wanted originally Venmo and Zelle. If you do end up paying on Venmo, ALWAYS MAKE SURE TO GET PAYMENT PROTECTION. They had issues first of all paying. The username of the seller was @Molsa89 who was flagged after. (goes by Timothy Wareham on Venmo.

From what Venmo allowed me to pay, they had me pay the following usernames on Venmo:

@Viola-Martin-52
@Timothy-Wareham-2

I had a feeling, but with protection from Venmo, I was able to still get the purchase protection. Sadly, what I wanted, I still needed to pay a remainder which went through Paypal.

When I had provided the email to have the request sent, I had noticed it was for "Friends and Family". This is a red flag for any new PayPal user. MAKE SURE TO ALWAYS REQUEST AND INVOICE OR TO USE A CREDIT CARD AND NEVER BALANCE FOR THESE TRANSACTIONS. The seller then used another "colleague" under Kevin Heidrick who is more than likely, an affiliate of this scam ring they have going on.

After they received the payment, I was awaiting the tracking number which they provided, however, they had listed from their shipping location from a non-existent address 2657 SKINNER HOLLOW ROAD.. the closest I can find for a shroom seller lol.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS CHECK THE ADDRESS OF WHERE IT IS BEING SHIPPED FROM TO ASSURE YOU HAVE A PLACE/BUSINESS TO VERIFY YOUR SELLER.

I am currently going thru our claims with both Venmo and PayPal , but my words of advice to everyone:

Make sure to always get payment protection from the payment processing company (invoiced on PayPal, Purchase Protection on Venmo)
Verify your seller's address when provided the label/receipt
Check the username of the seller to see the posts they are in and to determine if they are a reputable source for your item
If they are persistent on Zelle or Friends and Family, they are trying to avoid any protection coverage for you as a buyer
If you do end up deciding on going thru with that seller, but they cannot accept the payment or there are issues where they have you try to pay multiple outlets, it is more than likely that their account on PayPal or Venmo has had issues prior which is limited access
Always try to pay with a Credit Card for protection

I hope that this post will prevent any other potential buyers from wasting time and more importantly to not lose your money to scammers. We get caught up all the time about our wants, that sometimes, we need to analyze the situation and see if the seller is authentic or not. Thank you again, and hope this helps everyone for future purchases.

[mwat]

Good info here.

I implore all people to not send large sums of money to strangers online without doing an AMPLE amount of research on payment methods etc.

You can be scammed using all of the methods you described, it really just depends. Nothing short of cash for an item you can physically inspect in front of you is fool proof -- and even then, maybe it's a replica part etc?

There's always a risk when making a purchase from someone online, even if you've done everything to mitigate it.

[86scirocco16v]

That scammer is at it again...just contacted out of the blue by this guy. Brand new member, I never reached out to or replied to any of their posts.
When I searched the forums using their number, I came across your post and a bunch of others with the same phone number but under different user names.