Topic: [WTS] RX580 1080Ti - Brand new (Read 1880 times)

Originally I was skeptical of you, because of your very convenient timing for entering into this entire situation on the forums. I did not know what to make of this new user claiming to be a partner with all of the connections and verification that they did. In the future I would run any sort of ideas like this in the future by somebody else or multiple people to see if they can poke holes in the idea. Critical thinking is necessary to not be taken advantage of or preyed upon by psychopaths and diligent scammers. They will try to work you over at some point in your life and let this be a lesson that sometimes optimism isn't the best path for your thinking. Do not feel ashamed, as it happens to the best of us, only allow this to improve yourself moving forward. You've acted very forthrightly during this entire process from the beginning. I have no reason to doubt anything you've said up to this point. I have a feeling that Cliff will pop up again and try to explain this way and get everyone on the hook for more time and money, do not let this happen and contact the relevant authorities.

You've done everything I can imagine to make this right from your end, saved a few people a lot of headaches by doing the right thing. I wish this business venture would've worked out better for you, and everyone else that was trying to purchase gear. This happened to someone that I knew back in the day and Paypal had no mercy, but they were unable to make payments after being scammed for thousands of dollars. Paypal tried to send it to a collections company and pursue legal action, but in the end the debt was dropped without incident. They were reasonable in the end upon realizing payment could not be made in any capacity. I do not know your personal situation, but this is my only anecdote relevant to this type of situation.

Not sure if this is the guy or the scammer pretend to be this guy, but there's a cliff chang with the same profile info as on upwork who works for Alpha CRC as a translator. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliff-chang-13760822/

I suggest report to all authorities; local police, econsumer.gov, ic3.gov for us citizens and give whatever info about the guy.

One thing I’ve taken from this ordeal and actually applied to another scammer on here is never pay to a third parties PayPal account. Goldminer666 just tried the same thing. I always refuse now, not worth the hassle and possible setup to default someone else’s PayPal account.

OP’s partner has been nothing but forthright in my dealings with him and did issue refund once we were pretty sure it was a scam. Funds are scheduled to return to me tomorrow. Sorry it had to go down like that and that you got the short end of the stick. At least he did take some payments as well and has refused to take action so his account will likely be banned and we’ll still get the money back.

It's now March 7, and none of the EMS tracking numbers that I know of work.

Time has proven that I have been scammed by OP, a person I worked with extensively for 8 months, who either (1) planned an extensive long-con from the beginning or (2) he decided to destroy me just within the last month - I'm not sure which is worse, but 1 of those is true.

kebabman and quick1unc can verify that I proactively issued refunds on PayPal 3 days ago, as it had become clear that I had been scammed because OP had stopped replying.

I'm an idiot and I'm ashamed that I was fooled by someone I thought I knew.
And I'm ashamed that I played an unknowing role in dragging anyone else into this, and I ask for your forgiveness.

For my part, I have done all actions necessary to return everyone's money who sent it through me. I do not know how many other orders went through OP's PayPal (and I did not even know he was accepting orders outside of me when this all began), but I know quick1unc has filed a claim against OP's PayPal, and it would probably be wise for anyone else to do the same.

I will spend the next 6-24 months trying to figure out how to pay off my negative account balance.

I have no parting thought other than to say, I was wrong. You all were right. I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. I'm royally and irrevocably screwed.

At this point it almost doesn't matter whether they intend to send the cards or not. If you tell your customers that you are going to ship it on a certain date, then do not ship it and provide no contact or explanation then nobody is going to want to deal with you.

They were speaking fine until there was cause for concern and they had thousands of dollars in their hand. Then suddenly they disappear, leaving their partner holding the bag. If OP had explained how long the shipping process would take this would not be happening, however now it just feels as though they are explaining things away as we go along.

I'm still waiting for a response from the seller, or any solid evidence of a shipment. I hope your partner is not scamming you and everyone else, as you said you will know one way or the other by March 7th.

I can confirm that I received a pic in front of a bank with a handwritten note saying he was getting cash for the cards.
Appeared to be bank of Taiwan

This is good information. It increases my scam concerns. However I can confirm that he does not use either E.Sun or CitiBank. quick1inc can confirm he has seen a picture the OP took outside the bank where he picked up funds, and it is neither of these.

I can speculate that OP would want to avoid E.Sun's 2.5% withdrawal fee to keep his margins, but that's just speculation. OP has never said why he uses a different bank.

Here you go from paypal itself. Both USD and TWD transfer with E.SUN Bank no problems that many people in Taiwan use with paypal.
https://www.paypal.com/tw/webapps/mpp/withdrawal-process?locale.x=en_TW

Although it's true transferring TWD to other bank in Taiwan will be a problem, there's is no problem with USD. There are lots of international banks such as Citi Bank in Taiwan that will accept the USD and convert it to TWD. So again, paypal in Taiwan has options so it isn't much of a problem.

I'll try to address some of the recent comments in this post.

First I'll reiterate:

1. If it's a scam, I'm facing the transactional consequences via PayPal and not you.
2. Presently, I think that it's not a scam based on my past experience with OP, but the timeline for determining the truth may be more like 21 days than 5-7 based on BCT user unc0nnected's experience. Because unc0nnected's EMS tracking began working 14 days after payment, and based on current open orders, I would probably agree that I am being scammed on March 7 (14 days after transaction) if no one's EMS tracking is working.

Since my last post the following points were raised:

soothaa (paraphrased) - This is useless evidence. Pics with proof of old account and I'd send money.

- "I'd send money" - Let's get this out of the way first. Even if you offered it, I would not take anyone's money presently. I would instantly refund it. Taking it would only elevate my risk.
- I would wholeheartedly agree that my words do not serve as evidence. The purpose, at least in my mind, to talk here is not to provide evidentiary claims. It's providing context to help you decide if a scam is occuring since I have more insight into this and am, in fact, the potential scam target.
- The same unconvincing pics that exist in the thread already - are, for the most part, the same pics I have. I have
1. 1 picture quick1unc didn't post for privacy reasons I imagine, but are equally imperfect in regards to proof of purchase.
2. 1 screenshot quick1unc sent me showing unc0nnected's EMS tracking from Taiwan's Airport to Canada that demonstrated tracking does not include in-country travel, only travel after Airport Customs
3. Some screenshots from the OP of tracking info from the Canadian Post to unc0nnected's house, but I doubt those would rise to the level of proof without doxing unc0nnected.

In my estimation, I do not have sufficiently convincing pics of products that could resolve all doubt that I am being scammed.

Only an extended timeline will tell with any certainty if I am being scammed at this point.  If there are specific claims (perhaps outlined?) and correlating evidence you think would prove those claims without a shadow of a doubt, I'll try to think if I have a method available to me to substantiate it, but I don't think I do.
- I do not have an old account. Certainly casts doubt on my statements, but hopefully quick1unc and kebabman can vouch for the fact that I am at least the same human who took their money based on our Skype conversations.

looperjack (paraphrased) - I know Taiwanese who use PayPal to withdraw to their bank accounts just fine. Scammers use other people's PayPal accounts - you should have known better. Lack of receipts is disobeying the law and a poor excuse for lack of evidence. His English is fine and he shouldn't be afraid of coming on here to talk.

- It's possible that Taiwanese do use PayPal to withdraw to TWD bank accounts. My experience is limited to Google searches on the topic, OP's claims in the context of a trustworthy capacity from June - December 2017, and PayPal's statement about the subject. If you could demonstrate that it is true that when you pay Taiwanese PayPal users, they often and easily can withdraw this money directly to a TWD bank account, it goes counter to what I understand about PayPal's statement, BUT if it's true, it would tilt my opinion more toward "I'm probably being scammed."
- While it's true that scammers use other people's PayPal accounts, I didn't have reason to believe I was part of a long con. Although, if I'm wrong and I'm being conned, I will adjust my tolerance for risk and suspicion accordingly going forward.
- I think it's fair to say that judging someone's skill at anything like English is a subjective task. In my estimation, the OP is correct that his level of English skill, given the lack of good pictures and the non-functioning EMS tracking, probably increases the community's suspicion that I am being scammed.


bill gator (paraphrased) - You should post proof of everything you're doing in the Scam Accusation thread. OP's lack of response is bad for his claims of interest in long-term business. OP's English level is fine and ridiculous desperate excuse. We need to packages, shipping numbers, better response.

- I'll admit I'm new here so I'm not sure what a Scam Accusation thread is (although quick1unc pointed it out to me), but I assume the purpose is to call into question a user's claims for the purpose of preventing them from doing more deals. First, I fully expect that if these deals go south, my account should be burned and this thread is sufficient to call the OP's claims into question.

Second, if this is a scam, since I am the one being scammed (from a transactional perspective), I'm not sure what proof would be sufficient to substantiate that I'm being scammed. Nor do I see what the value would be in proving that I am being scammed? Since I am not convinced of it yet myself, and have arbitrarily set my own persuasion evidence as EMS tracking on March 7, I cannot think of types of evidence that would reverse the claim that I, ATRD, am being scammed. I can say that on March 7, I will say I think I am being scammed if there's no EMS tracking.

Essentially, buyers are risking an amount they are willing to pay for cards, for up to 20 days (PayPal resolution dispute timeframe), to see if the OP turns around goods, and at the end of that time, the financial risk drops to $0. The question is, "Is OP stealing money from ATRD by passing money though his PayPal account and then not delivering goods?" While lack of pictures within the first 14 days casts doubt on OP's claims, it corresponds with unc0nnected's positive experience from what I can tell. The only 100% reliable method I can think of to answer, "Is OP lying to steal money from ATRD" is to wait until 14 days pass and see if by that time the EMS tracking is working. That would be roughly March 7. If it's not, then I'm screwed.
- I agree OP's lack of response is not good for long-term business. And yet, to the contrary, if people end up receiving packages, it would, at least in my subjective view as a buyer, set the foundation for people knowing that his customer service may be bad, but his products are good. This silence approach is not at all what I would do. In any case, unresponsiveness is not a perfect litmus test to determine a scam, though admittedly, often correlated.
- OP's English level is a subjectively determined metric. In my estimation, it may be good enough for conversation, but in the context of explaining a problem rife with cultural differences, poor English + poor customer service often acts as a variable to increase the expectation of fraud. While I have told him to jump in on the conversation anyway, he won't and says he'll wait till people get packages. Nothing I can do about that.
- I agree that all of our guesses about whether the OP is scamming me would be aided by better evidence.


crypto_curious - "Your mate sold me hardware, gave me false tracking number. I opened claim on PayPal and I will have my money back, I don't need to speak with you or to seller anymore, you are both burned and you can go away at this point."

- I'd feel the same way. We will learn soon enough (my guess is March 7) if the tracking number is not legit and then we will both discover if I have been scammed. I'm not attempting to save face here - I'm simply doing my best to provide context to this thread, and yes, absolutely my account should be burned if this is a scam.

Miscellaneous

While not a statement of evidence of any kind whatsoever, to attempt to clear my own head about the OP's claims, I spoke with friends who have lived in Taiwan recently and they indicated 2 weeks is not an unheard of amount of time between when a shipment arrives at a local post office until when it arrives at airport customs where EMS begins working.  This corresponds with unc0nnected's experience.

If anyone with experience living and working in Taiwan could provide evidence that this claim is false (perhaps a series of EMS tracking screenshots that show in-country transit notifications, and perhaps examples of similar shipments that moved much more quickly), that would also begin to convince me that this is a scam.

The screenshots quick1unc showed me from unc0nnected's EMS tracking indicate that EMS tracking numbers do not show transit notifications between local post office and airport customs.

One admitted problem I see presently is that the shipments, if they are occurring, are later than agreed to - they should begin to appear in EMS March 7. This is rather late. But not anything I can control as far as I can tell.

Cultural observation from which no conclusions can be drawn: Every Taiwanese American (whether American born or Taiwanese born) I spoke to whom I've known personally IRL told me to "Relax, it's probably still on the way." Nearly everyone else told me to panic.

To this partner/reseller whoever you are:

Your mate sold me hardware, gave me false tracking number. I opened claim on PayPal and I will have my money back, I don't need to speak with you or to seller anymore, you are both burned and you can go away at this point.

Since you are OP's partner and are handling the funds and what not, then you should have no problem hopping into the Scam Accusation thread and posting proof of everything you are doing. Proof of payments, explanations, chat-logs with OP, anything that would be tangible as evidence or proof of legitimacy.

OP must realize that by not responding within their own sales thread, which they were doing fine right up until orders started being placed then they are not going to have a successful transaction or long-term business. Refusing to respond to customers that have paid you and haven't received a package or valid tracking number is only going to result in lost time and refunds.

ATRD, Steamtyme, looperjack and anyone else involved should say their piece in the Accusation thread. OP's English is fine, the excuses are getting more and more ridiculous and desperate. We really need to see some packages, valid shipping numbers and better customer service response if you want any chance of this taking off.

If I get a chance this evening I'll post what inhale to the accusation thread

Nothing you said holds any water.


What does that have to do with anything? I know many in Taiwan who use paypal, withdraw to their bank account, and get cash no problem. If OP has a problem then it's because paypal's algorithm suspects him of being a scammer and will hold the money.


Scammers use other people's account to do their dirty work. The fact he's used your account instead of his own should have raised a big red flag.


Again, what does that have to do with anything? Because other people are disobeying the law, he helps them with it? Everybody knows when dealing with online shipping and such, people want receipt, tracking, and any other info. Nothing but poor excuses.


BULLSHIT!! Read any of his post and you'll see there's no problem with English. His upwork profile even had him as 1st in the English test while many other top translators are around the 95% range.

He's working the same scam he did on upwork before he got banned for scamming. Full fill small orders to seem legit, than run away with the big orders.

So far all of this is useless evidence I could cook up with an hour of work.

Let's get pics with proof from a decently old account here, then I'll send you $$$.

Hi, everyone. I'm the OP's partner. This is going to be a long post to try to give you insight into what I know.

I have no history on the forum, so you'll have to ask quick1unc and kebabman to verify I'm the person they talked to on Skype after they filed their PayPal claims.

So if I were in your shoes, I'd want some peace about this situation, and OP is... well... he's bad at communicating. Consistently anyway. Which is bad. Not necessarily scammy, but it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. And my experience with him is that he's overly optimistic on delivery times, which has probably entered into this equation.

2 things I want to say before I give some history:

1. If this is a scam, I'm the mark and not you. Why? It's my PayPal account/balance at risk. If you're one of the 3 open orders that paid me and everything goes south, you're actually still in good shape from a transaction perspective. PayPal will refund you. Downside is PayPal is slow. Upside, you get your money back. So, we'll all see what happens and I'll be really sorry for all of us if this goes haywire.

2. Presently, I believe you'll get the cards, but based on the timeline from the one verified completed purchase with BCT user unc0nnected, it may take up to 3 weeks to arrive. (Ask quick1unc to verify he spoke with him on Skype. For what it's worth, I believe that transaction to be 100% legit. More about that toward the bottom.)

So let me back up and tell you what I know. Some of this will be unrelated to GPU cards, and my estimated dates might be a little off, but I want to give you context.

I've worked with kii552007_alt for about 8 months. Talked with him almost everyday. I know him by his English first name + Chinese last name. I've talked to him on Skype, both chat and face-to-face.

I first met him via UpWork around June 2017 where I ordered some anime style art from his anime/manga art studio. First a few small orders, then larger ones, then bigger multi-thousand dollar deals. All these bigger deals were direct - not via UpWork/PayPal or any escrow system. During all of these deals, he was incorrigibly honest. We agreed in advance on prices, deadlines, discounts, reimbursements, etc - and we always honored our agreements with each other down to a penny. Two times stand out as worth mentioning regarding his character when things didn't go well - once I wasn't satisfied with the quality of one of the pieces of artwork, and he personally paid a different artist to do a better version - basically delivering 2 things for the price of one. Another time we had a big deal paid upfront where he couldn't complete it, so he paid me back a huge chunk for the uncompleted portion. That was actually the conclusion of my art deal with the OP as I had hired an in-house artist at that point.

Around late January, I'd already been researching other current commercial trends like dropshipping or private labeling goods from China. OP approached me to ask if I'd have any interest in dropshipping GPUs. At this point the only thing I knew was: (1) the OP had proven himself trustworthy (2) GPU sales could be a good opportunity

So I took the risk of acting as a dropshipper for the OP for a few test orders for a fairly small margin.

The question you should ask is, "Why did you think OP would want you as a middleman when he could just sell direct?"

Based on our previously dealings, I knew there is an issue with PayPal and Taiwan.
https://www.paypal.com/tw/webapps/mpp/system-enhancement-faq?locale.x=en_TW

Since September 15, 2015, Taiwanese citizens can have a PayPal account in order to take international payments, BUT they can't use its balance to trade with people inside the country. So this presented a problem for OP. Buyers typically either want escrow or PayPal for protection, but he can't do escrow because he doesn't have capital, so that leaves PayPal. Distributors within Taiwan want cash. So how can he go from PayPal to TWD? He can't trade it for cash with anyone inside the country. But the other bigger problem is that PayPal will often hold the money Taiwanese receive seemingly at random for 10+ days, and from my experience attempting to use PayPal with OP, at a much higher percentage likelihood than citizens of other countries. (Although, admiteddly, that could be sample size n=1 issue.)

So by acting as a non-stocking retailer, I could take the payment as PayPal and send it to him in some other way. The end goal was to do a few orders this way to see how things went, then switch to a more traditional importer approach in which I'd buy inventory and sell from the US.

I sent 5 invoices for orders.
1 invoice was paid but was instantly withheld by PayPal, possibly because the buyer had an unconfirmed address, but I'm not sure. Rather than attempt to resolve this issue, I refunded them in full.
1 invoice never paid so I proactively cancelled the invoice.
3 invoices paid and I used those funds to pay OP to purchase cards and send them on (regardless of what happens next, they'll get their money back, but yes OP literally received that money)

By the time I sent invoices, OP had already been talking with at least 1 person and arranged a small order
The one happy buyer I know of is BCT user unc0nnected, who I also think is his first buyer. I've spoken with him on Skype. quick1unc has spoken with him. As much as anyone can ever know anything about a person, he seems legit, and his story checks out with screenshots I've seen from OP's phone of shipping notifications.
- He paid OP on Feb 5 for an RX580.
- OP says he managed to get the RX580 to the local post office on Feb 10, just before Chinese New Year
- OP gave unc0nnected the EMS number on the date it hit Customs on Feb 21. unc0nnected says the tracking number immediately worked on this date.
- unc0nnected received the package Feb 26 and is happy with it.

I think I saw someone have a question about receipts.
Google: "Uniform Invoice lottery"
In Taiwan, it seems to be, that businesses will sometimes give you a discount if you choose not to get a receipt, essentially helping them dodge sales tax. They've attempted to fight this problem by turning receipts into lottery tickets, but OP is obliging his suppliers by not taking the receipts.

The only thing I can think of now, is that there's hope in unc0nnected's story. There is a disconnect in Taiwan between the mailed date, and the date that the EMS number works. While a shipper could pay EMS extra to track both inside Taiwan and Internationally, my understanding is that OP arranged it so only the international portion of the trip would have tracking.

At best, it takes awhile to arrive.
At worst, you get your money back, and I'm screwed.

I'm in contact with OP as recently as a few hours ago.

Why isn't he talking on here?

According to him, he feels that his limited English is not helping with making people feel more safe about this transaction, and instead, simply adds fuel to making them distrust him more. And he feels like the proof will be when packages arrive in the mail and everyone is happy from his actions and not his words.

I have more to lose than anyone, but I think it will all check out in the end. We'll see soon enough.

https://imgur.com/a/bg23S
https://imgur.com/a/jjaCS

It was accompanied by a short vid of the cards with a paper timestamp with his name and mine.

The OP’s partner has been speaking with me today as well as the OP himself. The OP made a quick vid of my cards but it didn’t prove they were shipped. Just showed the cards and an EMS label.

The partner directed me to the OP of that other thread via Skype. Upon talking to him he told me that he had paid for a card the first week of Feb and receive led it on the 26th. I asked the buyer if he came across the seller on bitcointalk and he said yes. Apparently he had a thread looking for a card and the seller contacted him and he ended up buying a rx 580 to be shipped to Canada. The buyer don’t have a link to his thread but gave me his username so I searched until I found his thread.

Like I said, take all of the above with a grain of salt. Nothing can be proved one way or another until something shows up. I too have opened a claim, if the cards show up then I’ll drop the claim. Seller seems to have access to cards at least from the time stamped photos he sent me at his stores with cards. Will keep this thread updated if anything changes.

Thank you very much,  hopefully this will encourage more users to do the same. If this user is legitimate, I'm just looking for an explanation; if this user is scamming, which I believe to be the case, then I'd like to get this resolved to prevent anything more from happening.


How did you come into contact with this user? I can't see anything that is linking this user and OP. Did they message you or did you message them first, and either way how did you know to do so? I'd like if we could gather our complaints/vouches in one place to sort this out.


You should post your experience with proofs in the scam accusation thread, this would be very helpful in getting things rolling. His attempt at your funds is a very significant piece of the puzzle.

Post with evidence added to scam accusation thread.

So I spoke with the guy below via Skype who said he bought a rx 580 and received it. He said the seller messaged him directly after seeing his thread and he ended up buying an rx 580 and received it already. Take it with a grain of salt.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/wtb-2x-1080-ti-liquid-cooled-evga-hybrid-corsair-hydro-msi-seahawk-etc-2853996