[Amps] Watch out for a scam by Alex Barski. VE3XAX

[left at rogers.com]

David,

you are dealing with a case of stolen identity. Alex is a respected member of the Ham community in Toronto and a known contester. And I can not recognize the "bluemail.org" email as his that the other person made a reference to in the link you provided. Also, Alex is not 16-20 years old, as you can see on his WEB page

http://www.qsl.net/ve3xax/

Regards,
Ivan
VE3iVM

--- On Wed, 6/15/11, David Kirkby <david.kirkby at onetel.net> wrote:

> From: David Kirkby <david.kirkby at onetel.net>
> Subject: [Amps] Watch out for a scam by Alex Barski. VE3XAX
> To: "amps" <amps at contesting.com>
> Cc: kenwood at mailman.qth.net, "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" <time-nuts at febo.com>, "Yaesu" <Yaesu at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: Wednesday, June 15, 2011, 10:42 AM
> I advertised on eHam.net and qrz.com
> that I was looking for a Kenwood
> AT-230 ATU. I got a reply from someone claiming to be Alex
> Barski from
> Canada with the callsign VE3XAX who has an email address
> of
> ve3xax at blumail.org.
> I've no idea if his real name is that, or if he
> holds that callsign, but I'm suspicious.
> 
> This person offered me the ATU for $220 shipped to my
> house, but there
> were a number of things that make me suspicious this is a
> scam.
> 
> 1) When I checked on QRZ.COM, the address and name did not
> agree with
> the callsign. The only similarity was they were in Canada.
> Today when
> I checked, the information agreed.But yesterday they were
> definitely
> different.
> 
> 2) When I offered to pay via Paypal, I received this:
> 
> "Thanks for the response to my email David but i am sorry i
> don't use
> paypal or bank transfer as means of payment due to the
> instruction
> giving to me by my bank and lawyer but i will entertain any
> other safe
> and reliable mode of payment. Also what is your full
> shipping
> information and we can discuss about the payment over the
> phone, give
> me your number and i will give you a call to talk."
> 
> This immediately made me "smell a rat", but I decided to
> play along
> and gave him my mobile phone number.
> 
> 3) Today he rings me, withholding the number, and says
> Western Union
> would be a safe method of payment.
> 
> I'm rather sorry I did not play him along a lot longer, but
> I told him
> the deal was off. I might email him and say I had second
> thoughts, and
> will string him along for a bit of fun. But basically be
> aware.
> 
> Today I looked on qrz.com and found others have basically
> formed the
> same conclusion of this person
> 
> http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?300792-Fake-VE3XAX-Scam-from-wanted-add
> 
> The strange thing is, the other person reporting the scam
> also played
> along with it. Sometimes these scams can be fun! I think
> I'll play
> along a bit more too.
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