blowout cards and 23K scammed

[Bikeage77]

I just spent my entire lunch break reading this. Turbo, I know you've run into a few hard times with Craigslist, hopefully this will help you feel better as your losses were pretty minimal....

 

It starts here with four pages of great deals:

http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/football-singles-buy-sell-trade/412097-great-mood-holiday-lots-part-ii-10.html

 

And then 55 pages of chaos continues here:

http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/member-sales-trade-feedback/415488-haiku-suspended-rumors-massive-scam-emerge.html

 

WOW.

[Bikeage77]

Here's the basic backstory I got from the Collectors Universe board:

 

The scam artist:

1. Joined the BO forum June of 2012

2. Gave out free codes, Topps I assume, in July and August.

3. Buys a few 2 figure items in September (People leave feedback)

4. Buys a few 3 figure items in October (People leave feedback saying he's the best)

5. Gives out 2 and 3 figure items out for free or very cheap in November (People say he's the second coming of Tim Tebow)

 

So by this time he's known for having a very high end collection, a lot of money and is the most trusted person on BO forum (Take it he's been on the forum for less than 6 months)

In November he may have given out $1000 in free/reduced cards.

 

6. Sells 4 figure lots to people in December and for some reason people are sending this guy 3 figure and 4 figure amounts for "mystery" lots.......apparently almost $20,000......

 

7. He disappears

[Hitman_Hart]

That is insane. I can't believe the kind of money people were throwing around in that thread.

[TURBO]

Yeah, must be nice to have that kind of money to throw around...

 

I only had one issue on craigslist, but it sure taught me a good lesson, I don't trust people like I used to, so I have probably also lost some good deals because I'm just not willing to trust people anymore. On the flipside, I may have saved myself from being scammed again as well...

 

I would never do business with the scammer from Mukwonago again, that is for sure...

 

(If anyone wants his name and address, PM me, I'd hate for that to happen to anyone else from this board)

[Outlander]

Browsed through the forum and it is crazy people were willing to blindly pay this guy for card lots.

[BradWI]

The forum on Blowout is full of unintelligent, gullible kids. That board used to be very useful 5+ years ago, but then their retail business exploded, they did all these contests to attract the lowest common denominator of collector so they could make big $ from all the eBay affiliate links on the forum (which actually makes up a large part of their business believe it or not) and so these days the board is only useful for the occasional drama such as this. Most of the veterans moved elsewhere.

 

The powers that be pretty much take a hands-off approach to the site. They let the board police itself - there are only 2 moderators I believe. And so with no real oversight, things like this happen and for some reason people are surprised.