https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs9KlF1nv9E/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1gwfgfk6vi24e


Saw this terrible story and felt it should be shared amongst my watch friends:


“Scam alert!


This is the saddest day of all my watch-loving journey. I was scammed yesterday by a band of thieves. It happened in Milan, Italy. This caused tremendous damage to my morale, it meant a physical risk to me and my wife and it caused a big economic harm too.

This is how they operate:


1. They contact you through Instagram, showing authentic interest in your watches. They make a credible story. “An old man, retired, who lives in Italy, Swiss citizen and is looking to invest”. He even lived in Spain and speaks good Spanish!

2. They build the credibility gradually, through lots of polite calls, messages, anecdotes. Then shows interest on a face to face deal. We negotiate the price at market levels, not a suspicious huge offer, something fair.

3. When the face to face occurs in a convenient city, appears “the son”, telling stories. Very polite, young, smart and good looking. Wants to do the deal in cash only, not wire plus some cash as agreed. With a lot of hurry. The father on the phone, making “banking arrangements” The deal is cancelled by me at this point.

4. But they get back with calls, “I will be there in a moment”, “you check the money, bank note by bank note.” We met at a public place, a hotel, but in private. Two guys appear supposedly the “insurance and transport guys” They show real money (they bring a machine) but distracted me saying “write a note on a paper for each set of bills counted” and swap bills with facsimile bank notes while you are talking or writing, in an envelope they seal in front of you.

5. They almost snatch the watches from you afterwards, saying “Mr good old man” is coming in 5 minutes. All with my wife next to me. The bad feeling can’t be worse I open the envelope later at my hotel, and discover it’s all a terrible scam!! Watch out! Be aware!

PLEASE SHARE!”

 

So in essence, the scam is that they swap the authentic bank notes that you have already counted with fake bank notes?

Think the lesson to be learnt here is that you should not have let the bank notes out of your hand after counting them.

Sorry for your loss, my friend.

 

Sorry for the loss and thank you for telling the story for the benefit of others.

 

sad happened to me once where he swapped the watch for a fake

 

That's insane. Reminds me of this story:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singap...-replaced-with-counterfeit-by-carousell-buyer

Luckily, the perpetrator has been brought to justice.

 

These are variations on the “sleight of hand” trick. The perps use distraction; extra parties showing up, the money machine to count, papers and pens appearing from different sources at table , etc as a ruse to scam. Various new commands given and expected to be obliged....all to aid in the confusion and compliance. Mentally, during the transaction, our desire for a favorable outcome actually aids in this type of theft. Our mind tells us “ it’ll be worth it “; but in the end - you’re robbed. Sad but true. I recently bought a watch for cash in Manhattan, but it was a simple : 1 watch and the sole seller and I in a coffee shop. And I never lost sight of the watch nor allowed the seller to put it away for me. But for professional thiefs, sadly it’s relatively easy ....

 

My advice is take a photo of the person you are doing a face2face with and of their drivers license ( or passport )
Tell them before hand you are going to do that.



I conduct all my watch exchanges on the jumping crocodile cruise in Darwin. I even pay the $30 ticket for them

 

I just saw your instagram post and the watches that went mission. Terribly sorry, you can never be too careful.

 

If I understand this correctly, you're not the person that has been robbed. Thanks for sharing the story, as I feel that it could happen to most of us given the way they operate...
And I'm always saddened by the fact that a lot of these events happen in Italy...

 

I would say that one huge red flag when it comes to scams, in general, is the fact that way too many unusual things start happening around you or the initial plan keeps changing. (someone else shows up for the deal, more people show, the deal has to take place somewhere else for various reasons, etc.)

 

I'm not dealing with you! I'd be terrified you'd take hold of the watch and then shove me in

 

Never loose your watch or money out of sight during a deal of that amount of money

 

“They contact you through Instagram, showing authentic interest in your watches. They make a credible story. “An old man, retired, who lives in Italy, Swiss citizen and is looking to invest”. He even lived in Spain and speaks good Spanish!”

Authentic interest through Instagram?

Well that’s a great big red flag right there.

 

Something fishy about this. I have never

You missed the taking the wife for backup

 

Indeed.
I’m not the person who was taken here but follow them on Instagram so wanted to share the story.

 

That looks like £50,000 worth of watches. Cash deal with strangers and they had the real money to swap out? Very strange.

 

Isn’t justice in Singapore being whipped with bamboo like 100 times? lol

 

Thanks for sharing. A precaution i take with some FTF deals is to do it in my bank's lobby. I would arrive early, make a transaction to establish that I m a customer, let the teller/manager know that I am meeting someone later in the waiting area. Rest assured that everyone that goes in and out of there is recorded.

 

The whole story doesn’t make sense.