Pwned by Scammer

So in my last blog, I mentioned that I was trying to pwn some scalper on Craigs List offering $100 a piece for Hawks playoff tickets. I regrettably followed up on it. The person by the name of "John Taylor" said that he was from the UK but was trying to sell them for his boss who lives in the U.S. but would not be able to attend the game.

*********WARNING SIGN #1**********

I told him that I would like to meet up with him to verify that the tickets were legitimate. He told me that he and his boss would not be able to meet me on short notice (I first got in contact with him on Monday before the Saturday game)

*********WARNING SIGN #2**********

He said that we would do the transaction through a company called Square Trade, who would act as a 3rd party in the transaction

*********WARNING SIGN #3**********

I gave him my information and he "CONTACTED SQUARE TRADE". Square Trade then contacted me with a very official-looking e-mail saying that I would need to go to a Western Union location and transfer John Taylor $400. I would then contact "SQUARE TRADE" with all of the WU information. They would then contact "John Taylor" telling him that I had made the transaction. JT would then ship the "tickets".

I decided to go to the Square Trade website to see if it was legitimate. I looked at it briefly after realizing that it was an actual company (should have looked at what this company actually did *DOH*)

Needless to say, the next day I went and pissed away $432 at Western Union.

The following day, when the tickets were supposed to arrive, I went to Square Trade's website and realized that they only offered warranties on online purchases. I then called them, and they said that they do not act as a 3rd party in online transactions. I then went to google and typed in Square Trade, and many sites came up talking about how people use "Square Trade" as a way to scam people.

To make things worse, the same day that I realized I was stuck $432, I received a PC phone that I bought on ebay. When I tried to activate it with Qwest, they said that the phone could not be activated because the previous owner had an outstanding balance of over $1,000.

I then began to go over the last 10 years of my life to figure out a reason why I could get screwed so bad TWICE in basically one day, lol.

I didn't come up with anything, but I did get reimbursed for the phone, which was okay. FYI Ebay > Craig's List.

I have learned my lesson now, albeit the hard way, and will never again just transfer some random person $400 because I think they are stupid enough to sell tickets worth about $600 a piece for $100.
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Poker-wise, not a lot has happened since my $6k tourney. I took a couple of days off after I had been playing too much and had started to get sloppy. That helped quite a bit, and I am starting to play up to 6 $20 sng's at a time with profitable results.

I played in 9 sng's yesterday with the following results:

-1 9th place finish
-1 4th place finish
-1 3rd place finish
-4 2nd place finishes
-2 1st place finishes

9 sng's: $198
Return: $480
Profit: $282

Pretty good day. I ran really bad heads up, so I'm not too worried about my 4 2nd place finishes.

That being said, I am already in 4 sng's, so got to run.

God bless,

JG




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