After a week of back and forth, my communication finally ended with the "seller" LitecoinCreep for an L3+ that was offered here.
Deposit of $400 was made, and is now lost:
https://insight.litecore.io/tx/8f93b180754621f49cb2db9b9fd91749fc551a9c80dc7fda9c99cd492df8e349Mullen490 was similarly stolen from - he will prepare his own reply to this to inform everyone. Negative trust feedback has been left here for this seller, but I wanted to make sure there was a public thread here as well, because at least two of us were stolen from here, and likely the seller think there's more to be made.
Yes, escrow is, of course, the preferable way to do business here for obvious reasons, but from time to time with what I consider to be reasonable amounts of coin, I'll make the jump and try to get a deal done with someone who seems to be above board. The signs were all over the original post - there was even a picture taken of a rig with the proper signage on it that was presented as proof of ownership - this obviously counts for nothing and should be ignored.
If you desire a complete doxxing, with names, addresses. phone numbers and complete text message threads, please contact me via PM. Long story short, I will not be making any further deals here without escrow from now on. I've learned to trust no one, even my brothers here, regrettably.
Thanks,
r00tdude
P.S. I know there will be people here that choose to troll me for being gullible or otherwise loose with my coin. I accept that I should have done differently, I don't need you to pile on the scorn and ridicule - I feel badly enough about it as it is. I'm writing this publicly so others who have a thought to proceed without escrow think twice about it as I will from now on.