kii552007_alt Computer Hardware Scammer

[kebabman]

First email I got from OP was jigakiya@gmail.com the second payment through the partner was to ajwinn@gmail.com

ajwinn@gmail.com is the email I got the PayPal invoice from and paid the fund for the order to.

[bill gator]

I will note that the paypal name appeared as Cliffstudio and the email was cliffstudiotw@gmail.com

First email I got from OP was jigakiya@gmail.com the second payment through the partner was to ajwinn@gmail.com

ajwinn@gmail.com is the email I got the PayPal invoice from and paid the fund for the order to.

Alright, well it seems that within a very short period we have expanded from two Paypals, to three. I'm wondering if the scammer was considering just using multiple Paypal's to conduct their scams, until they realized it would be easier to have a single partner. This could be why there are multiple emails, but the one email certainly stands out as the outlier (jigakiya@gmail.com). This payment email doesn't seem to be linked anywhere else as far as I can tell. Are there any other payment emails used? Multiple payment emails definitely isn't a good sign.

Has anyone's tracking numbers updated? Has the partner heard from the scammer yet? Are there any reports of anyone actually receiving their gear?

[alia]

Cliff has not replied to the report on PayPal nor has he responded to my Skype messages. There is a good chance he is in a place with no Internet, or dead.

[crypto_curious]

Cliff has not replied to the report on PayPal nor has he responded to my Skype messages. There is a good chance he is in a place with no Internet, or dead.

Same here. He's got time until 8 March to respond, they PayPal will step in and soon after I will have my money back.

[kebabman]

OP's partner refunded my $3500 today, said he hasn't been able to contact the OP (Cliff) for several days and now believed it was a scam. Refund is in pending status currently.

[bill gator]

Cliff has not replied to the report on PayPal nor has he responded to my Skype messages. There is a good chance he is in a place with no Internet, or dead.

I doubt it is either of the two, but it is more likely the latter. With the way they are attempting scams at large sums of money I wouldn't be surprised if he was on many people's bad-side. They probably realize their scheme is falling apart, the partner is refunding payments or witholding forwarding funds, etc. It might be the case that the scammer got a little bit of money in their bank account and they found this as their time to exit and disappear. I feel bad that the partner is on the hook for this nonsense, but hopefully it gets handled reasonably well.

OP's partner refunded my $3500 today, said he hasn't been able to contact the OP (Cliff) for several days and now believed it was a scam. Refund is in pending status currently.

That gives me a lot of faith that the partner isn't in on the nonsense. If this is the case I would expect to see everyone that sent funds to the partner to get their money refunded shortly, especially if they get in contact with them. Where have you been discussing things with the partner? Others may be interested in this information if they have payments sent out and are unaware of how to proceed towards their refund. You would think that if the partner was involved with the scam that $3500 would be too much for them to simply refund and pass up.

[aurizz]

had business with this guy,
 he sent me photos of GPUs with date and his nick that i want to buy. i made payment to his partner and next day he refunded me all money. cant contact him....
thats 100percent scam. thank god i made payments with paypal.

[quick1unc]

The partner put my refund in today and is pending until Thursday. I still have a pending claim for the OP that is due to finish on Thursday as well. So I should have all money returned by Friday. I’ve maintained comms with the partner through the duration of this and it does seem like he was duped and in the end will be the one taking the loss on this whole deal.

OP has not responded to anyone and neither of my two tracking numbers have worked still.

[bill gator]

Okay, well it seems like this is moving in a more positive direction than it possibly could have. I'm happy to see that people are getting refunds and aren't having too much of a tough time.
At this point is there anyone that hasn't gotten their refund at least begun? In terms of processing, or pending.

[alia]

Okay, well it seems like this is moving in a more positive direction than it possibly could have. I'm happy to see that people are getting refunds and aren't having too much of a tough time.
At this point is there anyone that hasn't gotten their refund at least begun? In terms of processing, or pending.

Me. No refund for me. But, I think it's because I sent it directly to Cliff and not the partner's paypal

[bill gator]

Me. No refund for me. But, I think it's because I sent it directly to Cliff and not the partner's paypal

That was one of the things I was interested in confirming. I was assuming it would probably be the case that anybody that sent their funds to the scammer directly will have to begin the dispute process themselves. I have no doubt the disputes are piling up more each day, but I do not believe your funds are in danger. Anyone who is in a similar boat, hang tight through the Paypal dispute process and your funds should be safe. Do not agree to cancel the dispute if Cliff contacts you and promises to refund or ship your card if you cancel the dispute. Do not play any games that they might be interested in playing.

Now, has there been anyone that has sent funds to the partner and have not had their refund process started?

[quick1unc]

I have a pending claim with OP and they have him till tomorrow to respond or it auto wins to me. Of course he won’t respond so I’ll have the money back shortly. If you paid OP and don’t have an full claim in, do it now and don’t waste anymore time.

[bill gator]

I have a pending claim with OP and they have him till tomorrow to respond or it auto wins to me. Of course he won’t respond so I’ll have the money back shortly. If you paid OP and don’t have an full claim in, do it now and don’t waste anymore time.

When you say "of course he won't respond" I am curious why he wouldn't even bother to fight it. I'm wondering if the scammer believes this gives them deniability for them to pop up again later and claim they were unable to access the internet or send out shipments for some other obscure reason. Has the scammer responded to any of the claims being disputed? I believe someone talked about them threatening people earlier about disputes, but I am wondering if the scammer ever responded on Paypal to these disputes even after making threats and contact. This would show a pattern of absence without good reason and give us a better understanding of what exactly is going on. For sure file your claims now, get your refunds over with, I called this from the beginning and there is no doubt in my mind at this point.

[kebabman]

Unfortunately just got this email from PayPal.

An eCheck payment from partners name removed was declined by the sender's bank. We will automatically try to process this payment again in 3 business days. It then usually takes 3-5 days for the money to be deposited into your account. Please do not ship items until you receive payment.

[bill gator]

Unfortunately just got this email from PayPal.

An eCheck payment from partners name removed was declined by the sender's bank. We will automatically try to process this payment again in 3 business days. It then usually takes 3-5 days for the money to be deposited into your account. Please do not ship items until you receive payment.

I've tried to read that a few times and I still can't figure out exactly what is happening. Does that mean that they've attempted to refund you and there is no fund in order to refund you? I just don't understand why they are sending you payment, unless that is what Paypal is saying in regards to the refund.

[kebabman]

Unfortunately just got this email from PayPal.

An eCheck payment from partners name removed was declined by the sender's bank. We will automatically try to process this payment again in 3 business days. It then usually takes 3-5 days for the money to be deposited into your account. Please do not ship items until you receive payment.

I've tried to read that a few times and I still can't figure out exactly what is happening. Does that mean that they've attempted to refund you and there is no fund in order to refund you? I just don't understand why they are sending you payment, unless that is what Paypal is saying in regards to the refund.

Yes he’s contacted me on Skype, PayPal tried to withdraw the money from his account to refund me but he didn’t have the funds available so it got declined. It’s now gone to review status with PayPal on the dispute.

[ATRD]

Hi all, this is Cliff's pawn ("partner" sounds like I was part of the scam, so though derogatory, "pawn" is preferable to me, but call me whatever you want).

I contacted both kebabman and quick1unc on Skype immediately when I realized PayPal was running into problems with extracting a refund from my bank account. Yay overdraft fees. Because I don't have the funds to cover it, I assume PayPal will cover the refund within a day or two, then negative balance my account, then I'll repay over time. To be honest, I have no idea. I thought that's what they'd do since that's how they did the hold/lock on my account, so it surprised me (though I guess it shouldn't have) when I saw the insufficient funds notice from PayPal.

I've never actually had trouble with PayPal until now, so this is all new to me, but it would make sense that PayPal would protect buyers as soon as possible and pursue me to the ends of the earth.

[crypto_curious]

I've just received refund from PayPal, claim has been resolved in my favour. This seller is a SCAMMER and everyone should avoid any business with this guy.

[bill gator]

That is different from how I understand Paypal. They may have changed their system in regards to refunds and such to prevent fraud, but as I remember it when a refund is initiated it could not be declined before. If you did not have enough funds in your account to send the refund through it would simply put your account negative and allow the refund to go through. ATRD are these refunds coming directly from your bank account? I believe you might be able to disconnect your bank account and handle this directly with Paypal. This way you don't ruin your life over some scammer on Paypal. Please keep me updated on the status of refunds and what not.

[ATRD]

Pawn here. Hopefully this never happens to anyone else here, but in case you get stuck with a load of PayPal debt like I am:
1. PayPal holds the money after a claim is filed.
2. If you can't resolve the claim, PayPal limits your account so that you cannot move money or modify payment sources. To lift the limit they ask you to submit a list of information. You can still issue refunds with no money to back it up, which is what I did.
3. Once you submit the information (in my case, explanation that I was scammed) they will either unlock the limitations, or close your account. They closed my account. Great. (It can be logged into for the next 180 or so days.)
4. You cannot change the payment sources, so they attempt to draw from your primary funding source twice, then your backup source once, then they negative balance you. PayPal support confirms that this process is an unstoppable juggernaut designed to crush you. Well, the unstoppable part anyway.
5. I think they give you 120 days to pay off the negative balance before they they sell the debt to a collections agency.
6. I'm selling nearly everything I own worth more than $50.

I do not know what happens on the buyer side in this scenario.