Time waster DAVID PHILIPS
 

Was selling off some leopards on hoobly.com and was contacted by this fella. He was a little sketch but nothing really worrisome at first. We agree on price and payment is sent.

Two days go by and he tells me his assistant sent the wrong check. Okay, reasonable I suppose. He then tells me to deposit the check when it arrives and return his funds via walmart. I'd keep what I was owed and the remainder after fees would be returned (all of this is in texts should mods ask for proof, I can supply it). A little weird but whatever, I'm not losing anything.

So I get the check and it's waaaay over what we agreed on. $2,750. I tell him it's here and safe and when Monday rolls around and the funds clear I can send it back. This was last Monday before Thanksgiving by the way. Check doesn't clear by Monday.

Tuesday I'm at Walmart getting ready for the upcoming holidays. I bring my cart to checkout and when I go to pay, my card is declined. Weird, I just had 300 in there yesterday. I check my account and I'm $-2000.01 . Why? Because his check wouldn't clear. So I left my groceries and went home a very unhappy person

Wednesday, after a couple days of constant harrassment about how much he "would appreciate if I send payment today" this includes but is not limited to multiple texts an hour, multiple reasons why he needs the money immediately, and an assortment of other nags. I told him, many times, his money did not clear. I told him, many times, I'd return the funds when they were available. None of this was good enough until Thanksgiving day.

Thursday, I'm pissed. I've got no money, no food, no toilet paper, because my bank account is still frozen. If that's not enough, I gotta work for 13 hours that afternoon. Philips gets back at it with the nagging and I finally flip and am like "guy, back off. I've got no money because of your check that won't clear. This isn't my fault and I'm the only one trying to correct it." He's like "oh okay I understand now"

Ghosted

Monday I get a letter, I just opened it a few.minutes ago. Keybank has returned the check as it is altered/fictitious. It's here in front of me if anyone needs photo evidence. Now I gotta go in and find out how much I'm owed so they don't charge me for the fake check. Awesome. As of right now my funds have be returned to me and I can thankfully pay my bills this week.

Be careful out there folks

Here's his info:

David Philips
8125732043

This is a very common Cameroon scam. We see posts about these all the time here on BOI and elsewhere (they do it to any type of classified). Never cash a check that is over the amount when they say to keep some and return the rest. They always bounce in the long run. One of the red flags is 'my agent'...
I'm sorry this happened to you.

Good to know for the future. It seems to have gone off no harm no fowl but the hassle I went through wasn't worth it.

I doubt you even need photo evidence... this is a well known scam, and you will get nothing at all back from the supposed "David Philips" person.

Any time they mention assistant, accidentally overpaid, money order, and arrange for pick up all in the same inquiry, I stop replying or just waste their time. It's very common. I get these all the time from animal ads. Half the time they don't even really reference specific animals. At least you learned and maybe others will too

Yeah I feel a little stupid for going along with it for so long. Oh well, live and learn.

I'm sorry to hear you got scammed by this guy. I'm glad you got the funds back but sounds like a massive hassle.

Imagine how you would feel had you fallen for this common scam and sent that "overpayment" back to the guy........

I had the same guy respond to an ad i have on here for L Williiamsi. He seemed legit until I got his check that was for $2750 for a $400 transaction, lol. He also sent me a text from a similar Indiana number asking the same initial questions after we had already settled on what he was going to buy. My wife contacted the lawyers office referenced on the check and it appears David Phillips has gotten their routing numbers for their account. There is an open fraud case through their office with the US govt investigating the scam. I hope they catch this guy.

Sorry on your efforts and almost losing money...you may want to check the BOI thread SASS SFSSS *SCAMMER....it's about the same group. I have filed with the postal inspectors to see if I can get them to investigate my case also.
Mike