Like I mentioned in my previous posts, Tim and I were selling things like mad trying to make more money for the trip and to get rid of things that we didn't need or weren't going to be able to take.
Like the shelves pictured above. They were not cheap, almost $60 bucks each, before the inflation took the price up to almost a hundred a piece. We used them in the kitchen in place of a pantry, and in our stock room to hold the food stock we try to keep on hand. (The goal is to have at least a years worth of food on hand, fresh grown from our garden and preserved would be ideal.)
These are some of the things we posted up including a Honda generator that we were thinking about selling to make a little extra money for the trip.
We knew we'd need a generator eventually, (always good to have on a homestead), but for now we needed money more than we needed a whole lot else.
A few people came to see it and then a man contacted me saying that his dad wanted to buy it but wasn't on Facebook.
I reached out to a number he sent me and, you guessed it. It was a scam.
The guy mailed us this huge cashiers check and we deposited it. I knew it seemed fishy. And in homes of keeping things from turning against us, I waited to notify the guy until after the check had hit the account and cleared.
He told us that he had purchased several other items from people on Facebook and the check was so large to accommodate those purchases and allow his movers to be paid.
I know.
I know.
It is terribly suspicious.
I thought waiting would make sure we were safe.
Well the guy starts texting me a few days later, wanting to know why I didn't message him as soon as I deposited the check. He started asking me to send money, I thousand dollars at a time to different people through Zelle.
Not sure what else to do, Tim and I obliged.
Zelle is usually really great about stopping fraud, and the check had cleared. It was in the bank and available for use. We were so desperate for any bit of money we could get to help with the move that we just went with it.
The truth is, I was so sure I was smart enough to avoid getting scammed.
I'd seen so much of it when I worked for Discover. I knew the warning signs. I just ignored them. Telling myself I was too smart to get scammed.
Well I was super wrong.
What's that they say about hubris?
We transferred a thousand dollars to one person via Zelle.
He's a mover, the man told me.
One of several.
He needed to send at least three grand to make sure the moves would head out and pick up the things that he needed. We could write a check for the rest when they arrived. Fishy.
It was all too fishy.
But it was his money, we couldn't just keep it from him. And the check had cleared.
Well after we sent three thousand dollars to three random email's the check got held up. Suddenly there was a question about the authenticity of the check.
And then I knew what I had been too proud to allow myself to see.
This was a scam and we had been had.
I tried to call the money back. And I was fortunate in that two of the people I had sent money too were not regular Zelle users and I was able to call back two of the transactions.
But one of them was already gone.
$1,000 when we were so desperately trying to make money.
I tried to reach back out to Zelle and get the money back, but they said that the all the warnings for using the site had been posted, and it was outside of what they could fix.
I even texted the scammer back, demanding to know how they could do this to people. By this point even google had flagged the phone number as potential spam.
Then the man got mad at me, at me!
This scammer that had tired to take three thousand dollars from us got mad at me for managing to get two grand back. He went on and on about how he was serious and he was going to send the movers and it was very important that the money go through.
I shut him down.
I flagged the number on every place that I could.
It won't get me my money back. but at least I learned a valuable lesson.
Don't trust it if it seems fishy.