Btw, OP, feel free to complain to the FTC. Let's see what they do. I'm guessing they'll do diddly squat. Why? Because I wasn't involved in the transactions, and because I make no money from said transactions.
Now that the threads are merged it's funny to see the veiled threat. FWIW, the FTC blows off legitimate complaints all the time because they are hard to track down, so they have little interest in making you feel better about getting swindled. Be very thankful Paypal bailed you out and that you know better how to avoid this issue in the future.
good lord. scammers are alive and well in dvc renting these days. take responsibility for yourself here. this rental board is a free service. if you can't keep from getting scammed after all the recent info here on this and stickies, rent from disney or use a rental broker.
threatening the administrators on this free board is a pitiful response. i expect that you lost very little, if any money...certainly doesn't sound like it.
User bakmart112 AKA Michael Johnson AKA Joseph Vincent is representing himself as a Poly owner. FL records show a Michael Johnson owns Poly property. However, after entering into an agreement with Michael Johnson, securing a reservation and following ALL of the steps outlined in the "Avoid being scammed" thread in the rent/trade/transfer board, and sending him $2190, I was scammed. One week after signing the contract, seeing the reservation and forwarding the money, I was contacted by the actual Poly owner in Indianapolis (I'm leaving him unnamed, he is legit) who was approach by "Joseph Vincent" asking him to secure a Poly reservation for his family. The actual owner made a reservation for us, in our name, assuming that he was dealing with an actual renter. Michael Johson had changed our email addresses slightly to throw the owner off.
The actual owner googled me when he suspected that he was inadvertantly part of a 3-way scam. He forwarded me the string of emails that he had received from Joseph Vincent AKA Michael Johnson to show that Michael Johnson had been fowarding my emails to the actual owner as his own. The scam was to show me the reservation to collect the money, then fail to pass the money to the actual owner, who he has since contacted the actual owner cancel the reservation.
Michael Johnson used *********************** as his email address.
PayPal payments were sent to ************************* and ***************************.
How terrible! I feel for you. You did everything to protect yourself. That is very scary for renters and rentees.
Did you check the count of messages. I only rent from someone who's well over 100 in total messages. I look into what they are posting. Was this the first person's post?
How terrible! I feel for you. You did everything to protect yourself.
I am going to state that this is False - clearly did not do "everything" the Renter joined in July 2018 - had only 3 posts (all replies to scams, ironically) and when things went south - blamed others claiming "Followed all steps"
How about speaking to the person on the phone before sending money? Obviously did not do that.
You are being too generous here with your kind response.
1. If something sounds too good to be true, it is usually is a scam. MOST IMPORTANT!
2. Never underestimate the creativity and cleverness of a scammer.
3. Don't blindly trust anyone, no matter how good the story. Verify, verify, verify. If a detail is amiss - trust your instincts.
4. There are several good business practices that can be used to verify, certify, assure and quickly flush out a scammer. These services may cost a few dollars (only if all checks out - you won't be charged if you never get to an agreement), but may be worth it!
I am hesitant to enter into an agreement with anyone with a low post count as well...that being said, what does everyone think of the "other" board's requirement that you have x number of posts, evenly spread out between the last 6 months, etc. etc. or you pay to post on the rental/transfer board...does it help to reduce scammers or does it just make the scammers that much more knowledgeable about the process as they had to "put in the time" so to speak???
Personally, I can't figure out how to post on their board (poor UX, too much going on) that I have never met the rental posting requirement!
I occasionally cruise over to the RTB just to see if there is a reservation calling my name, or if I'm looking for someone to rent points from. I'm always amazed at the people who continue to post their phone numbers or email addresses when replying to an ad. Let's think about this for a second, folks. If phone numbers and email addresses aren't allowed in the ads, why would it be okay to post in a reply???
1. Read and understand the rules for posting!
If this approach fails, refer to number one and make sure you actually followed the rules!
Of course, the other thing that the OP DB doesn't seem to understand (aside from all of the rules that have been noted) is the fact that even all of that blocking doesn't do squat. It's easy to use VPNs and anonymizers; it's easy to come up with a new username; it's even easy to get a throw-away phone and use it for nefarious purposes.
There's no substitute for common sense.
However, stupidity is ever-present and apparently, contagious. So watch out, people.