scammed! by! s4cr! out of thousands of $$$!

[FABEL]

can someone confirm/deny this statement:
this thread won't really have an effect on stopping Antonis Palekis from scamming people in the future because all he has to do is register a new user name and/ or create a new paypal address & he'll be right back at it again.

my reply:

first off, please tell me it won't be this simple for s4cr to continue his game! also, I had thought paypal connects to your social security number & your bank account, no? if I am wrong here, how does somebody ever put a stop to somebody as manipulative & conniving as this?

I mean, if it's that easy for anyone to scrap some cash, I'll just put up a rare item for sale every week, lure a sucker, wait for paypal to tell me I've got cash, & then flee from ever replying to emails. done deal, my mortgage & prostitutes are paid for life.

so frustrating! I swear.
someone please chime in here. thanks guys; always.

[maciek]

Hey Miles, sorry to hear what happened to you man, this really sucks.. Im hoping that you get your wheels/money back.

[Noi5eB0mb]

Simple, he keeps changing usernames, IP ban the bastard.

[Youro-Luke]

I warned you guys about this shady douche last year!

Mods did nothing then, and AFAIK he's still not banned here! nuts!

Hope this doesn't discourage people from buying from legitimate overseas sellers like Image and me

I really **** to do this, but I've been PM'd here & on bimmerforums regarding a fellow member on here that has scammed me out of a set of wheels.

I don't know the best way to go about this story, but s4cr has stolen a very! very! large chunk of money from me. This situation is beyond sad & has left me close to vomit on an almost daily basis for almost 2 months now.

DO NOT BUY FROM S4CR!

S4CR is a SCAMMER!

S4CR will take your money & promise you wheels that he does not even own!
please please be careful; again, DO NOT BUY FROM S4CR!

I've been asked to please post this thread warning forum members. I feel horrible doing so, but at the same time, I feel it's an obligation to fellow wheel whores to be careful.

his name on StanceWorks, MaxBimmer, Bimmerforums, VWVortex, & Stanced.lt is s4cr. His real name is Antonis Palekis from Lietuva, Telsini. it's in Lithuania.

basically, he lures you in with a set of wheels that he says he owns, are rare, & in mint condition. he says he'll paint the wheels whichever way you want, freshly polish the lip, zoop seal it, send with a brand new key locking device . . . the whole shabang. basically he tells you everything you want to hear.

Antonis, s4cr, told me to just send the money & he'll get you a tracking number sent directly to my email within 24hrs. of receiving the cash. once he had gotten my money, he seemed to stall on sending the tracking numbers & said he couldn't make it out to the shipper that same day & would try the next. didn't happen, so he says our time zones are completely different so he will do it first thing tomorrow, but it'll seem like a couple of days because of our differences in time zones again.

okay, no problem I'm thinking. I mean, the guy's on a bunch of forums, seems really into fitment & bimmers, etc. nothing was fishy & besides, the dude's so genuine sounding in his emails that I had nothing to question.

so, almost two weeks go by & I start to think something seems a bit off here. I've purchased plenty of wheels before from overseas & never remember having a similair dealing. I want to PM s4cr, but I feel silly asking him to prove they've been sent, so I stall on my own end figuring he'll just copy/ paste them to me sometime soon.

it became about 5 weeks since I had paid closer to $2,000 than it was $1,000 & my subconcious keeps telling me to just PM the dude & ask for the tracking numbers. it's not checking up on the guy, it's just something that should be understood when purchasing anything online. it's the same as getting a receipt at a store, so I do PM him.

Antonis is all cool with me, he says he's sorry he hasn't gotten back to me. He says it's because he wanted to make sure the wheels were in perfectly restored condition & that the polish on the lips were even, etc. I had them painted by him as well - at least supposidely, & he tells me in a PM how the guy was dragging & he didn't want to rush him in fear he'd do a bad job, etc.

I think s4cr is literally my best friend & looking out for me here, so I believe these stories & lay back thinking that s4cr is treating my wheel purchase like gold, so don't stress him out as he is already doing that to himself over my set of wheels. He says don't worry, I answer your every reply fabel & emphasizes how it's very important to keep in good contact with me so I feel safe as to where my wheels are at every given moment. Remind you here that he has not sent ouf this set of wheels 5 weeks past the date I had paid him what I will refer to as 'thousands'.

I think this is stupid & should not be the case, so I tell him if you cannot get my wheels done by the end of the week, just refund some of the cash I gave you & ship them out already. He says no man, I want you to be proud when you open the boxes & help create an epic build for you so please just hold tight. he says I can ask a couple of people of his business dealings here & vortex as to create some trust, but I say it's all good, just send them out by the end of this week because I'm starting to get scared. He says, yep; promise.

well, the end of the week goes by & nothing. I get pissed, but don't contact him because again, I try to be very respectful & think highly of Antonis Palekis of Lithuania. foolish of me! I start thinking of how many people I know that will only buy wheels in person for similair reasons etc. my dumb ass though was only concentrated on gettin' some rare shoes mounted up & so my judgement became easily clouded. this furthered in my head as clouded judgement when I asked why he would do this; it would only come back to haunt him. I also told myself to stay cool, because this guy is like the nicest you've ever met.

so wrong of me! s4cr surely scammed me. I kept having thoughts at this point on how I'm dealin' with a dude overseas that has had my money now for close to 2 months & still hasn't sent my wheels out. I get all crazy in the head when I realize some dude over seas has my money & my wheels & the true story of what's going on here while I just sit back & say, naw, the dude is straight as hell.

this fades right before the actual two month mark & I PM his saying I need proof of some sort that these wheels have been sent out. he says in his country they do not provide such without paying an extra fee. I say I don't care, pay it & contact me before weeks end because I don't like thinking about this everyday; I literally can't handle how strong some of the fears are on my mind.

Antonis tells me to relax & that he's sorry. s4cr continues to go on saying he will pay out of pocket for these tracking numbers, but if I could be so kind as to let him cash his work check on friday first so that he'll have the cash to do so. I say okay . . . however, this now brings us to the following week which was more like two weeks later since I had inquired over this early in the previous week.

Sorry you have to go through this Myles, If I knew you were buying wheels from this guy I would have advised you against it

I guess what I find confusing is he offers to paint the wheels whatever color you want...you claim you asked him to paint the wheels yet also expected them to be shipped within 24 hours. How would that be feasible? It's one or the other. Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying you ARE or ARE NOT being "scammed". I was just pointing that out.

With that being said, I WILL say that when I purchased some wheels from Poland it took a hair over 2 months from when they were first shipped. It seemed to take forever!!! It's very nerve racking. I was given tracking numbers through the USPS and they were only scanned in ONCE...when they were leaving Poland! So for 2 months after I sat and waited and checked the tracking numbers every couple hours and nothing. Eventually they showed up on my doorstep. 2 wheels the first day, 2 wheels the next day.

USPS typically doesnt update their tracking info on international shipments. I ship internationally on a daily basis, and Id say that happens about 80% of the time. they get scanned when the package reaches the international dispatch, then never again.

Yep, this is what I deal with on a regular basis Mike, very frustrating for both parties involved

[Youro-Luke]

can someone confirm/deny this statement:
this thread won't really have an effect on stopping Antonis Palekis from scamming people in the future because all he has to do is register a new user name and/ or create a new paypal address & he'll be right back at it again.

my reply:

first off, please tell me it won't be this simple for s4cr to continue his game! also, I had thought paypal connects to your social security number & your bank account, no? if I am wrong here, how does somebody ever put a stop to somebody as manipulative & conniving as this?

I mean, if it's that easy for anyone to scrap some cash, I'll just put up a rare item for sale every week, lure a sucker, wait for paypal to tell me I've got cash, & then flee from ever replying to emails. done deal, my mortgage & prostitutes are paid for life.

so frustrating! I swear.
someone please chime in here. thanks guys; always.

Paypal is very wary of stuff like this, even if you log into your account from a different IP than the one you registered with, they get a warning

They'll freeze your account on any major transaction that they find suspicious and unlock it when they have confirmation that the goods reached the buyer

I've had this happen on 2 occasions, both times I've had to wait for my money for about a month and had to pay shipping out of my own pocket and then pray that everything would get there fast

So I don't think he'll be able to open another PPaccount once he has an unresolved complaint/open case

[vdub2625]

it's really too bad, I was hoping that I was the only one scammed by him recently. I was really upset becuase I filed a dispute with paypal but 2 days too late. He still was in contact with me for a while after that too, who knows why because he already had his money.

What did you purchase? i'm sorry I didn't read the whole thread for the details. He got me for Zender Sports he was supposedly refinishing, this was back in Sept.

I only paid half of his asking price ($450) but that's a significant chunk of change for me. I had been looking for the perfect set of wheels for 3+ years and finally settled on these. I don't think I'll ever be buying wheels, ever. I tried disputing it with my bank but since I authorized the transaction to paypal (who then paid him), I am stuck. PayPal told me that the dispute time had passed and closed the case. i suspect this is common with all his transactions and that's how he can get away with it.

[Stanceworks]

Member s4cr has been permanently banned. It was our hope that he would come in and resolve the issue, but after trying to contact him via PM on several occasions, we are left with no other option then to permanently ban him.


With that said, we STRESS heavily that you only purchase products from authorized vendors here on StanceWorks. We do not care what kind of reputation someone has, if they aren't a authorized vendor, then we do not support, nor take responsibility for any transactions that happen on StanceWorks. There is nothing worse then seeing the fine members of our lil community get stiffed, and we ask everyone take heed to this as an example of why it is important to support legitimate / authorized businesses.

StanceWorks

[Youro-Luke]

Member s4cr has been permanently banned. It was our hope that he would come in and resolve the issue, but after trying to contact him via PM on several occasions, we are left with no other option then to permanently ban him.


With that said, we STRESS heavily that you only purchase products from authorized vendors here on StanceWorks. We do not care what kind of reputation someone has, if they aren't a authorized vendor, then we do not support, nor take responsibility for any transactions that happen on StanceWorks. There is nothing worse then seeing the fine members of our lil community get stiffed, and we ask everyone take heed to this as an example of why it is important to support legitimate / authorized businesses.

StanceWorks

if you STRESS heavily on members purchasing from authorized vendors, then why have a Classifieds section at all?

I know that coughing up $500 every 3 months would deter most scammers though

but thanks for locking my threads, forcing me to become a vendor/sponsor, and leaving this scammer's threads open!

or was he a forum sponsor? in which case this is even more f-ed up!

anyway, good to see where your priorities are

[Stephen]

if you STRESS heavily on members purchasing from authorized vendors, then why have a Classifieds section at all?

I know that coughing up $500 every 3 months would deter most scammers though

but thanks for locking my threads, forcing me to become a vendor/sponsor, and leaving this scammer's threads open!

or was he a forum sponsor? in which case this is even more f-ed up!

anyway, good to see where your priorities are

Luke, i haven't seen any of your threads locked, but i may have missed that. I know from a few other forums, I wouldnt hesitate to buy from you. However, Stanceworks has to be careful ( like on many other forums) not to step on the toes of paying sponsors by allowing users to post classifieds endlessely. Whether you fit that description is a different matter. If you like, We can discuss via PM, or you could talk to ben or mike if you haven't already.


s4cr wasn't a sponsor, and i think the point was not to shove out the little man, but offer our condolences to those who may have gotten screwed over. In addition to remind people Stanceworks is not responsible, and cannot control the quality of stuff sold through these classifieds.

[FABEL]

just feel the need to bump this as I feel the awareness in this thread is extremely important to our community.

I hope this can be easily understood & I will update the thread as things develop further. trust me, it's been more than a headache that just seems to linger on for me.

I do appreciate all of your replies, PM's, & interest in this situation though SW. thank you; truly!

[vdub2625]

I would love to hear of any updates to this thread too, in case I have a chance of getting my $ back!

[stripes]

bump.

damn son that sucks. ive been screwed a couple times (mostly by my own mother but thats a diff story) and its sucks. i really hope you can get all this resolved.

[MrFukengruven]

BUMP!

These days obviously people want money more than ever but scamming people out of buying/purchasing items is NOT OK! As the admins said, ONLY buy from authorized vendors unless you can actually see the item in person.

[Anonymoose]

bump.

damn son that sucks. ive been screwed a couple times (mostly by my own mother but thats a diff story) and its sucks. i really hope you can get all this resolved.

^That comment together with your sig is disturbing to say the least

[twastheglow]

damn son that sucks. ive been screwed a couple times (mostly by my own mother but thats a diff story) and its sucks.