Offroad-Express

Hi folks. I'm new here so you don't know me. But if you want to know more about me, I post regularly as "lostmarbles" on ih8mud.com.

Recently I bought an FJ40 part off Trademe from the following auction:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =129505387

Do you recognise the vehicle shown in this auction?

The reason I ask is because this person took my money ($75) and won't either supply the part or refund my money. In fact, he won't reply to any of my Emails. (I don't want to name him here.)

I contacted Trademe on Saturday and he's now "suspended" by them.

In retrospect, the condition of this FJ looks too good for wrecking and I now doubt he ever owned it.

Any assistance would be appreciated. If I get evidence of fraud (that he never owned it) perhaps I can get the police to act to get my $75 back?

Sorry to hear that.
How about going through his feedback, and find someone he has purchased goods from. They may pass on contact detail (address, phone number etc)

Thanks Dave.

But I already know who he is. (I even have his bank account details where my money went.)

In cases like this, apparently the police aren't very interested because "it's only $75 and they have the BIG crimes to deal with". (Taking him to the small claims court is another option though. I hate people ripping me off.)

I just want to see if he was lying about owning that vehicle in the first place. My guess is that he used a photo of someone else's cruiser in his auction and I just wanted to see if someone here could confirm that by recognising it.

Cheers ---Tom

Judging by the coloured US style front numberplate and the fact that it is a left-hook vehicle (looks like the toyota grill badge reads correctly) I suggest that the photo is a US or Canadian one.

Good luck in dealing to this guy.

I'll be damned! You're right IcedJohnno. Funny how I never noticed it was left-hand drive before.

Looks like there goes my chances of finding the real owner in NZ.

I'll go and post this on ih8mud now and we'll see what we get from there!

Thanks

Lost wrote:I'll be damned! You're right IcedJohnno. Funny how I never noticed it was left-hand drive before.

Looks like there goes my chances of finding the real owner in NZ.

I'll go and post this on ih8mud now and we'll see what we get from there!

Thanks

no point really doing that mate, he is obviously a NZ based guy using a pic of a different vehicle, has a few good trades under his belt so would just keep trying to contact him thru trade me and emails etc, maybe contact a few other people he has traded with to see if you can get an address or phone number for him ?

try captiancol, hes a really awesome guy who sells fishing stuff etc in Gisborne. worth a try ?

Someone picked up on it being lefthand drive in the Q's & A's and he replied it wasnt. That makes me think somethings up as you can see its a lefty
Whats the story with paying only .75c ?

He put the deal through as 75c because he didn't want to pay Trademe their share of $75.

I think that's why Trademe wasted no time in chucking him off. (I doubt they care much about me getting ripped off compared to how much they care about getting ripped off themselves.)

Bingo!

With the help of the international cruiser community on IH8MUD I've found where Matt H******* of Southland (slarris_whanau) stole the picture of the FJ40 he was supposedly wrecking on New Zealand Trademe.

Here's the link:

http://www.englandhouseplans.com/fj55/fj40.htm

This cruiser is not even in New Zealand!

Anyone know anything about this fine outstanding gentleman called "Matt H******"?

go to the cops now.

I see the guy was not address verified (marked by AV after the name). I am not sure how trademe would track him down if he has given false contact number and other details.

Good luck with your money. I wish trademe would let payments by credit card for everyone, so that in situations like this you could have the transaction reversed as items were never received. Its so much easier on a credit card.

Quite frankly going to the police is a waste of time,In had a Sim situation were i bought a motor for $1500 that the guy didn't have Trade me were bloody useless didn't want to know wouldn't tell me anything the cops were just as bad just told me to take it to the small claims Court ,I was lucky after 5 months of taking him to court and having a distress warrant issued against him the bailiffs located a couple of cars of his and wheel clamped them He then decided to pay up...

Thanks Guys. My lack of confidence in the desire of our police force to really want to fight crime is why I haven't yet contacted them.

I remember reading/seeing somewhere that the police have a "squad" set up specially for "Internet crime". Anyone know an Email address? (Surely if they're an "Internet Squad" then you MUST be able to contract them on the Internet????)

I'm just "gathering forces" at the moment.

I want to confront them with information they can't easily choose to ignore. But I admit, they'll probably still ignore it. (Someone will be smacking a child somewhere and that's much more important.)



PS. I don't condone violence against children but an "open-handed smack on the butt is a good way of telling a small child that what they're doing is not nice (and is good parenting in my view). It is true however that some parent's go way tooooooooo far with the smack and actually intend to inflict real pain so I am not totally against the anti-smacking campaign!
Bloody hell - Why did I ever get into this??

copy and paste from one of his earlier auctions....


MATT STILL WAITING FOR MY PAYMENT ITS BEEN TWO WEEKS NOW??????? CHARLIE posted by: hamish88 (48 ) 3:06 pm, Tue 6 Nov
sorry about delay, have you sent phone yet cheers 3:08 pm, Tue 6 Nov

You knew i sent the phone two weeks ago as i had advised twice on emails.... why have you taken so long to query the phone and did not ask if i had sent the phone...when i emailed you on the 1st of november asking for my payment 4 times....So are you telling me that you have been waiting for the phone before you transfer the money??????????What the heck is going on pal...obviously you havent made payment...explain or i will report posted by: hamish88 (48 ) 4:18 pm, Tue 6 Nov

well why havnt i recieved yet then pal if you sent two weeks ago???? 4:31 pm, Tue 6 Nov

You didnt consider my first comment to well when i had said that you must have been waiting for the phone before you were willing to tranz money Really disappointed that you havent even bothered to query the phone....two weeks.....cmon??????????????????????????????????????????? posted by: hamish88 (48 ) 4:43 pm, Tue 6 Nov

i thought you had just given up on the phone and decided to keep or whatever, ill transfer tomorow if you send tomorw??? 5:00 pm, Tue 6 Nov

Thanks nstg8a.

Bit hard to follow what's going on there but I assume Matt is at fault again.

There's no way he can ever say he never got my money because I put it into his Southland Credit Union account 03 1752 #######.00 myself on 29 November and I have ample evidence to prove it. (And that account is in his name.)

Just left messages for 2 people to contact me who tried to buy stuff off his "129505387 FJ40 wrecking" auction

I'll have a look for Hamish88 now.

nstg8a wrote:copy and paste from one of his earlier auctions....You didnt consider my first comment to well when i had said that you must have been waiting for the phone before you were willing to tranz money Really disappointed that you havent even bothered to query the phone....two weeks.....cmon??????????????????????????????????????????? posted by: hamish88 (48 ) 4:43 pm, Tue 6 Nov........

Hmmmmmm. I can't contact Hamish88 (without Trademe assistance) because he has no current listings. However I note that the feedback he placed on Matt for that auction was positive "Great trader Recommend to all". (Very odd.)

It is this sort of conflict that makes it really hard to figure out what this guy has been doing. (Maybe he is on P.)

I'll now Email Trademe to see what further action they plan on taking with this fraudster. If nothing, I'll expect them instead to invite everyone who's recently dealt with slarris_whanau (and were unhappy with the experience) to contact me as I intend to request police action against Matt with regard to auction 129505387 (or alternatively take him to the small claims court over it.)




PS. If anyone is thinking that, apart from the fraud involving the photo, the problem was some sort of communication gap between myself and Matt. - Think again. As well as Emailing him directly, I posted questions on ALL his auctions asking for either my goods or a refund. He ignored the lot (over a period of a month)!

Well looky here. This just landed in my Email Intray:

----- Original Message -----
From: matt H******
To: Tom D******
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2008 3:03 PM
Subject: RE: Trade Me -- A response to your question (Auction no.133017805)


whats your postal addy ta?you wanted the duct aye?

-----------Well - I've given him my name and address again (3rd time now). (I restrained myself - My name and address was the ENTIRE content of my reply!!!! - Apart from saying "3rd time now")

Oh Boy! The waiting game again. How long do you reckon I should give him this time? (PS. The $75 I paid him on 29 Nov included Courier delivery.)

The police would be the first stop for laying a complaint, just present them with a file that has been well laid out in a manner that ensures they can read it in a cronological manner with referencing notes.

Also contact the bank and request they provide the address details for the guy, they will say somethign about there being a privacey issue and you need to get this in writing. Once you have this i beleive that there is a way to get the courts to put a cort order for the banks to release these details. You can then move forward with either a small claims or civil action.

Make sure that whatever you do and whatever letters you write you state that costs are reserved that way if it costs you $100.00 fo file an application in the courts you can claim that back from him as costs.

fraud is fraud and the dollar value is not important, the fact that he has in a way commited a double fraud may spark some intrest. there are some very slick laws in place that are well worth reading up on and most are accessable on line. one of the more important ones would be section 6 of the crimes amendments act.

when you present your file i would recomend you state the revent acts that have been breached.

once you have done that and the police take no action thn you can hand the file directly to your local MP and make it their problem.

Thanks Borg.
Receiving THAT sort of well-considered advice is why I have recently been turned into an "internet forum junkie".
(We have a whole world full of talent/experience at our disposal to make "life" better/easier/more-enjoyable/etc for us all.)

Rightly or wrongly - I'm giving this "trader" a final chance to fulfil the "contract" between us. But as you will no doubt have worked out, I'm a "fighter" and I'll go to quite extreme lengths to achieve "justice". (I'll be happy to spend way more than $75 to achieve that goal if I have to.) Your advice here will be my "way forward" if he fails to take advantage of his "final chance".

I've been in contact with Trademe again this morning. They want to see this resolved as much as I do. And I think I can count on further co-operation from them if I need it.

Cheers

Its possible (Although he doesn't state it or imply it) that he has quite 'innocently' used the photo as an example of the type of vehicle that he is wrecking, and not realising that he is impling that he IS wrecking that particular vehicle. (Any reasonable human being would realise that is too good to wreck). His response to the comment about the left hand drive makes me think this is the case.

He has mislead, but I'm guessing not intentionally, and then failing to come up with the goods in reasonable time (some what common, but unacceptable TM issue) it has made him look like a right frauster.

I say this just so you don't jump up and down and make him the big-time ogre and then the cops examine and discover he's simply a slightly dull oblivious novice and you end up looking like an egg! (It happens!)

At the same time, regardless of his action and intent it needs clarifying and its the likes of you that either help these guys along becoming a bit more clued up in their deals, or expose a crook.

fweddy wrote:Its possible (Although he doesn't state it or imply it) that he has quite 'innocently' used the photo as an example of the type of vehicle that he is wrecking

I'm quite sure this would be HIS explanation. But there can be no doubt that using a photo of an entirely different vehicle is totally misleading and the "question and answers" prove he was happy to keep people misled. (Why is it that we kiwis are happy with this type of substandard behaviour? It is tolerated far less in other parts of the world.) A fair and honest person goes to a lot of trouble to ensure bidders in their on-line auctions know EXACTLY what they're getting!

.....Any reasonable human being would realise that is too good to wreck.......

- Fair comment

..... and discover he's simply a slightly dull oblivious novice .....

This would be my assessment of him but then I don't really know do I?

.......and you end up looking like an egg! (It happens!)...

Perhaps I AM an egg.

..... its the likes of you that either help these guys along becoming a bit more clued up in their deals, or expose a crook...

Thanks fweddy. I'm hoping I'm helping him become a bit more clued up about what is acceptable behaviour and what is not.

Hey,I know a Matt Harris...I unfortunately have two beautiful sons to him. It is a common name, but this sounds like his kind of behaviour. He is a slippery customer and my impression is that he is not worth wasting police time. All his crimes are "small" in the grand scheme of things, but if you could add up how much he has collectively ripped people off I'm sure you would be horrified. If you are still persuing this (assuming it is the same Matt Harris) I would recommend contacting Dave Loader at the South Invercargill police station (assuming he is still based there), as he has dealt with Matthew before and knows his background.Hope this helps. 

Hi there Tahoogs and thanks for the post.

Sounds like the same young man alright.

You'll be pleased to know that we (myself and the Invercargil police) were able to track him down to his father's address (a farm just out of Invercargil as I remember). As is often the case, his father is both nice and honorable and I received my money back from him. (Matt was away "somewhere else in the south island" at the time the police called.)

So Matt will have the record of this episode added to his police file now. Let's hope a bit more maturity and "life experience" is able to bring him back on track.

Sounds like he has let you down big-time too. One day he is sure to realise what is really important in life and I just hope he's not too old when he does.

By the way - The police don't usually have the time to chase up trademe scams and they advise people to protect themselves by using "safetrader". (Myself and another victim did much of the "legwork" for them here which is why they were prepared to help us.)

Cheers
Tom

glad to hear you had a positive outcome, good on you for being persistant and not letting another antikiwi get away with crap. big thumbs up

Thanks Pagar.

And thanks again for everybody's help here.

I think I'll ask the offroadexpress administrators to delete this thread though. --- That's because I do think it is possible for people to "reform" and I don't think it is fair on Matt to leave a thread like this sitting on the Internet forever.

There still will be the "related thread" left on IH8MUD.COM but that contains less "personal identification material" (and that site is based "miles away" in America where few people can even place NZ on the map).

I'd like to become more active in this forum (in a more general way) some time in the future after I've finished "restoring" my old "shorty forty".

Cheers
Tom

I think I'll ask the offroadexpress administrators to delete this thread though. --- That's because I do think it is possible for people to "reform" and I don't think it is fair on Matt to leave a thread like this sitting on the Internet forever.

You are far to nice....but by leaving it up it also serves as a warning to others that there are some of us kiwi's still prepared to stand up for our rights and fight for them.