Dangerous OLX extortion and kidnapping syndicate uncovered

ForceFate said:
Sounds like it's a different syndicate. The incidents happened at different times and different locations but MO was the same. "Diamonds" were involved in both incidents.
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Ah, ok, bad luck then. :(
 
Same thing happened to me yesterday.

Guy calls wanting to see a car I have for sale on Gumtree - I tell him he can meet me at public place during the day. (which is close to my work)
We arrange a time - I get there, he checks car, haggles on price (all seems fairly legit up to this point) and then says he will take it, can I give him a lift to the bank to make payment?

Reluctantly I agree to take him to local shopping center where there is a bank.

As we get there "his friend" appears out of no-where with the money for the car - said friend turns out to have a stack of cash which is supposedly payment for diamonds that the guy wanting to buy the car is selling him.
(by this stage all my warning bells are going off and I just want to GTFO)

Now it turns out the "friend with the cash" is not offering enough for the diamonds and they start arguing over the price and try and get me to negotiate as the one guy only speaks English and the other Afrikaans.
(I refused to get involved and tried to get them to move away from me and my vehicle)

Then they quickly agree on a price but now we need to go somewhere else to get the rest of the cash.

At this point I wished them a good day further, quickly got into the car and left them in the parking lot.

F@#%$@% scammers!
 
eg2505 said:
sounds rough @OCP
were you alone, or with somebody else, like its always recommended to?
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I was alone but agreed to meet in a public place with multiple exists and lots of people around.
Would never let anyone come to my house or place of work - just too dangerous.....
 
OCP said:
I was alone but agreed to meet in a public place with multiple exists and lots of people around.
Would never let anyone come to my house or place of work - just too dangerous.....
Click to expand...

good thing you were alert and smart about it,
other people might not have been so lucky.
 
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Feels like everyone is a scammer these days. I just put no cash accepted under any circumstance in my ads seems to help some. If they can't even pay the cash into a bank account and transfer it to me they are already dodgy.
 
That sounds horrendous. Had a really bad experience with olx. Now it looks like facbook is the go to place? Wonder how dodge it is?
 
Hansolo said:
That sounds horrendous. Had a really bad experience with olx. Now it looks like facbook is the go to place? Wonder how dodge it is?
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Doesn't matter where. There are always going to be scammers. Facebook too.
 
Let's put it out there. South Africa is a sh1tfest of cyber crime with the perps operating with impunity. Not only does it affect us, we also export this crime to other countries. Ever wondered about South Africa being blocked? I can't blame those people. So let's look at our cyber crime statistic ... oh wait! :X3:

While the cops and ITSec community got together to prepare for the anticipated CovID themed cyber fraud, South Africa was m.i.a. And still is. Yet South Africa was one of the earliest attack platforms targeting the far east. What's sad is that some these guys are known.

This has a real world effect one each and every one of us. :mad:
 
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