Posts Made By: Chiradeep Chhaya

I’d posted this ad some time back:
https://astromart.com/classifieds/astromart-classifieds/telescope-catadioptric/show/celestron-edgehd-925-kit

This user responded with an offer that was $300 below the lowest I’d seen:

https://astromart.com/users/121552

While that should have raised a flag I’ve also seen people sell items at low prices. 

The person then gave me the usual sob story of having to report to IRA for PayPal transactions (which was true until very late in December when IRS extended the deadline to next year) over $600 so I paid via Zelle to what he claimed was his wife’s account [email protected] (in hindsight that’s another red flag). 

This is where I let my usual distrusting self make an error in judgement when I should’ve held firm and walked away. 

Since then it’s always been one excuse or another for the best part of 2 weeks why they haven’t been able to ship. As of last evening the excuses were still flying along with a promise to ship right that evening (and there’s of course been nothing by way of tracking). I just feel they’re taking the Mickey out of me by continuing to engage on email 🙂

The person’s email address is [email protected] (although… emails.. yeah)

The thing is, when they initially responded to the ad, they had a few decent reviews without anything being over the top. Now, the profile has gone missing from AstroMart. 

So my question to everyone is: do you hold firm for PayPal and refuse to entertain split payments or other modes? 

Also wondering if there’s a way for the site owners to validate that an exchange has really taken place before someone can post a review. 

I’ll live with my losses in the hope that I am a tad less stupid now than I was a month ago. 

Hope this helps someone. 

Fair enough. Not ashamed to admit my stupidity. I am gonna flag this to BoFA for Zelle but not with any hope. 

And thanks for the suggestion to stick to PayPal/money order. 

Originally Posted by Benjamin Smith

I fell for a scam from the same guy. Just starting to get into this hobby, buying my first scope... $2,000 lost. I submitted an wanted ad for a SW Esprit 100ED, which sells for $3200 new. He then moved the conversation to email with the name/email address of Yody Tapsiwan <[email protected]>. He sent pictures of the telescope and offered it to me for $2000, a good but still reasonable price. When we agreed to the price the seller asked to receive money via paypal "friends and family" method to avoid 1099 reporting. I asked to move to Zelle, and they agreed - providing their supposed spouse's email address <[email protected]>. The Zelle transaction took 1 week to complete, but it eventually went through. The seller states he never received the money but my bank confirms it was deposited in his account. 

Weird and twisted part is that he continues to engage. I asked him to send me a pic of the telescope in front of CNN from today and here's his last email 





I can't think of a motivation for this, except to delay any reporting to Zelle or authorities so more scams can go through? Any way for what it's worth I submitted a cyber crime report to the FBI. https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/scams-and-safety

Exactly - or they just revel in keeping the scam going 🙂

good idea to submit the report. I’ll do so as well. I was also thinking of submitting it to Google itself - not sure it can do much to be honest but worth a shot. 

for that matter I wonder if there’s anything AstroMart itself can do - charge a small listing fee maybe. 

commiserations you too! We live and learn..