Complaint Review: M. Salvati Moda Italiana Fashion Designer

As with others who reported this scam, these individuals are now operating in the Long Beach, CA area. This individual was very sincere. He stopped me in my car and asked me if I spoke Italian, which I don't, but did tell him I spoke Spanish. So he told me this very long story in Spanish (which was very good) of how he needed to get rid of some merchandise for free because he didn't want to take it with him back to Italy. He showed me the "Armani" leather jackets and put them in a bag and said they were for me.

Then he proceeded to tell me how he had been robbed and now had no money or credit card and could I please give him $150 to pay the car rental. And of course he had all the documentation: Italian passport, airline ticket, car rental agreement. He said he could not call his father in Italy because of the time difference (lame excuse so I smelled a rat!), etc, etc. AT one point I thought he was going to cry.

The entire episode took about 10-15 minutes and I told him I didn't have $150 and I was late for my doctor's appointment (which was true!). I kept his card and when I got home tried to go to the webisite and of course it doesn't exist. Then I did a search for M. Salvati and wound up here to report this rip off.

I knew all along it was a scam. But he is so sincere and so believeable that I'm sure he's scammed alot of others. All I could think of was this: if you're in a foreign country and you get robbed, wouldn't you just go to your local Embassy or Consulate for help?

I'm glad I wasn't scammed!

Claudio
Long Beach, California
U.S.A.