Tim Stevens - TallTim - Nelson - Bones - Denis Sold same fake $500 item to 5 different people--delivered to no one. Online Scam, Internet Ripoff, Fraud Kingston Ontario
Note: What appears here is a condensed version of my story. For more information, look here: http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=5039
Tim Stevens offered an item for sale (a vintage RCA 77DX polydirectional ribbon microphone) on a free classified posting area on the internet (http://users.pandora.be/oldmicrophones/ ). After agreeing on the details via email (address macguytim@hotmail.com) and phone, I sent a check for $530 ($30 of which was for shipping via FedEx) to Tim Stevens in Kingston Ontario Canada. I sent the check on 07/11/2005. On 7/19/2005 I received an email from Tim confirming that he did indeed receive the check and would be sending the microphone shortly. The funds cleared my bank 7/20/2005. For the next three weeks, I did not receive any communication from Tim (despite a few emails from me). Finally, on 8/11/2005, I received an email from Tim stating that the microphone was badly damaged in shipping, was returned to him, and that I would get my money back at the end of the month.
Since then, I contacted the owner of the website on which Tim's ad appeared and he has confirmed that 4 other people have had a similar story. I have now personally spoken with three of them by phone and/or email and they have exactly the same story as me (sent money to Tim Stevens, several weeks later, Tim reports that the microphone was damaged in the mail so badly that it was returned to him and that he will pay the money back at the end of the month, etc.).
As far as I know, the first check was sent to Tim on 06/14/2005--now it is 8/23/2005 and no one has received anything back yet. I am hoping that pressure from forums such as this as well as law enforcement will encourage him to pay us back.
Thomas
Houston, Texas
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Thomas
Rosharon,Texas,
U.S.A.
Note: Tim promises to return my money
#2Author of original report
Tue, August 23, 2005
To be fair, I should mention that Tim is still communicating with me, and has returned my emails and calls. More importantly, he has promised to return my money at the end of the month, when he "gets paid".
The problem is that he has told the others the same thing last month and they still haven't gotten their money--so I don't have any reason to believe him.
I have checked with the Canada Post office and although they do have Tim Stevens on their records because of something lost in the mail a couple years ago, he has not made any insurance claims of any kind with them. (Certainly not five claims for $500 each!)