Selling Rings & Scams

One night my girlfriend met me at a restaurant in a city about an hour away from the apartment I was living in. She presented me with an unopened rose and said she was going to buy me dinner. "It's been a long drive so this rose is kind of wilting, I'm going to put it in water," she said, hustling off to the bathroom. She came back with the rose in a water glass of warm water.

We ate a lovely dinner, I believe I ordered salmon. That sounds about right. About halfway through dinner she said, "smell that rose, it smells amazing." I leaned over the rose, which had started blooming in the warm water on the table and the light glinted off it. In the center of the rose was this beautiful ring.

I said yes, of course.

Within weeks, however, I remembered that I'm a bull in a china closet. I walk into walls, slam this beautiful ring into my forehead. Anything I can to injure myself or the ring, basically.

So we decided to sell the ring. I listed it on Craigslist, a wonderful site I have used many times before. I've had two bites. One backed out within a few hours. The other one is a bit more of a story.

I received the email just before one of my classes began yesterday. "Is your item still for sale?" My hackles went up. My "item" and not my ring? Hm... Seemed fishy. But I texted the man per his instructions in the email. Yes, it's for sale. 

What happened next was a series of text messages about how he wanted it as a birthday gift for his girlfriend, he would PayPal me the money, plus a little extra for shipping. Once I received the money I would ship it right to his girlfriend's house. I played along. 

I received the email he said I would, however since I have used PayPal many times before I am fully aware of what is and isn't supposed to happen in a PayPal transaction. I know PayPal has never sent things to my junk mail before, the emails always come through with a PayPal header and html and PayPal knows my name, they don't address me by my email address.

At this point I knew my suspicions were correct. This was a scam. However, he didn't stop. He continued to text message me telling me I just needed to click on the link in the email. Desperate for me to click on it, almost. So I took my last step. I went to Google with his phone number.

This is what I found: 800 Notes.

And many other sites showing the same exact thing. 

Aside from the fact that I wasted much time emailing and texting this jerk, I also was very disappointed to have still not sold the ring. I am financially strained right now anyway because of a series of health issues in the household and I really was hoping to sell it, move on to getting a new ring and use the extra money for some school supplies and such that we are lacking. I am now on to different ways of trying to sell it. It's listed on Ebay if anyone is interested. Of course, if a reader approached me about it the price may be more negotiable.