Scammed on Kijiji with a fake Galaxy S5 phone. Should I contact the police?

matp86

I was recently scammed in person, in a cash for goods exchange. Received a fake Galaxy S5 placed in an original S5 box with accessories.
Checked the phone, looked legit- took it home and realized some of the functions did not work properly. Connected the phone to a rooting program, found out its a fake chinese octo-core phone. The guy even placed the original labelled screen protector on it.

His email and name were clearly fake- and after ip tracing the email, found out he used a proxy through Washington. Phone number he used is now disconnected (probably through a burner app which generates fake numbers for temporary use. We met at a coffee time in Richmond Hill.

So basically I have no information or connection to him. Shelled out $500 and wondering if I should go to the police with his fake email/ number/ and kijiji ad id number.

I'm assuming the police won't lift a finger to trace back the email/ registration used for the kijiji ad or trace back his fake number through the provider.

Any tips are very appreciated. This happened in Toronto by the way.

Fake email he used: (ceres edit: NOPE)

Thanks in advance

Jam Warrior

Report it. Nothing to lose. Chance they know he's operating in the area and your report might nail him through surveillance cams or something.

Veevee

You can either not report it and never see your money again, or you can report it and have a non-zero chance of seeing the money again. The police may not do anything, or they may do everything in their considerable power to find the guy, but if you don't at least give them a chance to do something then they can't even pretend to try.

Who knows, maybe you'll be the Xth person this has happened to and reported it putting the total of the crime over a threshold making them even more willing to investigate.

Gabriel_Pitt

While in the grand scheme of things, your incident will probably fall fairly low on the priority list, it builds a record for this guy, or maybe he already has one and it adds to it, so when/if he screws up and gets caught, they have that much more to hit him with, and that much better a chance of you getting some compensation.

Al_wat

Report it but expect nothing.

spool32

Think of: all the people before you who didn't report it, meaning the cops aren't as interested in looking for him.

all the people before you who did report it, that you aren't helping by also reporting

all the people after you, who might not get burned because you reported it.


call the cops. $500 is plenty enough to call them. Maybe the coffee shop has a surveillance camera, you know?

bowen

$500 is a hell of a lot of money to throw down on a device from just some guy.

In the future, I'd avoid paying anymore than $100 for technology items if it's not from a store. Maybe go to your cell provider with a person next time to verify that the phone is legit.

Also that it's not stolen.

Avoid the same thing from ebay too, better off just paying the extra $150 and not having any of the risk whatsoever.

fightinfilipino

report it to police. report it to Kijiji/eBay. like everyone's said, the police probably won't be able to actually locate this person, but your description of them will help. reporting this to eBay will likely bring more action, however, since eBay is much more vested in ensuring at least the idea that their marketplace is safe to use. they're also purchaser-friendly, to the point where legit sellers have a hard time in customer disputes.

in any event, report it. you have nothing more to lose.