Mongrel Act..hope they get him!

Hope they catch this piece of excrement!

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/the-shocking-moment-a-man-gives-chase-as-a-thief-posing-as-a-gumtree-buyer-makes-off-with-his-dollar5000-gold-nugget/ar-BBKREzj?ocid=ientp

Very unfortunate.
That is one of the many reasons that I do not do Local Pick Up on Ebay etc.  wonder if his insurer is AAMI?
    I do not see much  difference between a person who breaks into your home and steals something and a person invited inside who steals from you. Stolen is stolen.
    I guess  a possible diff is that you take a known risk when you invite somebody you do or don't know into your home, or in other words you have taken a gamble and the outcome is what it is.

Most of the sods who do this sort of thing on Ebay etc have a false ID membership so it is a good idea to ask to see some positive form of ID such as drivers license before handing over your items.

It is always sad/heartbreaking to see things like this happen, for all monetary transactions are taken in trust/good faith.
Whether it is by way of invitation into ones home, office, shop or business or by dealing with someone on the street, theft is theft & in this unfortunate case premeditated theft, for the perpetrator had no intentions of paying the seller in the first place.
This is why I say to all members here, the 10 contributory post up rules, that have been put up on here for the Items Wanted/for Sale section, are just a minor deterrent, it is by no means a guarantee that any monetary transaction in exchange for any item or good, will always go smoothly between buyer/seller.
It is up to each & every one of us to take the upmost caution when the exchange of money for goods is to take place & not just trust in the forum membership or when dealing with anyone on the street. One must always keep in mind to expect the unexpected to happen.

Cheers Kon.

It was certainly a lowlife ratbag that committed this theft.

But I'd have to say that it takes a very short-sighted person to advertise a few thousand dollars in gold on Ebay and then invite a stranger into their house... before presenting a "bag filled with jewellery". Prospectors are often seen as soft targets because they have expensive gear and potentially may be holding gold. This applies in the field and in the home. I can remember selling something on Gumtree years ago (I think it was a Sony Playstation or something like that) and meeting the buyer at my local McDonald's carpark... and I felt kinda weird doing that. But I'd prefer not to have the buyer come to my home. I believe some police stations encourage sellers to do their transaction in the reception area but obviously that won't apply to every transaction and some buyers might find this intimidating.

Sometimes sellers choose not to use Ebay (even though Ebay owns Gumtree) because the fees are too prohibitive and the sale might raise flags if they're accepting welfare etc. because Ebay reports sales to the authorities now. But the safeguards with Ebay would have discouraged this soft of theft from happening. On the other hand, Ebay and Paypal are set up in a way that an unscrupulous thief can relatively easily get a refund while running off with the item when it arrives. Happens all the time and they can even do a Chargeback on a purchase for gold nuggets as late as 8 months after they bought it. You'll lose the nugget and then your money on top of it.

But having people pay in cash and in person might seem a sure way to deter online fraud... but it DOES encourage criminals to scour the Gumtree ads for easy targets like this man. The last thing a prospector would ever want to do would be to invite such people top their home.

As for his insurance, the act of inviting a person into their residence usually overrides the "break-in/unlawful-entry" clause that binds most home/content insurance.

Hopefully the cctv footage can be used by the police to get the rego number of his car, he does not look like a young bloke either and appeared to stumble or maybe he even twisted his ankle as he neared his car while the other guy was chasing him so he's no athlete, anyway someone is bound to recognise him or his car, but seriously you have to wonder what would go through a persons mind to think that they could get away with it these days but I suppose even if he gets caught he will come up with some sort of sob story and end up the victim instead of the crook, lucky the guy didn't crack him on the head (would be hard to resist in that situation ) or they would be charging him for assault instead of punishing the robber.

au-fever

This is all about greed.... by the seller. The bloke has already used up his good luck in finding the bloody thing. All he had to do is take it to one of the top notch gold buying centres in Melbourne and get a decent reasonable price for it. (My experience anyway) Instead he's thinking that he'll try and squeeze the last cent out of some poor private sucker. Well whose the sucker now?

 Sliiiiiiim   This has little to do with greed. Is there any prospector here, who wouldn't want the best cash sale return for their hard earned gold find? Regardless of what price was negotiated or agreed upon between buyer & seller, this so called buyer who turned up was a thief. He had no intentions of paying for the nugget in the first place. That's probably why he talked the innocent seller into dealing away from home in the first place.

Cheers Kon.  

slimpickens wrote:This is all about greed.... by the seller. The bloke has already used up his good luck in finding the bloody thing. All he had to do is take it to one of the top notch gold buying centres in Melbourne and get a decent reasonable price for it. (My experience anyway) Instead he's thinking that he'll try and squeeze the last cent out of some poor private sucker. Well whose the sucker now?

What a bloody stupid comment

artrix wrote:
What a bloody stupid comment

Be nice artrix, some valid reasoning as to why you think this, would be more appropriate, don't you think. Sorry for having an opinion.

artrix wrote:

slimpickens wrote:This is all about greed.... by the seller. The bloke has already used up his good luck in finding the bloody thing. All he had to do is take it to one of the top notch gold buying centres in Melbourne and get a decent reasonable price for it. (My experience anyway) Instead he's thinking that he'll try and squeeze the last cent out of some poor private sucker. Well whose the sucker now?

What a bloody stupid comment

The way I see it is, the seller did not think about the consequences.
Once burned (bitten) twice shy.
We all live and learn.