To ask what to do since I've been a fool...

[cantbelieveivebeensostupid]

I've name changed because frankly I'm sitting here wondering why I've been so fucking stupid!

Our combi boiler broke two weeks ago... we couldn't afford a new one (oil combi so around £3500) so looked on Ebay, found a couple that where being sold by a business seller. Rang him and he spent an hour chatting to me about my boiler helping me to try and fix it, really went above and beyond and sounded like an old school genuine guy. I got outbid on the boiler but rang him and he said he was having another coming in the next couple of days.

We were desperate since we have no hot water or heating and I agreed to buy the boiler from him. I sent the money (£900) to his bank and we agreed he would send the boiler this week. I've been calling him since Monday and his phone is going straight to voicemail and despite leaving tons of messages he's not returning my calls.

Now If I were reading this I would be screaming at the poster telling them how stupid they were to send the money. I've been had haven't I. I don't have money to buy another one and don't know what the hell I'm going to do.

Any advise very welcome but please avoid telling me how much of an idiot I am. If you knew me you would never believe I could have been so bloody stupid. I am sat here sobbing because I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do.

What A Cunt!

Not a word I like or use but in this instance gets my vote!

I've not eaten all day... feel sick. Just keep picturing him laughing at me for being such an idiot.

I'm not a nasty person by nature but I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for people like him.

I think Tricky's suggestion of contacting local press is really good. If they were interested they would investigate the case and in a fairly small place like Kirkcudbright may be able to come up with some answers more quickly than the other options. Any information received could then be passed on officially.
Please stop beating yourself up, a terrible thing has happened to you and you are seeking advice

I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for people like him.

Fear not, there will be a host of us MNers poking him ferociously with our pitchforks.

OP,
There's are many many thousands of people who have been caught out by these scams. As suggested above , try the local press. A link to this thread may catch the attention of a local reporter?
This paper has a little 'tell your story link' www.gallowaygazette.co.uk/

And this one has a link to send stories to. www.dailyrecord.co.uk/all-about/kirkcudbright

A link to this thread perhaps??

It may help to mention to this man that this will be your next move if you don't receive a refund (or the boiler) immediately??

OP - have sent you a PM with information about how to identify them (including an address)

If it's a proper scammer then all the information will be fake and they won't be traceable through their bank details. The money would be in and out 'their' account very quickly.

Hopefully, there may be a tiny chance that he's used some real details somewhere..... maybe.

I think the same person has had other eBay accounts - if you look at the other sellers O... is following then a couple of them have Oil boilers in their name. If you then look at their details of previous name changes one of them has a name that is inline with the name O.... gave you as his 'real' name.

Good luck in your fight.

As long as its all based in the UK police should be able to trace and deal, I'd leave them to get on with it tbh. It may not be a quick process but given the info I'd be very very surprised if this involves any kind of criminal master mindness.

Hope you come right op. What a nasty person to do this. Actually sickening.

I'm so sorry this happened to you!!! If I had any spare money I'd send it to you in a heartbeat! But I'm poor too.

I hope something gets sorted for you xxx

Have you been to the police yet?

Sympathies OP. I have lived in rural Scotland for the past 10years and being tied to oil is a real pain. You can't get decent maintenance plans and every repair costs a fortune (as if buying oil wasn't bad enough). I'm not sure people who get gas really understand. I can see why you'd go second hand (but get a registered fitter as I assume you were given the £300 you had set by).

Have you thought about posting your story on facebook groups local to him, e.g.

www.facebook.com/groups/KirkcudbrightshireSalesWants/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Someone might know him and pass on some helpful details?

Once again thank you all for your suggestions (which I will use to attempt to get my money back) and offers of help You are all fantastic and I can't thank you enough.

A MN's (thank you, you know who you are) has sent me some very interesting info about him showing his purchase history, from a site I didn't know existed... guess what, he is buying boilers!! I am going to contact some of the sellers and see what I can find out about him.

He is on Ebay stating that he is selling refurbished oil boilers but probably is just buyer them cheap and selling them on at a profit, which in itself is not a crime but the reason I went to him was because his boilers where refurbished and he gave a guarantee so he is clearly misleading buyers. I'm a little more hopeful that I may recover some of my money... eventually!

The absolute best news of all is that I've found another boiler, its only been used in a holiday let and is just an hours drive away. We are collecting it tomorrow afternoon. It has cost a fraction of the £900 that I sent to "O" and frankly if it only sees us us through the winter then I will be fine with that, gives us some time to save up for a new one.

I've given as good as I get on some threads over my time on MN and have enjoyed the (heated) discussions but this thread has reminded me that there is a far superior side to MN... A community of people willing to come together to support another in their time of need. Fantastic.

That really is good news. I hope everything goes well with the replacement boiler and you spend the winter warm and cosy enjoying a few glasses of

Great news about the replacement boiler.

I'm so glad you've contacted Action Fraud. They will make initial enquiries to try and confirm where the suspect lives. Once that is done, they will send it to the force that deal with that particular area. Fraud is a bit of an anomaly, as normally the investigating force is the one where the victim lives, but for fraud it is the other way round.

From whats been said on here I believe it will be Police Scotland, as my understanding is they are all one big combined force up there? They're not always that great at engaging with Action Fraud (I'm a police officer dealing with fraud in my force, so know what is said and sent out as our Sgt tells us), so I would definitely recommend chasing if you haven't heard anything.

What should happen is it should be given to an officer who should make contact with you directly. If not then give it a couple of weeks and chase Action Fraud.

A bank account is usually a very handy way of tracing someone, although it can become difficult if they've either opened the account fraudulently (easier than it sounds) or they've moved on and not updated the bank. There are plenty of ways of tracing them though, so I would hope the local police can catch up with him fairly easily.

Good luck with it all.

Good news on the new boiler.

Keep being a "thorn in his side". What a nasty piece of work.

That's really low. Nobody's going to buy a second hand boiler unless they're really skint and desperate. Hope the police catch the fucker and you get your money back.

Hi OP, hope you're feeling a bit better now that you have found another boiler. I just wanted to add a thought, I'm in the USA so I'm not sure about the rules in the UK but I know that here you can apply for a fee waiver so you don't have to pay the filing fee for a small court claim. If you satisfy the requirements - income below a certain level where you can not cover your living costs and also pay legal fees etc... I wonder if that is an option for you in Scotland? Every little bit helps.

I'm so pleased you've got a boiler

Well I've spoken to 4 sellers on Ebay that have confirmed he won boilers from them... two said he didn't show to collect.

From the evidence I've gathered so far he's definitely a wheeler dealer who's clearly used to operating how he wants to, whether that be legally or morally acceptable. I suppose that means he will care very little about what he does to people. That said I'm going to give it everything I have to get my money back.

The boiler is here, the guy who we bought it from was lovely, said he took it out of a holiday let he had to change the system and was working when he did, but said to bring it back if it wasn't. I know that could be a lie, but it was good of him to say it. I'm really hoping it's all working properly and my very kind boiler man has agreed to take his fee for fitting in installments over 3 months.

Please everyone keep everything crossed for me

hope you get a result op

So glad you got a replacement, fingers crossed for you that it's all ok. And keep fighting, no one deserves to be toyed with like that - give him hell x

Fingers crossed you soon feel the warmth!

I've come late to the thread but by gum, what a lovely helpful place this is at times
well done everyone for the excellent sleuthing and advice offered to OP.

best of luck in pursuing the swine, OP.

The new boiler is in and... we have hot water and heating!! It needed a bit of tweaking once in but my lovely boiler man persevered into the evening and finally got it going. I'm keeping my fingers crossed it keeps going.

I've just had a lovely hot shower and it was heavenly and we have a lovely warm house.

I'll tell you now that this boiler only cost me £100! Oh how wish I had seen this one first.