Motorcycle Scam

This happened a year or two ago.
We got to work one morning and my father got a phone call. It was "Jim" (I forget his real name). He said that he had met my dad a while back, a common saying around here, and he knew he was looking for old bikes. My dad of course is looking for old bike at a good deal, what motorcycle enthusiast would be! So the guy said that he was from our town and was a truck driver and came across an estate sale in Alabama.

Jim said that there was 2 old Indians and 1 1950's era Harley. The estate only wanted $5,000 for all three of these mint bikes. Wow what a deal, I'll take it!! My dad said buy the bikes and I will pay you for them when they get here because the guy said that he could bring them home with him. One problem this guy didn't have enough money on him to buy the bikes so my dad had to Western Union $4,000 to him!

Ok that's when things started to get fishy! Now this is going on for about 2 hours with phone calls back and forth and the estate wants to get rid of these bikes and the guy had to keep moving with the load on his truck. So my dad had to act fast to get these "steal of a deal" bikes.

The more we thought about it the more it became interesting. My dad called the guy back and asked where he met him. He stated here at our shop. I forgot what he said but whatever it was it was totally wrong, like that our shop was in an industrial park. Ok clue number one. Next the phone number on the caller ID said Texas? Why does he have a Texas number if he lives in Bridgewater MA?

The final straw was Dave asked the guy what street he lived on in BridgeWATER and he said Ocean Drive! There is no Ocean Drive in Bridgewater! He must have thought because our town has "water" in it it must be near the water. False! Clue number three!

My father was so disappointed realizing that it must be a scam. He called the guy back and asked a bunch more questions and the guy hung up. We called back several times throughout the day but there was no answer. We never heard from him again!

But what a scam because my dad meets a ton of people everyday! how can he remember everyone. Also what motorcycle guy wouldn't want a wicked good deal on a couple of old motorcycles? I am sure my dad wasn't the first one he called. The guy probably convinced a bunch of people to send him money. Money that you can't trace or ever get back. It's not like you can call Western Union and tell them it was a scam and they credit you back like a credit card!

So watch out if someone that knows you, found a really good deal but needs a little bit of extra cash because they don't have enough!