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EURO SCAM BY A GLAMOUR COUPLE

The counterfeiters 'bought' Talukdar's Rolex

Monday November 12,2007

By Maisha Frost

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(3)

AN elaborate hustle involving counterfeit notes has cheated a young dad out of thousands of pounds after he put his luxury watch up for sale on the internet.

Victim Nesar Talukdar met the fraudsters, an English man and woman, when they came to his home last week to collect the Rolex and paid him e4,200 (£2,900) in cash.

“I was taken in by their glamorous appearance, classy accent and luxury car but I should have been more suspicious as they paid the full price without haggling,” regrets Nesar, 27, who works in computers at Brunel University, Middlesex. He has already discovered another seller targeted by the same gang of crooks.

Nesar was selling his watch to help meet extra expenses after the birth of his son, Omid. He posted the sale on the http://www.Gumtree.com website, a small ads network free to subscribers and owned by eBay.

Nesar, from west London, then got a call from a man saying he wanted to buy it for his son. “They said they lived in Monaco and wanted to pay in euros,” continued Nesar.

“I agreed and a young man came that night. It felt odd going to the car to exchange my watch for the money, which was new and beautifully packed up in wads. I didn’t take details – my guard was down because I was dealing in cash.”

But when he came to bank the money at his local NatWest branch in Uxbridge, a cashier raised the alarm. “NatWest said the fakes were reasonably well done but lacked a proper watermark and the note numbering was wrong,” he says.

“These are things I would never have thought of checking. It’s devastating.”

Nesar reported the incident to the police but, worried others could be tricked, he contacted another trader he’d noticed selling an expensive watch on Gumtree.

“My hunch was right,” he says. “The gang had called him and he was about to agree to a cash sale. He was very grateful for my warning.”

“We take all reports of fraud very seriously,” said Sophy Silver, a Gumtree spokeswoman. “Although traders use our site at their own risk, the Gumtree community looks out for each other and we have lots of safety options on the site for users to share information.”

West London police confirmed that an allegation of fraud had been reported and investigations were underway.

Nesar adds: “Perhaps fraudsters are having to take more pains and risk as consumers wise up to the conventional scams. I urge other sellers to stay very alert, especially in the run-up to Christmas.”

His loss coincides with the launch of the Government-backed Get Safe Online week starting today, designed to reduce fraud by making individual consumers and businesses more security conscious when using the internet.

SCAM

22.02.08, 8:33am

Mug...everyone gets taken at least once,move on and learn your lesson...greed is king...

• Posted by: jonnieofbrixton • Report Comment

DOG BITES MAN

21.12.07, 9:24am

This makes a change ... it's usually the watch hat turns out to be fake.

• Posted by: Expressdownunder • Report Comment

THERE'S ONE BORN EVERY MINUTE

19.11.07, 12:43pm

How many times are we warned about dealing in cash to wide boys? Especially Euros, which is one note we Brits do not know enough about. If only he had just gone inside to check one of the notes with an ultra violet light, the car would have sped off.

There are lots of authorised watch dealers who would have given a generous sum for the watch albeit, probably not as high a figure that was offered by the shyster.

There is one ray of hope however, all Rolex watches have a serial number which is registered in Geneva at the point of purchase. If the watch gets lost or stolen, you inform Rolex and it is then registered as such and if it ever needs to go for repair or service with an authorised dealer, it will immediately be picked up anywhere in the world.

• Posted by: Zeigfreid • Report Comment