If indeed this was a scam rather than just an unfortunate mix up, Stahi is not the only one who was caught out. I have also been unfortunate enough to lose out to the tune of $750.

The worrying thing is that if it was a scam, it was quite carefully set up. I am not in a position to go throwing that amount of money away so I took reasonable measures to check that the whole thing looked legitimate.

I checked several things carefully before proceeding. I checked the profile of the user in question which was quite comprehensively filled in. I checked their previous posts to see whether the things they had posted about suggested a genuine interest in the Empeg, enthusiastic knowledge of it and a history of being an Empeg owner.

I exchanged emails with an email address that was somewhat more reliable looking than an @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com address.

I made payment by electronic fund transfer for which I had the appropriate bank account details which matched the details of the individual I was dealing with.

All in all I had no reason to suspect that this was not a genuine individual. All the information they had given seemed consistent.

I began to be slightly concerned when replies to my email dried up immediately after confirming that the money had been received with a vague promise of shipping in the next day or so.

I was further concerned by the fact that this person had not been polite enough to send confirmation of the shipping including the appropriate shipping reference despite over a week passing and a few polite reminders from myself.

The post by Stahi just pretty much confirmed my suspicions. Two people both paying for the same single item and neither receiving it strongly suggests that something is amiss.

There may be an innocent explanation to all of this, but I doubt it.

Let's face it, it doesn't matter how careful you are when dealing with someone you have never met, ultimately it comes down to placing your trust in someone else's honesty and integrity. If they never had that in the first place then you are likely to lose out.

The worst aspect of all this is that it could create an atmosphere of mistrust in what was otherwise a friendly and close-knit online community.

I am still looking to purchase an Empeg, but will have to be even more cautious in future. It will certainly make it tricky when trying to deal with someone who isn't a recognised pillar of this community.

Caveat Emptor ...

Andy.