Instagram scammer.

[Doogliebop]

I'm sorry this happened to you.
In the future, try searching images if you ever have doubts. I recognized these photos the moment I saw them froman instragram account called "bonsaistudiojapan" that I see on my feed from time to time. Likely where your scammer stole them from. They are a nursery somewhere in Japan.

I hope you have some recourse to recover your money.

You're right! They have identical set and setting in the pictures. That's definitely where he got the pics.

 

[ShimpakuBonsai]

I feel sorry for you but...

I don't get it and I don't understand why people are willing to do business this way.
Do your homework and buy the seller is a well know advice buying stuff online

You started with one tree of $100 and then he made you an offer you couldn't refuse.
What was the offer and how much did you have to pay for this offer?

From $ 100 to $1430 is quite a difference IMO.
Why did you make all those separate deposits to several people?

 

[Deleted member 47471]

I do have one more key piece of information that may or may not be helpful. I have his phone number..
If ANYONE has a desire, feel free to prank call/harass/antagonize this thief. I know I will.

Since you have his phone number and all the evidence of being scammed, you should contact the authorities and pursue some justice. The crook is probably scamming 100s of people out of thousands of dollars. Try contacting the Police first.

 

[Doogliebop]

@ShimpakuBonsai
Well $100 a.palmatum was the cheapest tree he had, I also payed for a trident maple $100, another bigger a. Palmatum $150 and a very large black pine for $500. He said he's importing more trees and really needed the space and money. Again, after I paid for the trees, he started calling me posing to be the shipper charging me $200 for shipping, then $150 for "state import tax" then another fee, and another. After each one assuring me it would be shipped after "final" payment. Well final payment never came.

Also I don't want your pity. I know I messed up but I'm an accountable adult and and take responsibility. All I NEED is group awareness bc Y'ALL are my ppl and THIS is my safe place.

 

[rockm]

This guy is a classic cyberthief. He's likely NOT in the U.S., possibly Asia, eastern Europe Africa or the Caribbean. I would be very surprised if that is his real phone number. It's likely spoofed. From what I understand, the 740 area code is used in a lot of phone scams. I would not interact with him.

I would also keep an eye on your bank accounts and any online accounts for a while. Thieves can come back for a second time using a different approach in a different name, etc.

 

[Doogliebop]

This guy is a classic cyberthief. He's likely NOT in the U.S., possibly Asia, eastern Europe Africa or the Caribbean. I would be very surprised if that is his real phone number. It's likely spoofed. From what I understand, the 740 area code is used in a lot of phone scams. I would not interact with him.

He definitely had an accent. It sounded like he's possibly Haitian if I had to guess.

 

[rockm]

I would also caution everyone to vet sellers like this HERE before forking over cash. If the folks here have never heard of them (and their outlandish import claims) something is fishy.

The collective here can sometimes tell only from the photos of the trees being offered if the seller is a crook. They sometimes steal photos from some pretty well known folks. One dumbass a while back was using Walter Pall's photos of his pines...Even if the photos aren't higher profile, they're sometimes identifiable. You can also do a Google image search with the photos and see what comes up.

 

[Deleted member 47471]

I do have one more key piece of information that may or may not be helpful. I have his phone number..
If ANYONE has a desire, feel free to prank call/harass/antagonize this thief. I know I will.

As far as I can tell, the phone number traces to Charlotte, NC, somewhere near Caldwell St and Charlotte Transportation Center. It might be a good start. To learn his lesson, he needs to be caught, taken to court, and charged.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

@ShimpakuBonsai
Well $100 a.palmatum was the cheapest tree he had, I also payed for a trident maple $100, another bigger a. Palmatum $150 and a very large black pine for $500. He said he's importing more trees and really needed the space and money. Again, after I paid for the trees, he started calling me posing to be the shipper charging me $200 for shipping, then $150 for "state import tax" then another fee, and another. After each one assuring me it would be shipped after "final" payment. Well final payment never came.

Also I don't want your pity. I know I messed up but I'm an accountable adult and and take responsibility. All I NEED is group awareness bc Y'ALL are my ppl and THIS is my safe place.

Contact your local or national newspapers man, they love these kind of stories and they love digging around a little to find the person who did this. Especially if you have some form of contact information you can give them.

 

[rockm]

As far as I can tell, the phone number traces to Charlotte, NC, somewhere near Caldwell St and Charlotte Transportation Center. It might be a good start. To learn his lesson, he needs to be caught, taken to court, and charged.

The area code is Ohio. There is no way to trace this guy and you're not going to do anything except give local law enforcement a reason to shake their heads. If you want to do some relative good, report this caller to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at CISA. He's not going to give a valid contact number that is of any value. Scammers can pay to get a temporary area code and then abandon it. He's not in the U.S. You can tell from the mangled English in his texts--classic giveaway for this kind of shit.

 

[Deleted member 47471]

Contact your local or national newspapers man, they love these kind of stories and they love digging around a little to find the person who did this. Especially if you have some form of contact information you can give them.

THIS

 

[Deleted member 47471]

@ShimpakuBonsai
Well $100 a.palmatum was the cheapest tree he had, I also payed for a trident maple $100, another bigger a. Palmatum $150 and a very large black pine for $500. He said he's importing more trees and really needed the space and money. Again, after I paid for the trees, he started calling me posing to be the shipper charging me $200 for shipping, then $150 for "state import tax" then another fee, and another. After each one assuring me it would be shipped after "final" payment. Well final payment never came.

Also I don't want your pity. I know I messed up but I'm an accountable adult and and take responsibility. All I NEED is group awareness bc Y'ALL are my ppl and THIS is my safe place.

Also, you might consider contacting your bank and requesting to know the location where your money was received. They could participate in initiating an actual investigation, knowing how many people were scammed and how much money has been conned out of people.

I hope this works out in your favor and you get closure on this.

 

[19Mateo83]

As far as I can tell, the phone number traces to Charlotte, NC, somewhere near Caldwell St and Charlotte Transportation Center. It might be a good start. To learn his lesson, he needs to be caught, taken to court, and charged.

I live in Charlotte. That area is where the courthouse is…Our area code is also 704

 

[rockm]

THIS

As a former newspaper reporter, I can tell you this isn't much of a story these days. It's a pretty typical scam. Only thing that makes it different is bonsai is involved. The scammer had done some research on his marks (good phishing scammers do that) That MIGHT sell an editor or reporter on it, but I wouldn't expect much.

Also, if you go to the media and are successful in getting coverage, remember that exposure can be more of a pain than the crime itself. You're putting yourself out there.

You can certainly be outraged, screaming for vengeance, etc. (I would be too) but bottom line, this guy's not going to get caught, you're not likely going to get you're money back. You have already had a greater impact spreading the word here to the specific community than would happen with TV or newspaper. File for a chargeback from Cash App or have your bank dispute the payment .

 

[19Mateo83]

He's not in the U.S. You can tell from the mangled English in his texts--classic giveaway for this kind of shit.

this is always a dead give away

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

THIS

In my country it's a weekly thing in the local newspaper. Not because it's a segment or anything, but because people are people and they love good deals. Every week there are about four pages full of articles like that.

The most common one nowadays is people spoofing a bank phone number and telling old people that their money is in the process of being stolen. So the money has to be moved to a "safe" account. Because they scammers spoof an actual bank phone number, people fall for it. Our bank laws state that if you consciously transfer money through the 2-factor authentication to a scammers account, you're consciously making a decision and the bank has no grounds to undo the transfer.
Money is transferred to a mule account (some young kid who was promised a couple hundred euros for donating his bank account, card and pin number) and from there on forward it's transferred abroad, before it's transferred to the actual scammer.

So be careful where you leave your personal information; all they need is your name, the bank you're using, and your phone number.

 

[dbonsaiw]

Thanks for posting.

 

[MaciekA]

This is a group of people stealing someone’s pictures on instagram and it’s interesting that nobody here has ID’d the smiling dude in the account pictures because that dude likely has no clue his pictures have been stolen.

It’s quite possible the scammer group knows absolutely nothing about bonsai or has ever seen one. It’s also quite possible these are people who do this as a normal day job in an office park somewhere, with benefits, roadmaps, and quarterly stretch goals. Just the way scam operations operate these days. A bonsai account is probably lost in a sea of other accounts. Trees, shoes, bags, cat fishing of lonely people, etc. Just check out kitboga on youtube to see how this all works.

If anyone has a complete list of this scammer’s accounts I’d be happy to PSA sticky them on a 286,000 subscriber subreddit.

 

[hemmy]

This is a group of people stealing someone’s pictures on instagram and it’s interesting that nobody here has ID’d the smiling dude in the account pictures because that dude likely has no clue his pictures have been stolen.

It’s the bonsai.mike2020 account that appears to be legit and the source of some of the stolen images.

Post in thread 'Instagram scammer.'
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/instagram-scammer.61494/post-1065674

 

[Mike Westervelt]

Google search of that phone sends you to "Bunnybonsai tree service" on facebook, looks like they are using pix grabbed from bonsai_mike2002.

Odd thing is Mike is involved with the Akron Canton Bonsai Society, and 740 is an Ohio area code???