Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Just got ROBBED at gunpoint!!!

Well everyone, I am embarrassed to post this but if someone can learn from my mistake it will be worth it.

A little Background:

As some of you know, I am starting to gather the items to start my home theater. I have had my eyes on a Epson 1080UB that retails for $2800.00 for a year now. I was browsing craiglist and found one NIB for $1400.00 right in my area (LA) so I had to bite. I was a little scepticale, was it stolen, a scam or just someone down on his luck so as a little insurance I brought a real big friend with me.
After work this morning we went to the bank and picked up $1450.00 and off to the address we went. I called the seller and he said he would meet me out front of his apartment, that was about the fifth warning sign that it was a scam.
Anyway everything seemed fine, we were following him to "his" apartment then he turned and I had a pistol trained on my stomach. He said give me the money. My freind was still about 10 feet behind me so I figured he would be OK so with my quick thinking I was like "Duh what money" He got pissed and I was about to dirty my pants (it was a big GUN" Looked like a Baretta 40 cal).

I told him the money was in my truck. He called my friend over to him while he sent me to get money, by this time we were working our way back to the street. I went to the truck and flipped my wallet under the seat. I wanted to make a run for it but he had my friend.
I grabbed a few singles and a fifty, crumpled it up in my hand and as started back towards them, my friend started slowly to the truck, I handed him the cash and started to walk backwards to the truck, he looked down at the money and we broke for the truck. By the time he said "that aint all of it" we were squealing tires out of there....

All we could do was laugh (nerves I think) and thank our lucky stars we weren't killed. For the small price of $53.00 we learned a big lesson today. I could have lost all the money or worse, our lives.

Thank you God and thank you Kharma although you did take a little bite out of my Butt....

Well, that's the story and I guess I will just continue to save up for my home theater equipment. I will never attempt buy from someone I dont know, Never again....

man I am still shaking.
Jim

Jim, I'm glad you and your friend are okay. Definitely report this to the police especially if you got a good look at the guy and can describe him. Make sure he doesn't pull this stunt with someone else. I've been held up at gunpoint too and it is no picnic.

Yeah, did you call the cops after that? Glad your ok!

I had a similar story. About 10 years ago I was a Mac Tools (snap on sucks) rep, I was on my tool route one day and stopped at a car wash to wash up the beast. After getting some quarters from the machine, I started to wash the truck and heard someone walking around inside.

I went inside and there was some punk a$$ holding some revolver at me saying just sit down in the drivers seat and don't do anything stupid. He grabbed about $2000 worth of tools in a duffle back and started out the truck. I almost hit him over the head with a huge ball peen hammer, but decided then I'd get in trouble for murder.

The good part of the story is I was offered a job at my current company a few days later.. It was not a hard decision to make...

Wow! glad to hear that you are ok and are only out $53 for the whole thing.

Wow, Jim...glad you're OK and hope you reported it!

I guess that was his way of celebrating New Years, Glad it worked out for the better and you guys are ok.

Good to hear your Ok Jim!

Your post brings up a good point that everyone should take some sort of training to help avoid getting into these situations. Most communities have classes offered by someone (police, community collage, martial arts studios) that can teach you techniques to increase your odds of avoiding hazardous saturations.

It takes self-discipline to internalize and always practice avoidance techniques until after your fist attack but it pays to learn and practice them beforehand. Many sites like this offer advice but taking a class can have a more lasting impact.

http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/robbery_avoidance.html

Criminals usually want easy targets so learn not to be one and they will go after someone else.

Wow. Scary.

This fear is why I tend to do most of my craiglist transactions in my office lobby (which has cameras and security officers), or public areas like inside Starbucks or near municipal areas like the police station.

Sadly this is the world we live in.

My family and I went out to look around at the sales today and we found a Wii Fit, which are very hard to find up here, so we bought it. While we were still walking around the mall, my 8 yr old son wanted to carry it, so I let him. My wife gave me heck as she was thinking someone could knock him over and make off with the Wii Fit. I never even thought about it that way.

Very Scary, but not surprising in areas of LA, glad you guys got away safe!