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!

Yeah Grunt I hear ya, I've been out of it for awhile, but have a blackbelt in RyuTe Kempo Karate. I almost put him to sleep with a few pressure point strikes, but thought, oh well....

Wow, glad your ok but that sure does suck.

Now that guy can buy a $50 crack rock and begin to look for his next victim....

Thanks for the support guys, I did go to my local sherrif station in Marina Del Rey. I think the Officer was new, when I told her the story her little face just lit up and she was like "Really". I wasn't sure if she was shocked that something like that really happened or if it was that I was really that stupid that it happened to me.

In any case I hope it doesn't happen to anyone else. I was born and raised with some street smarts in NY but I think I lost them living in my little country-bumpkin town in Ga. Kind of missing it a little more now.

Jim

Yeah, def. do future deals in a public place, preferably with security cameras/ect.

It's hard not to let training take over and just react isn‘t it? While stationed in New Zealand as and embassy guard another Marine and I (both having just come from high threat posts) were walking down Lampton Quay when there was a loud bang. We both dove into opposite sides of a shop doorway reaching in our jackets (for guns we aren’t carrying) to cover each direction. All of the Kiwis walking nearby stopping and stared at us. Realizing it was just a car backfiring we got up and looked at them and said “We’re Yanks! They all started nodding and looking at each other like it all made sense now.

I'm glad no one was hurt here, pride excluded perhaps. Unbelieveable what scum there is out there.

Glad to hear you are okay and nobody else was hurt.

Glad you guys made it out OK and didn't loose too much. Might be time to invest in some body armour.

JimT,
I am glad you and your body got out of the situation unharmed. I have to tell you, though, that giving that guy $53 and then making a run to the truck was stupid. I work in New Haven and grew up in NY. People can shoot others for the slightest of reasons and sometimes, for no reason at all. You took a big chance with both of your lives. You should have given him all the money and just walked away. I hope the police contacts that guy through craigslist and gets him before someone gets hurt.

Randy,
I am glad you have martial arts training, but he could have fired his gun and put you down, unless you could assuredly take that guy out (not hurting him badly,...I mean OUT). You made the right decision by not engaging him. The tool company and most retail stores are insured against robberies. Why would you risk your life for someone else's insured $2000. Glad you were not hurt.

Sorry to hear about your ordeal Jim, glad to see you both made it out of there alive ... like Jay said above, unfortunately that's the society we live in.

Jim - wow... that is a real eye opener story and a great reminder for how to safely conduct business on Craigslist. Thank you for posting so that everyone thinks twice before doing the same thing in the future.

Jason

Dean - this is just too funny.

Man, that takes being cheap...........to a whole new level.
If this is true, you should REALLY REFLECT!

Wow! That's right around the corner from where I am staying in California (Tarzana). I'm glad you were able to keep your wits about you and get out of there together safely and with only a small loss of cash. Thanks for sharing your story. I'm especially glad your car started!

Marina Del Rey is just down the road from me...and a very nice part of town. Goes to show sh*t can happen anywhere. Wow.

I promise if you stop by to demo my Axiom's there'll be no guns involved!

ihifi- I made alot of mistakes in this deal, I am really lucky me or my friend didn't get hurt or get the truck shot up. Maybe he believed I didn't go to the bank yet and just decided to let us go. I'm glad he didn't just started shooting.

I will not allow myself to get in a similar situation again, really dumb on my part. Now that the rush is over it's kind of surreal. I see victoms of violent crimes at work but this gives me a new appreciation of what some go through.

Spiffnme- I appreciate your last statement, makes me feel much better!!!

Jim

Good to hear you and your friend got out of that situation unhurt.

Jim - if this helps at all, the 1080UB is worth full price. I've had mine for almost a year now and remain very happy with the picture.

Jason

WOW! That's no "Monster Cable stole from me" story!
Very glad to hear you are safe.

Just wanted to change the subject.

Hey, changing subjects is in my C.V.

Time to start carrying a gun to all your craigslist deals now.

Geez, and here I thought Robb had a similar story and lost his M80's.

Yeah...and then we could have two dead people.

Or more if someone gets hit with a stray round.

Gotta go with spiffnme here. Most people, even those who think they should, shouldn’t be carrying guns. Hell most cops I’ve known probably shouldn’t. There’s a reason the British stopped issuing guns to the agents they sent to Germany during WW2. More of the unarmed ones survived because they learned how not to get into bad situations in the first place.

Wow, fourteen hundred dollars!? For two lives? That's a heckufa bargain!

FWIW, I must chime in that what ihifi states is absolutely true. The textbook response (to avoid grave bodily harm re: assertiveness theory) to this type of behavior is to (extremely politely) state, "Cash, you need cash? Please here, take my wallet, all my credit cards and take my watch too {or anything else in my pocket or car you would like to have}."

Recently I documented the story of a twenty-something man who was being robbed of a classic car at a car wash in his own neighborhood and decided to admonish the assailant, "You don't want to do this!" following which he was promptly hit over the head by the assailant's associate and shot in the abdomen and leg for good measure, resulting in the need for surgery including a titanium implant from hip to knee.

Now he walks with a cane like an 80-year-old man (permanent disability, and it completely sucks).

Yea well I learned big lesson and I am glad the robber was actually decent (if you could say that) by not escalating the situation.

Well it's over now and after people here read this hopefully they wont be as dumb as I was.

Jim

Jim, you weren't "dumb" as you put it, you were trusting as most of us are. I don't think many of us would ever have suspected someone would be so brazen to try and pull something like this. It's sad that a few people out there like this guy though. Clearly this could have ended in a tragedy and thankfully it didn't.

Glad to hear you are OK. It is certainly difficult to keep your wits about you in such a situation. You acted as best as you could and outsmarted him a bit with the wallet but that was an extended risk that you might think twice about next time.

I have never been robbed, in person, but once in an ER waiting room I haito'ed a guy in the throat who was running at/by me with a blunt object. He went down in a pile but as it turned out, he was only running to make an escape out the door because he was intimidated by being encircled by hospital staff. (a large but non-contacting circle of all available male, sometimes female, staff is common practice when someone is considered a possible threat in a hospital, well this one anyways.)

I thought he was taking a run at the nurse behind me and reacted instinctively. In hind sight, my reaction was very excessive and I'm VERY lucky he wasn't hurt more severely than being stunned for a minute or two.

I'd like to think I learned from that lesson as well but I'd just as soon not have to find out.

My only other robbery experience was getting the battery stolen out of my Jeep. The best part of this story is that the thieves actually took the time to screw the battery holding bracket back into place after they had removed the battery. Very thoughtful of them.

Count your blessings and stay safe!

They thought that if they screwed the bracket back in place, you wouldn't notice that the battery was missing!