T w e n t y S i d e d

Right after I wrote the last Girls und Panzer post, my mother found a deal on Facebook marketplace. My spouse’s primary vehicle was in the shop with a so-far un-findable problem. It *drives* fine, but there is a concerning warning light about the automatic transmission fluid temperature coming on as soon as the car is driven. And only if it’s driven, if you let it *sit* idling the error doesn’t come on, lending creedance to the idea that it may actually be a transmission oil temperature problem. But no one can actually *prove* that so far and the only solutions mechanics have been willing to pursue is “find someone who knows more than me” or “swap out expensive parts until the problem goes away.” Well, my mother saw a marketplace listing from a known family friend (I don’t know these people, but I know who they are. They are actually related through marriage.) These people were selling off an uncle’s possessions (basically an estate sale) who had recently been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. He was being moved into assisted-living at that very moment, was likely facing multiple surgeries, and they wanted to sell his excess “toys,” cars, and utility vehicles to raise immediate cash for the family. He didn’t need them, no one wanted them, etc. Plausible? Possibly.

Here’s were it gets questionable. The list of things for sale were *mostly* of the description I mentioned…toys. There was a side-by-side, a couple of motorcycles, a jet ski, a couple of good lawnmowers and a small Kubota garden tractor. A pressure washer and a diesel generator, which I had questions about because the picture provided looked like…someone had taken a picture of the diesel generator when they decided to buy at Home Depot or Tractor Supply. But there was also a fridge, a stove, a PlayStation 5 and some games. Two older vans, but both kind-of rare camping models; a Vanagon and a Ram. Both in good shape. I mean, that’s a real interest; but not something you run across often. And then there were the “regular” cars. There were five that I remember; a couple of late model pickups, nothing special. An almost new Outback, and a late-model CR-V and RAV-4. All three of which they were advertising VERY cheap. My mother asked if any of those cars would make good substitutions for what was in the shop with an unknown problem, as the price was PHENOMENAL and she knew these people and trusted them.

I told her the RAV-4 was not only the best deal, but overall the vehicle my spouse was most interested in. However, I also cautioned that the prices were literally “too-good-to-be-true” level, which scared me. But I don’t use Facebook; my mother does, and she knows these people. My mother assured me she had not only dealt with these people before and talked to them not that long ago, but they were, as I mentioned, connected to the family through my cousin’s spouse. (I should interject here there is also some background to “my mother buying a car for our use.” Odd thing to have happened before, true. My parents only a few years ago came into some money. Not enough to make them “rich” by any definition, but enough to help provide for their last few years on Earth, hopefully. Whether that’s true is another topic. One of the first things my mother did was offer to buy my family a good used vehicle as we only had one at the time. Not everyone was on-board with this action so I ended up trying to mediate. My only real criteria, as I couldn’t be with anyone during the shopping, was “a small sedan or SUV, Toyota or Honda is best but almost anything is fine…except a late-model automatic Nissan Altima, Sentry, Maxima, Rogue, or Murano because they have had an increased amount of transmission trouble compared to most other cars. So that’s a good rule-of-thumb.” My mother buys a 2017 Nissan Altima. It IMMEDIATELY starts having trouble, although to be fair, NOT WITH THE TRANSMISSION. Just…everything else. My mother ends up TRADING THIS CAR IN A MONTH LATER for a 2017 Mazda 6 at Carmax. She lost a lot of money on that deal. And we STILL don’t bring it up because even though she has signaled she understands she made a mistake, her BIGGEST takeaway is that she was “disrespected” when she was only trying to do us a favor. I don’t want to activate that situation as a trap card, so I’m trying to keep my distance.)

So my mother contacts this person to ask about the Toyota RAV-4. They reiterate the price, tell my mother they can send a detailed listing of everything they are selling, and also mentioned they are out-of-state making arrangements and helping the family, and could my mother send a refundable down-payment. This is a RED FLAG, but sending refundable down-payments is also a real thing. The full listing is where I got a lot of the information above concerning what all they were selling, some of which I questioned. What bothered me the most is that the RAV-4 in the listing AND IN THE NEW PICTURES is clearly a different vehicle than the initial listing my mother responded to. I point all this out, and we also have a long discussion on rational reasons OTHER THAN “my uncle needs surgery” could exist for why they are selling the cars so cheap (the other items vary in how appropriate the pricing is, honestly). Like, maybe these are salvage repairs. The license plates for all the listed cars have not been “blacked” out, as is common; they have all been removed entirely. Once again, something I have seen happen but isn’t the most common way to do things.

A side-quest occurs at this point. Because the RAV-4 listings conflict, my mother asks for pictures of the CR-V. Also my mother briefly considers replacing her own vehicle with the Subaru Outback. I talk her out of that one after she has already requested more information on the grounds that the Outback will not ride NEARLY as smoothly, nor is it as large on the inside, as her American-made crossover. While the CR-V looks fine, the seller says they will be back home (our home town) on Thursday (this is two weeks ago, now; not this past Thursday) and if my mother would wire half-down on every vehicle she wanted, they could just meet us at her uncle’s former house (in a larger nearby town) and hand the vehicles over. I should also mention that earlier that day my mother had already sent a $1000 down payment that the seller claimed never went through, so she cancelled and sent $1500 for the RAV-4. My mother is very upset at the new request, and I realize regardless of whether this is the person my mother thinks it is THIS IS A BAD SITUATION THAT WE SHOULD ABANDON IMMEDIATELY. I tell my mother this. She thinks on it overnight then wires the rest of the amount needed to pay for the RAV-4 in total the next morning. After all, *she knows these people*.

After wiring the rest of the money, they tell her they will now be home late Sunday. (Again, not yesterday, last Sunday) My mother says this *will not* work for her (or us, actually) and they tell her they *may* be able to get home Friday night. There may have been some communication I’m not aware of the next few days, but I made my case to my mother and she ignored it, so I’m just keeping my opinions to myself. Anyway, the next I hear is my mother telling me (this is last weekend) that she has tried to message this person twice to arrange a meeting time and is not getting a response. I reiterate that this could actually *not be* the person my mother thinks; their account was hacked, and if it was them it’s still a scam. She ultimately decides to give them until 7:00 PM Sunday to respond. When they don’t, my mother tells them she wants her money wired back plus the amount of the fees she had to pay. She doesn’t receive a reply.

The following Monday she files a report with the county Sheriff’s office. They tell her there’s probably nothing they can do (of course). I tell her to go to the bank, which she seems resistant to do, but does eventually report to them what happened. They start investigating the transaction. Later that day the “seller” deletes their account and all their history, at least from my mother’s perspective. My brother-in-law reports that not only can he still see this person’s account, they have once again listed the Toyota RAV-4 for sale. So they just blocked my mother. My brother-in-law inquires about the RAV-4 to the seller. They tell him he needs to wire a down payment; they are “out of town” and can meet with him the next weekend. My mother gets a call from the Sheriff’s office that the case has been sent to the FBI, because the Sheriff did actually do the work of calling the bank and learning the transaction was with a bank in Kansas, making it an interstate matter and out of their jurisdiction. Despite everything I have told my mother repeatedly about how law enforcement works in the United States, she is incredulous that the local “good guys” can’t just make someone give her the money.

My brother-in-law, who knows everyone, actually CALLS THE PEOPLE THAT MY MOTHER SAYS SHE KNOWS AND HAS TALKED TO and learns their Facebook account was hacked six months ago and Facebook will do nothing to either recover the account or shut it down. My mother reports this to the Sheriff’s office, who tell her “hey, that’s great. Still nothing we can do.” My mother, once again, does not understand. I tell her possibly the bank can get her money back, but it won’t be fast regardless. The FBI will only investigate if the crime fits a particular headline they’re supposed to chase, or this hacker is actually part of a ring that has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars. Otherwise they do not care (especially at the moment).

There are many things I could use to illustrate a teaching moment in this story (this is true, just in case you needed to hear those words.) But what stood out the most to me is that my mother, who is *reasonably* tech-savvy for her age, could not grasp the idea that the person she was talking to *was not the person they were pretending to be*, despite several tells that I tried to point out. Like when the seller, when asking for an increased payment to be wired, actually did the “I don’t know you and lots of people want this car” which prompted my mother to outline ONCE AGAIN the family connection that this person should have known. And until we got proof that the account had been hacked, she and my father were both of the opinion that the seller they thought they were dealing with must have actually had started doing drugs, and that explained why it was all weird and didn’t make sense. My mother even visited the Facebook accounts of the rest of the seller’s family and “found it suspicious” that no recent stories shared pictures from the stolen account or referenced them. It must be the drugs. My mother through the first of this past week was positive she was filing a report with the Sheriff’s office that would prompt them to visit the suspected family-connected person and make them give the money back.

That someone would “pretend” to be a family member (sort of) and steal money is just inconceivable, to my mother. I’ve done some thinking on this and I believe the whole thought is: why would an evil person steal a Facebook account in a small, rural Texas community then fraudulently list a car (and other things) for sale on a Marketplace for that small, rural Texas community? That is something that DOESN’T HAPPEN HERE, it happens in big cities with name recognition, where all the evil people live. Both of my parents reject the idea that *that very thought* is exactly why stealing accounts in small, rural communities is profitable. The very belief that you *couldn’t* be scammed in Podunkville is why people are constantly scamming *in Podunkville*. You don’t hear about it because a) no one wants to admit it in a small place where everyone will hear about the incident, and b) people don’t want to acknowledge this happens, as it ruins the idea the locals want to believe in.

The drug use views are related, but also touch on a lot of big issues in the United States.

So that’s been my last two weeks. I doubt my mother will ever get her money back. It turns out that windfall they got a few years ago has also allowed them to absorb some expensive mistakes, two that I know of, both car-related, both over other peoples’ objections, and this one wasn’t even the worse one. On my part, while I haven’t used Facebook in a decade, I did have multiple accounts for a while. One for a YouTube channel, and a couple of personal accounts that, one I KNOW I deleted, and the other I THINK I deleted. And yet both of which I still get emails from Facebook to log into again. And I want to be clear, I did the whole “remove and delete” process, which ends with Facebook promising to delete the account permanently as long as you don’t log in over the next six months. I didn’t believe them and I still don’t. But it’s clear the legal system has no interest in actually regulating Facebook in any useful way. Much like the FBI, they’re good for headlines and money.

Paige Francis He/him