Username of Scammer: Cueva27
Friend Code: 3010 7094 6050
After a very large amount of trades made, ever since I registered here in 2007, it seems I sadly met the first dishonest member today, and I'm now reporting him, hopeful that he won't be able to do the same thing to other members.
The member in question is nicknamed
Cueva27.
This member contacted me after reading a post of mine on the
Togepi 5th Gen trade section , asking me if I had any female Togepi with the Serene Grace ability and the Nasty Plot egg-move, offering a shiny Cloyster in return. I replied affirmatively and added that, for the shiny Cloyster, I would be glad to add a male Togepi with Nasty Plot so he could pass it down by breeding, to which he agreed. On top of this, I made sure both Togepis had interesting IVs, specially the female one that is ready to be trained, something that wasn't asked, but that I was happy to do anyway.
After some days trying to finalize the trade, we finally arranged it a couple of hours prior to this post. Looking backwards, I now reckon the first sign this member could not be in good-faith was when he asked me, and I'll quote his private message:
"and what pk u get again or was this a free gift?". Reminding him of what was arranged, he then replied
"woah wait what sorry that was taken is kyurem ok haha", letting me know the Pokemon initially offered was taken. Displeased with the member not honoring his own side of the deal but, with really not much of a choice, I was happy to receive the Kyurem in return for the Togepis.
We then proceeded to the Wi-Fi room to finalize the trade. I gave him the first Togepi and he showed the agreed Kyurem, and two "fodder" Pokemon, which I reckoned I was to pick either one for the second Togepi. When doing a 2 for 2 trade, where I'm offered a rare Pokemon and a common one in return for my 2, I prefer to trade for the lower valued one first, leaving the rarer one for last, as proof that I will honor the trade and not leave after the first one goes through.
I picked one of them, a Gothorita, and confirmed the trade. Upon offering him the second Togepi, which would then be dealt for the Kyurem, I received a message stating I lost connection with the other player. Since the game returned me to the Wi-Fi room and said player was offline, I concluded he either lost connection or forgot about the second trade and manually disconnected his console.
Upon contacting him again, letting he know of the pending second trade, I found out the member had a second sudden change of mind after
replying he was no longer interested in the second Togepi :
"Actually I only wanted the female so I put up kyurem (which I was hoping u would pick since that is he only trademi wanted) but instead u chose event gothorita " . By this point it was pretty obvious the member was not being honest about his intentions. It makes no sense to end a trade with the other player not receiving what was originally agreed. Also, if he changed his mind and only wanted to trade for one Togepi, why would he offer anything else than the Kyurem in the Wi-fi room?
I let him know that I had no interest in the Gothorita and that it was taken as the second Pokemon of the 2 for 2 trade, asking him to either receive the second Togepi in return for the Kyurem, as originally agreed, or, if he was not interested in the second Togepi any more, to replace the Gothorita for the Kyurem, which I believe is the correct way to deal with the situation. The member then replied
"oh well.....1st i did not think u would pick the gothorita but at the end is is fair since u get an event when i just get a easy to get togepi....so either way not fair, but i never wanted a male togepi....if u still want to trade we can but next weekend since i am very busy", which pretty much assured me of his poor ethics.
It's pretty clear to me that this was done intentionally and that the owner actually prefers me to have the fodder Pokemon instead of the offered Kyurem, which is arguably more valuable, explaining the disconnection, the sudden change of mind regarding his request and the excuse of not being able to correct the situation due to him "being very busy".
I post this hoping a moderator will take notice and prevent him to trick further members with similar offers.
updated February 10: after contacting one of these forums' moderators, SkittyOnWailord, I was told that
Cueva27 was willing to complete the trade, to which I agreed,
asking said moderator to set an unbiased date and time for both of us to be online and do the trade, avoiding any kind of delays or attempts to stall it. Unfortunately this never happened and I had to repeatedly, throughout the week, be the one proactively asking Cueva27 to please set a date and time for the trade to be finalized, even though I don't feel the part who's at a loss in this situation has to accommodate for the faulty's part availability. The requests were made
Tuesday, the 5th,
Saturday the 9th (also
here) and
today, Sunday the 10th. I made sure to write those posts at times when Cueva27 was online, so he would acknowledge me asking him to set a date and time. No date and time was ever set.
Saturday, the 9th, I read a post by Cueva27 stating he was
"available today and now". I sent him a Private Message as soon as i read it at 4:29am GMT
stating I was logging in,
at a time when the member was online and checking his Private Messages.
The trade ended up not being made as Cueva27
wasn't able to do so when i contacted him (please check the following screenshot). I
asked him again to please leave a specific time at this thread, so both of us can be online at that time.
After receiving a message at 4:47am GMT where Cueva27 told me he wasn't able to trade, since it was past midnight in his timezone,
he arranged a trade with another member 29 minutes later, at 5:16am GMT....
I left him a Visitor Message asking if he could trade after all, to which he replied, also on his Visitor Messages wall, he couldn't,
because the Kyurem was on his Dream World. To make sure he was telling me the truth, I headed to his Dream World island in order to verify he had the Kyurem tucked in. it turns out
no Kyurem was tucked in, but a Shaymin was instead .
Sunday, the 10th, I wasted my entire day to make sure I was online at the forums in order to finalize the trade. Upon seeing him online, without replying to my requests in this thread to set a date and time, I
sent him a Private Message letting him know I was online and waiting for him, to which he replied informing me
he would be able to trade in one hour. I waited one hour. He then informed me, through a Visitor Message, as my inbox got full,
that he had to logout because he was going to a friend's house and to church, and asking me to use his Black FC, which I don't have, as the original trade was done on his White 2 game. After asking him to please give me this other Friend Code, he then replied it was too late and that we could trade later on the day (please refer to the previous screenshot). I then asked him, once again, to
to please set a time for both of us to be online. He didn't. Some minutes later I noticed he was online, so I assumed he got back from church. I left another Visitor Message letting him know I was still online and able to trade, to which he replied at 1:12am saying
"I can't now anymore long story I was actually in the middle of a trade too until my mom grabbed my laptop ending my trade and wifi access I might beable to trade in an hour".
I waited that hour and sent him a Visitor Message at 2:37am
letting him know I was online and available to trade. I received no reply, despite him being online for several times after that message. I decided to send him another message almost one hour after the time he told me he was going to be available to trade, to which he replied that was not able to trade afterall: "I TOLD U AT 3pm THAT I COULD TRADE AT THAT MOMENT BUT NOW I CANT OKAY??????MY BLACK WIFI AINT WORKING. 1. stop stalking me. and 2. CHILL".
Once again I'm left waiting for the trade to be completed. It's 3:19am by the time I'm writing this. I have to wake up at 6:50 to go to work. I've spent almost all the free time I had during the past 7 days trying to call this situation to your attention, trying to recover from the loss I suffered from this trade and trying to arrange a date and time for this trade to finally be completed, inclusively forcing myself to stay awake through the dawn to catch him online. I've wasted time that I could have invested working on my master's thesis, with a dishonest young children that's successfully doing whatever pleases him, promising things he doesn't accomplish and arranging plans he ends up changing every time at the last moment justifying them with a roll of excuses that I've many times found out, and proved with screenshots, to be lies. Whatever the reasons could be that were preventing him to complete this trade, I highly doubt they're as urgent as what I've been giving up during the last week to do so. Still, I've been fully available at all times.
Obviously, this isn't about the Kyurem, as the member will quite happily hold on to it. The worry is that this is clearly a person who made a request which, naturally, took me time that I could have used in something else, changed his mind, didn't honor his offer and showed a lack of morals by not correcting his actions after knowing of the other part's dissatisfaction.
I'm starting to feel a bit humiliated and revolted with the way this situation is being dealt with. This member is being very successful in making me look like an idiot, forcing me to be in front of the computer during all the free time I had over the past 7 days, trying to catch him online and asking him times and times again to set a date and time for the trade to be completed. The moderator I contacted seems to have lost interest in my situation as well. I'm having an hard time understanding how easy it has been for Cueva27 to continually dismiss all the attempts I've made to correct this issue, making little effort in taking a proactive stance to reverse the trade. To make things worse, he's obviously playing around with me, saying and promising things he ends up changing at last minute.
All of this is making me believe it's very easy to trick the forums members in a trade and get away with impunity.
I vouch for my ethics and honesty when trading and never had any complaint from any member i traded with since I registered here 5 years ago. I have, inclusively, helped out members in several ways, be it helping them completing their Pokedex, giving them a particular rare Pokemon that I happened had to spare, without asking for anything in return, just for the pleasure to help. If needed, I'm positive these people will confirm what I'm saying.