This past Friday, a gentleman came to my warehouse door because he saw that we had some empty wooden cable reels in the yard. He asked if he could buy them for $30.00 each. Of course I would have been happy if he took them away for free, but a few extra bucks sure wouldn't hurt.
He claimed to be a representative of a very poor American Indian tribe from Arizona. He said that things are so bad there that he goes around to larger cities seeking scrap wood and metal to help his community. He asked if he could come in and take a look around to see if we had anything else that we were looking to get rid of and promised to pay top dollar. I had lots of short pieces of cable, old phone equipment, etc. that I was happy to get rid of, especially since he would come in and move it out himself. After having looked around, he found enough "junk" and made me an offer of $500.00 for the entire lot, cash. He also showed me a wad of $100.00 bills that had to have been at least $5,000.00. While he proceeded to load up his truck, I went outside and jotted down his tag number (sure enough, it was an Arizona plate). He also showed me his driver's license, also from Arizona.
He claimed that they recycle this material and use the proceeds to help fund the schools on the reservation. Since he was paying about twice what my local recycler pays, I saw it as a win-win situation. Still, in the back of my mind, I saw this as being too good to be true.
He had a very nice rig, a fairly new GMC 6500 series 5th wheel truck and about a 30' enclosed flatbed trailer. He was only able to take about half of what he wanted to take and gave me $200.00 cash with the promise that he'd be back bright and early to get the rest and pay for the balance. Most of what he took on Friday was the valuable stuff, like copper.
He didn't show up today and he's not answering his cell phone. At this point, I'm probably out about $200.00 for what he took on Friday. Since much of this stuff had no value to me, I'm not too terribly worried about. In hindsight, I do think that he ended up paying me about 2/3 of what he should have for what he took.
I suppose that he may still show up today and that he may be legitimate. I just have to wonder if maybe I fell for something that may come back to bite me later. I did take his cash to the bank and confirmed that the two $100.00 bills were not fakes. Maybe I'm just being a bit overly-cautious at this point, but something just doesn't add up in my mind.
If this guy shows up in your area (he claims to go nationwide), be sure to complete the transaction on the spot. Like I said, most of what he took was wasting valuable space, so in a way I'm glad that he came. I still can't help but wondering just exactly what he's up to.
