Well, it does look as if I got scammed. He never came back and doesn't answer his cell phone. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and waited all day. I get the generic voice mail message for a cell phone mailbox that hasn't been set up.
Anyway, he agreed to pay me $500.00 for the lot, took most of it on Friday, paid $200.00 as a deposit with the promise of returning today for the rest and paying the remaining $300.00. The rest of the lot has NO value whatsoever.
I'm still not truly out anything since what he paid me is about what my regular recycler would have paid anyway. It's just the deceptive approach. Don't go around using the name and heritage of American Indian tribes and their underprivileged reservations and children in the name of scamming a few bucks. I'd have probably handed him a few bucks if he had just asked for a donation.
If he'd just offered me $200.00, I'd have probably taken it. I have now paid someone to neatly pile up the rest of the junk he said he wanted for nothing. He basically got away with about $300.00 worth of scrap copper for $200.00 on a handshake.
The guy represents himself as Mike Lee, about 5'-8", obviously American Indian with an Arizona accent. The cell phone number that he gave me is 720-982-5055. His truck's tag number is Arizona CE-04390. This is just a heads-up in case he comes to your neck of the woods.
BTW: He wasn't claiming that he was taking the stuff back to Arizona. He claimed that he was purchasing and processing it locally and sending the money back to the reservation. I would never have believed that he was driving that rig back and forth across the country for scrap. Well, actually I did think he was that dumb until I realized that I was the dumber one.
