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Swipswap scam?

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Casual scribe
Momofboys

Swipswap scam?

I purcahsed my teen a ps4 last Christmas. He has been asking me for a pair of shoes that cost 150.00 which I have refused. He decided to sell his ps4 for 200.00 on a swap site. I signed in to his messenger and discovered that the gaming system is broken in that you cannot insert the discs, however you can still download games. The buyer messages him and requested a refund which my son refused. This goes against my morals but I am not sure how to approach this since he does not know I have access to his messenger account. I would like for him to return the buyers money and repost the system stating what is wrong with it so buyers can make a fair decision on whether or not to purchase ir
Parent/Carer Community Champion
JAKGR8

Re: Swipswap scam?

Ooo this is a tough one.  How do you confront this behaviour without exposing your access? Can you pretend a sibling or friend revealed the defect to you? Just let it slip in conversation and you overheard? 

Maybe you can just claim to be amazed at his confidence to sell things online as it is scary to think of possible repercussions with complete strangers. Something like you worry that he might have sold it to someone with anger issues/ stalker/ or who had used every last penny they had to buy the PS4. Maybe if you overplay it he might have feelings of remorse. Maybe you can go on and on about how you hope he did the right thing selling online...it's a wide world.

The poor buyer. 

Even if you can't get a positive result in this case maybe you can use his resale of an expensive gift to never buy him something expensive again. With an internal smile, you could claim he doesn't really appreciate them anyway, after all he sold the PS4 so you will stick to homebrand from now on. That might get a reaction!

Let us know how it plays out. I am interested to know. We might all learn from this one. Good luck.

JA
Casual scribe
Momofboys

Re: Swipswap scam?

I remembered his younger brother mentioning something to me about how the buyer was not happy, which actually led me to go into the older brother's messages.

So I asked the older brother what happened and why the buyer wasn't happy and he confessed that the buyer was not able to use the disc reader on the gaming device and asked for the money back, he told me he refused to give it back to her.  I told him to think about that and how he would feel if he purchased a defective device and could not get back his hard earned money.

 

He came to a bit later and told me he offered the buyer her money back but she told him not to worry because she got a new disc reader and was going to fix it,, told him not to feel badly about it an everything is good.  I was very proud of him for doing this and as a reward,, took him out to dinner (which is one of his fave things to do).  Thank you for your reply...I am happy to know he is becoming a good soul as I adopted him 3 yrs. ago and back then, this would have had a different outcome.  I don't view his messages unless I believe I have good reason to...I like him to have his privacy but this was just tickling at the back of my throat and I had to scratch it.