Complaints Against Lucian Mantescu or Donald Saul or Bogdan Florian or Stefan Balan or Rhea Dowling and others

Bucharest Romania and uses some USA addresses but only in registration on auction sites

best_offer2001@yahoo.com, donald_saul49@hotmail.com, doww-ress@hotmail.com, e_remo2000@zipmail.com

If you have questions about the complaint,
please contact the person who it was filed by.

January 21, 2001
Complaint filed by: swp@nts-online.net (Steve Pennington)

I bid on a camera at amazon.com auction. The person that had the camera canceled the auction & contacted me by e-mail said that if I sent him $710.00 for the item, he would send it within 48hrs. I sent a mail-gram but didn't get anything but e-mails about how he would check on it.  a mail gram is like western union all you do is send it to another mail gram place and they pick it up. i wasn't very smart by doing this but i thought that since it was through amazon. com that it was a good person i was dealing with. i e-mailed amazon.com & told them about it but they said that when you send money out of the country there is little they could do. i told them that they let him use an address from mesa arizona and that he lives in romania and i thought he was a fraud. they said there are a few people that commit fraud on their auction but it was very rare. i guess i able to find those people pretty easy because since then i have found others but have learned my lesson not to buy from them and to look them up on your list.  the email he sent is the only address of any type he sent to me. The camera was supposed to go UPS. Anyway he is in Bucharest Romania. He goes by best_offer2001@yahoo.com    His name is Lucian Mantescu . I will probably have to live with the knowledge that I was took. Thank you for the help.   Steve

This is email that I got from him:

From: "Lucian Mantescu" best_offer2001@yahoo.com
To: "Steve Pennington" <swp@nts-online.net>
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 3:30 PM
Subject: Re: Sony Mavica CD1000 New

Hi!

The camera is compatible with American cameras of the same type.  The adress you send the money to is Bucharest, Romania. You won't be asked anything else but my full name. The warranty is assured by Amazon. They have my credit card number. I can get in very big trouble if something goes wrong. Internet fraud is punished with jail. And I am a respectable citizen. I work for Sony here in Romania. I'm not willing to go to jail. It is only $720. Would you enter the jail for this amount of money? I wouldn't.  The price of the camera is very good I hope you realize this. So it is a really good deal. Amazon has all information about me.  FBI, Interpol, the American embassy are all here. Bucharest is the capital of Romania, not some place forgot by the rest of the world.   Thank you.

donald_saul49@hotmail.com

Donald Saul Donald auctioned 4 pioneer plasma screens on a FSAuction dutch auction on 01/03, the eventual winning bidders got the items for £1,500. Communications upto the payment point were very brisk, but after payment he went all quiet. Despite numerous e-mails, nothing has been heard from him in 5 days. He posted the auction under these details:

Donald Saul

Shoreview, Minnesota 55126

donald_saul49@hotmail.com

But wanted payment to an address in Romania

Name: Bogdan Florian
City: Bucuresti
Street: str TUTUNARI.nr26.bl76.sc2
Country: Romania  Zip code: 07000

Payment was made via Western Union. FSAuctions have been less than helpful in this matter, the other bidders may also be out of pocket for £1,500, but FSAuctions can't and won't let me confirm this with them. These events also took place the same time I bidded for a JVC DVD player from a certain Mr Aun Sayal, I now know that he has had numerous complaints against him. He never got a penny from me, but you can understand why I'm getting worried that Donald may be also trading under false pretences. Has anyone else had problems with this trader ??. Obviously I’m very sickened by these events, as I would have assumed that thorough checks would have been made to ensure that people like him, and other can’t get the opportunity to con people out of their cash. It’s a waiting game at the moment, but I fear the worst £1,500 is a lot of money to lose.

I have just won an auction for 2 Fuji 4700 digital cameras on City Auction, but am concerned that the sellers may not be on the up-and-up, and would welcome your comment or advice. The "M.O." is near-identical to a scam that I narrowly escaped recently that was perpetrated by "Aun Sayal" aka "Aun Kapuvari" of London, ie: - multiple top-of-the-range brand new cameras at very low starting prices with no reserve- auctions opened one day, to close the next- email addressees @hotmail.com (probably erroneous, I realise, but a coincidence none-the-less)- no reply to my prior-bidding question requesting escrow- post-auction notification pressing for cash via Western Union (no mention of prior question/escrow) - request for mailing address so that goods can be prepared in advance of payment being received- assurances that all will be well

The differences are that this seller's addresses are listed as in Rumania and USA; and the use of English was less good, so I am not saying it is the same people ... just that the situation is too similar to be ignored. The seller's name is Stefan Balan, though the email contact is Rhea Dowling (doww-ress@hotmail.com).  If you think I am being over-cautious; or should do more; I shall be pleased to hear from you. Thank you for maintaining these vital and invaluable listings. I'm sure many tears have been saved by your efforts.  Best wishes and thanks, Clive Du'Mont

I have heard about your site and I am contacting you with a problem. I used  Amazon auctions and a guy from Romania took $700 for a digital camera that I  never received. I sent him the money via Western Union and it is now a week  and I got no answer from him. I want to ask before I send a complaint if you had such a case before ( I  mean overseas fraud), and if you had, did you manage to resolve the case?  Can you do something? Can you manage to recall my money and to send that guy  to jail? If you can how long will it take? The only info I have on him is the name and the location ( Bucharest,  Romania).  I would appreciate if you could help me and answer my questions. The name he used when he cheated me was Ion Vasilescu. His email address was e_remo2000@zipmail.com    Thank you