I was ripped off by James Godson, aka Jesse Gasior. He contacted me at the end of April, saying his name was James Godson in response to my last ditch plea for Sasquatch Music Festival tickets for Sunday on Craigslist. He informed me that he had torn his ACL and broke his leg and couldn't go, and said that he would throw in a ticket for Saturday.
I was about to tell him that I was going to back out when he said he would give me the other ticket because I really wanted to see the Trailer Park Boys as well. He was very convincing and went out of his way to be your friend and sound legitimate. I had never done a wire transfer before and had very rarely used Craigslist so from my ad I must have looked like an easy target. He called to set up the transfer, I didn't have all the money so I did it in two parts. He walked me through the process and after he got the first money he became increasingly difficult to get a hold of. There were all sorts of cues that he was a scammer especially his flakiness and I'm still kicking myself for falling for it. I am just glad there is a website like this where my story can be told and that it wasn't for more money.
When I couldn't get the second wire transfer to him on time he got very frustrated and was trying very hard to control his anger. At this point I really should have realized something was up, and even more so when he asked me to do an event check because he'd lost his id, so he could pick it up without having to use his fake name. I guess because I'd already paid half I figured I should just go through with it, even though everything in my brain was telling me to stop. I called him a couple more times and he assured me that it was going to go through, that he had sent the tickets. He is a LIAR, he never sent the tickets and every time I tried to get a hold of him after that he ignored my calls or told me he'd call back later and never got back to me. I wanted to believe the tickets were in the mail, but I deep down knew better and recently accepted reality and have been trying to be proactive about alerting others to his games and con artistry.
He is very convincing and you really want to believe him. He will play off any information you tell him and is extremely manipulative. It sounds like he has ripped off scores of people and he deserves to be behind bars, my initial instinct was to drive to Pittsburgh and track him down.instead I want to do whatever it takes to punish this individual to the full extent of the law. This criminal will be brought to justice.
0 comments