The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I assume this comment is basically saying that Admin, Roff or I didn't ban this guy in time? Is that correct? Is that what you're saying? So just to be clear, you're saying that this really nasty situation for Spartan (for which I really feel for him, incidentally) is somehow the fault of Admin and/or the moderators, is it?

Let me just explain something here. The difficulty with internet forums is that we have no way of correlating every single IP address with every single new user who shows up. Depending on how and where you log in from, it can mean you end up with a considerable number of IP addresses assigned to your id. I, for example, often get assigned a new IP address when I log in from work - this means my forum id is registered to well over 400 IP addresses on this site. There is no part of the software (certainly not that's available to moderators at least) that allows any kind of IP address reconciliation. And if you think I'm going to manually check off ever new member's IP address looking for duplicates you've got another think coming! People can quite easily just re-register under a new name from a different IP address and hey presto, they're back on the site.

At the end of the day, there are scammers in all walks of life, and that's why we tried to introduce the feedback section on this forum. The idea being that an individual can read up about someone's trustworthiness before entering into a deal. If a seller doesn't have any feedback or references, then it's up to the individual to decide if they want to deal with them or not. Most are probably fine, but there's always one bad apple to spoil things for everyone. Unfortunately, Spartan got mixed up in a deal with just such an individual.

So while I really do feel for Spartan in this situation, I personally take GREAT exception to veiled comments suggesting that this is somehow the fault of this site.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

And just to add.....

The user ID concerned had IP addresses that had not been used by any other member - any other member.

...the worst part is that many scammers can register from internet cafes or even iphones....
Im sure EREZ will try this....

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Rolex DeepSea, GMT Master II TT, Pres 18038, DJ TT 16013
Breitling Chronomat 39mm (bullet+UTC), Starliner SS/MOP (wife)

back with ROLEX

just by putting in diffrent proxy servers to IE I can sit at my desk at home and appear to anyone as though one miniute I am in Belguim then two seconds later China then USA then UK and in every country in the world there are many types of software that will change your IP every time you click your mouse and only real clever ISP can stop it its easy to do and can leave anyone open to fraud but you must have his reall addy and thats a start mate.

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DRIVER8

I'm not blaming you for this, absolutly not! but when the topic was on him (erez) last time you stopped the topic about him because there was not enough evidence right? i would have wanted to read what others had to say about him... and now he's back again!

this is really not personal to BS but maybe a warning for next time that you dont close a topic about somebody who is not a "great" seller/buyer when somebody is complaning...

nice to see that a lot of breitling-lovers feel for spartan...

Thanks Raymond and everyone else.....

My insurance company is investigating ....so is UPS Israel....

I also declared the full value to CUSTOMS ISRAEL. I explained to them that its no longer a trade
and now its an outright sale 3500U$D

Hopefully the tax man can nail him..........

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Rolex DeepSea, GMT Master II TT, Pres 18038, DJ TT 16013
Breitling Chronomat 39mm (bullet+UTC), Starliner SS/MOP (wife)

back with ROLEX

Sorry for your loss, good luck to you. I wish we could all do something for you. Keep us updated please.

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YOU CAN'T HAVE A GREAT TIME WITHOUT A GREAT WATCH.........MAKE IT A BREITLING

1) The information is still out there for anyone who cares to look for it - locked doesn't mean deleted.

2) Until he provided his real name and address to Spartan no one knew it was the same person.

3) There was no evidence that the individual was a fraud. We asked for evidence and got lots of 'he's not great at communicating, he's quick to file complaints, but don't think that he's a fraud'.

I feel very sorry for Spartan and I have had 24 PMs from him in the last 5 days about this, but at the end of the day no one knows anyone else on here. If you are going to deal with someone who is brand new to the forums, without any contact information except a username and a mailing address, and you aren't going to ask for and check references then you are running a significant risk.

BreitlingSource is not immune to fraud any more than anyone else is, and clearly the obvious fake watches aren't going to be listed here so frauds will be a little more elaborate.

While it is easy to say "this wouldn't have happened if we had been allowed to complain about erezlugasi", the truth, whether anyone wants to hear it or not, is that is simply not the case. The member that Spartan dealt with was not erezlugasi it was a brand new ID that would never have been connected with erezlugasi until the real name - Erez Lugas was provided in order to ship the watch. At that point, typing Erez Lugas into the BreitlingSource search function would have shown a topic from February that provided more than enough information to make someone wary.

As I said, I feel sorry for Spartan, but let's be clear on what did, and what did not contribute to this happening.

I am locking this thread now - everyone knows that the incident has happened and it is serving no further purpose.