Story Time: I purchased a motorcycle off “Amazon”

This is a funny story that happened 3 years ago. It was also a very valuable lesson I learned. At the time I was 17 and moving up from my CBR 500r to a supersport. I looked through craigslist, where I usually purchase my bikes and found many reasonable deals. But according to my dad, they were all way too overpriced. I finally stumbled across a 2008 CBR600rr that was only $1400. Too good to be true right? Right. Anyway, I had a little bit of suspicion at first, but my dad believed that it was a fair value. (Keep in mind, my dad used to ride back in the 80’s when prices were very different compared to now). We decided to give a message to the “owner” and we immediately got a response. Apparently according to this bs story, the “owner” was a woman who recently went through a divorce and got her husband’s bike from it. She wanted to get rid of it fast to get money. We then asked if we could take a look at the bike, to which she responded that it was in a different state at an “Amazon” warehouse. She sent us a link that went to the “Amazon” webpage. The website looked legit as hell. Furthermore, the website stated the purchase would have to be made through amazon gift cards. So our dumbasses went over to target and got 3 amazon gift cards which happened to total $1400. We emailed the codes. The order was placed and shipping was gonna happen soon. We later got another email saying that we need to pay for shipping. This is when we became a little suspicious. The next day I was at school telling my friend about the situation. He asked me what the “owner’s” name was. I told him her name and he started searching it online. We then realized that the same name had been used in many other craigslist scams. I shit my pants and went home. I called up amazon and gave them my order number to which they said doesn’t exist. But we were quick enough to freeze those gift cards before the scammers were able to use it. My friend saved my ass and luckily we happened to keep that $1400 in Amazon gift cards. Amazon then sent us a check for them. Typing this story makes me feel like a total fucking idiot. Who the fuck purchases a bike on the internet 😂? But I’m thankful for the experience because that’s when I learned that scammers make fake websites to get money from certain people. I had no idea at the time due to being so young and inexperienced. Now I’m always cautious about every website I see on the internet and how to prevent this from happening again. I could go into the specifics on how to, but that’s something you can learn online. I hope this story made y’all laugh and remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it often is. via /r/motorcycles https://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/comments/eko0a5/story_time_i_purchased_a_motorcycle_off_amazon/?utm_source=ifttt