Trespassing against those who would trespass against me

February has been a singularly un-pinball month for me. I spent pretty much all of my free time watching all 69 episodes of Battlestar Galactica, plus the mini-series and movie so my wife would have someone to talk with about the last 4 episodes. Mission accomplished!

I did finish the Who-mobile stickers to my satisfaction... I had to reprint them a bunch of times because I couldn't get the color quite right. They turned out looking really nice, imo. Since I assumed that since my game didn't have them out of 8,000-odd machines there must be several people out there who needed them, so I put them on eBay and Mr. Pinball with hubristic visions of an early retirement from the proceeds! Unfortunately, I appear to have overestimated demand by all of them. No one has bought any of them, though I have gotten a few polite inquiries. I must say, I was disappointed, but kind of "meh" disappointed, not slash my wrists disappointed. And let's face it, my game now has its Who-mobile stickers on it that look great.

My other pinball activity of the month was messing with Mr. Pinball scammers. At the same time that I posted the stickers, on a lark I put up a wanted ad for a Lotta Fun backglass. I got one actual inquiry (same machine at my price point but a slightly different backglass, so I passed) and a crapload of responses from clowns trolling for easy marks. They were so pathetically obvious that I couldn't imagine anyone being fooled by them... so for fun I played the part of the eager, yet naively enthusiastic buyer. My wife thinks I ended up having too much fun doing it. ^_^;

Dumbass #1, "Jack Lawson":

Hello,i am located in uk,london and i have
the 1959 Bally Lotta Fun Bingo backglass

you need in good working condition,if you

are interested contact me for price
and shipping arrangement.

Regards,

Jack Lawson.

When he said that the backglass was in "good working condition", I knew I had a live one. So I asked for pictures and he said:

I AM SORRY MY KID MESSED WITH MY CAMERA,IT IS IN A PRETTY BAD SHAPE HOWEVER I WILL SALE THE BACKGLASS FOR $150 INCLUDING SHIPPING.

Darn that kid! So I asked him how it looked, including specifics about details that were on the backglass (clowns) and some that weren't (a ringmaster).

the backglass is in a perfect condition,no paint is missing from the cards,the clowns and ringmaster are all intact,the electronic devices are in good shape so you won't have to worry about any repairs.

At this point I let fly the insults.

Sorry, I can't do this with a straight face any more. It's so obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about and you're trying to rip me off. If you're going to try to pull this kind of thing off, you should at least know something about you're trying scam people about.

Thanks for the laughs.

He actually replied to this by saying "Thanks", which I thought was very polite of him, then finished things off with this bizarre coda:

i am sorry,i have problems with my memory,i comes and goes off,please i am sorry for the embarrassment this may have caused.

Dumbass #2, "Michael Henwood":

Compliment of the season,I am Michael Henwood from UK,... I saw your
wanted ads Listed on this web ..do you still need it ..I have it for sale and in good condition,please I only need a serious buyer,because I have much Emails from unserious buyers and please if you are one of them..Don,t Bother to write me,i have many experience in international shipping, so shipping will be very cheap from my side to your doorstep,i accept paypal., wire transfer , as soon as I hear from you Iwill email you pictures and asking price, my Phone number is + 44702 4093669 ..call me or you can reply via email..Thank you

I'm not sure what season, but since this was on the 11th maybe he meant Valentine's Day. I asked for pictures and price and got this.

Thanks for your email, attached is a pics of my backglass remove from 1959 Bally Lotta Fun Bingo, in good excellent condition, asking price is 100 pounds and i will need your complete home address to calculate the shipping cost to your doorstep, thanks and let me know what you thik

This was accompanied by a picture of the backglass from IPDB. Obviously, I thik he was trying to rip me off, but just to make him squirm I asked for closeups of the damage to the glass.

Thanks for your email, I am sorry ,i don,t pictures of the paint flaking on the lower right side, but i am assuring you that the backglass is in good condition, shipping and insurance to your doorstep will cost additional 50 pounds, total package to your doorstep will be 150 pounds, payment is by western union money transfer, as soon as your payment is receive, i will ship the backglass to your doorstep and i will email you the shipping tracking numbers

And so it was time for my denouement:

Yeah, I didn't think you'd have closeups since you got the picture off the Internet Pinball Database. This was slightly better than saying you couldn't send me pictures because your camera had broken, but not by much.

I think the problem is you scammers need to be smarter than the people you're trying to scam, and you're pretty clearly not. Honestly, does anybody really fall for this shit?

The trouble is, each time after I flamed the guy I would think of some new wrinkle to try, so I had to keep hoping for new victims.

Dumbass #3, "Morris Jacobs":

hello
my name is Mr Morris Jacobs from London , England. i have what you are looikig for. please feel free to contact me.

I didn't even think this guy would pass muster because he didn't even mention what I was looikig for in the email. He replied with a picture -- again from IPDB -- but of a totally different bingo game, Lite-a-Line. I very politely informed him of his mistake, and he gave up. Inwardly, I cursed him because I still had another gambit to attempt and he had inadvertently thwarted me. And unfortunately, he was the last guy (or for all I know it was the same guy). So I put another want ad on Mr. Pinball, this time for a Paragon playfield (again I got one legit response, go figure). But then I struck paydirt!

Dumbass #4, "Frank Geddins":

I am Frank Geldins from the UK.I saw your Wanted Ads on the internet and i want to let you know tha i still have for sale.Please get back to me if you are still in need.

Scammers take note: It's generally a huge tell if you misspell your own fake name. Frank responded with the picture at right of the entire working game. I was shocked to find that Frank had clearly learned from the mistakes of his peers... this was not a picture from IPDB! However, Google "paragon pinball" and look in the images and this is the third picture. See the gray rectangle on the right? That clever scamp covered up the word "SOLD" that's in the original. However, I played dumb and continued our correspondence. Frank gave me his address to send the Western Union moneygram in London. So I said:

Actually, how much would it be without postage? My son is going to school at Oxford and could pop over to London and pick it up from you directly and pay you in cash. His schedule is pretty open... what times would be good for you?

Note that this is almost not a complete lie, since my daughter did attend school in Lancaster last semester. As expected, Frank didn't think much of this.

Thanks for the mail.I would not welcome anybody to my house as am really a strict business man who do business all around UK.I do not have that time to welcome persons to my house and if your son wants to come and collect from my house i think that would be very impossible.Get back to me ASAP.

So I did get back to him ASAP.

Really? Because I think if you were a legitimate businessman instead of a strict one, picking it up in person would be perfectly reasonable.

The truth is, I knew you were a lying sack of shit from your first email, and your picture of the game that you pulled off the Internet (you did cleverly white out the word "sold" from the image, I will give you that) was pathetic at best.

Thanks for the laughs.

Once again showing that this guy -- and I'm positive it's just one guy -- politely thanked me and said he "really appreciate". So I just snuck in a final dig:

No problem... just trying to waste as much of your time as you're making me waste of mine.

And with that I brought my career as a scambuster to a close. As usual, it takes so little to amuse me.

Now that I've successfully discharged my husbandly BSG duties, I'm hoping March will come in like a pinball lion and I can get some actual game work done. As interesting as Travels with Joe is, the blog is here to talk about the games, so I should do that at least every so often.

Superbowl of Wandering Around Looking for Pinball!

This has been a finding pinball weekend.

I went up to visit my daughter at college this weekend for an exchange of prisoners: I gave her a bunch of stuff she forgot/left/couldn't find before leaving, and she gave me the Netflix disc she took with her three weeks ago and still hasn't watched and season 1 of Battlestar Galactica... I need to start watching it because my wife is obsessing on the new episodes and needs somebody to talk about it to, so February is the month when I have to watch all 60-something of them.

Anyway, so we went to dinner at The Pub, which is just a block and a half from her dorm. And to my pleasant surprise, The Pub had a Champion Pub! It had a strobing display and a slightly weak right flipper, but it was in OK shape otherwise. I had the restraint to not play while my daughter sat idling... I waited until I dropped her off, then went back a played a few unremarkable games.

So today was another in a series of pinball odysseys. Today I headed over towards Anne Arundel County to verify some old FSPA pinball locations. The first stops were in College Park. One wasn't there, but the other was Town Hall Liquor Store and Lounge, which had a Doctor Who, Addams Family, and a turned off Demolition Man. It's kind of a creepy location, and I never went there when I went to school at U of MD because I always thought of it as the place where all the homeless guys and alkies hung out. I did pretty good with DW, almost beating the Emporer Dalek stage in multiball, which is better than I've done at home.

Next up was the Crofton Bowling Center, where they had a Roller Coaster Tycoon with a non-working right flipper and a NASCAR with a few flaky switches but otherwise in pretty nice shape. I won a free game but gave it to a kid that was watching me play. After two years of playing Pizza House's loser NASCAR, it was nice to play one that had all of its parts and has been cleaned.

Then I made a stop that I have been looking forward to, Happy House Pizza, which had a Tales of the Arabian Nights. No GI, strobing display, dirtier than all get out, but perfectly playable and a load of fun. They had a Stern Harley Davidson, but I didn't play it.

The next stop was a bowling alley that was supposed to have a SW Ep1, but it was gone. But on the plus side, I stopped at a convenience store and they had my soda, Vault Zero.

So I went on to my last stop, good ol' Crab Town USA. I didn't have a lot of time since I wanted to see some of the Superbowl. So I played a few games... Twilight Zone, KISS, BK2K, Pinbot, and Fish Tales, plus a bonus game of Punch-out. Everything was in surprisingly good condition, though Fish Tales had a big chunk of plastic on the playfield which eventually blocked the lane and the ball got stuck. But this time I noticed there were little request forms on the wall from the operator, so I left a note for him.

And then even though I'm not a big football fan, the Superbowl was actually worth watching until the end. So overall it was a pretty good day!