Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches - Anyone knows him personally? Need your help

[gaoxing84]

Dear TRF-ers,

I like to seek help from the community.
Anyone knows Michael Le aka GoldCoastWatches personally over at this forum?
His profile
https://www.rolexforums.com/member.php?u=185961

I have dealt with him a couple of times early this year. He was always good and responsive. Things were going well. He even refunded me funds that I have sent twice erroneously.

Till recently, early June, 7th of June 2018 he told me he has a Sub Date for me but he requires me to wire him the funds first. I asked why, he told me he has just paid a downpayment for a car for 20k and he's out of funds. He wants to me wire him monies so he can wire them to the AD. I trusted him since this is not our first deal together and did so.

He did received the funds and have them wired to the AD. A couple of days later, he told me that the AD he's working with is no longer shipping rolexes out of state. He's trying to work with AD management to see if they can make it an exceptional case.

A week passed, Mid June, he is starting to be slowing down his replies and is not responsive anymore. Called him over whatsapp a couple times, didn't pick up. On a Tuesday noon, 19th June 2018. He called me back and explained to me his situation. Told me he's getting bad reception at the working place he's at now and is unable to respond to my messages (which i find it weird, he can read my whataspp messages and yet do not respond, there's a blue tick indicating messages read.) and told me call him if I am looking for him. Told me he's getting a refund from the AD and will refund me asap. I told him to work with the AD, if nothing moves, get the funds from the AD by 22nd June 2018 (Friday) and refund me the money. He says he got it.

So on Monday 25th of June 2018, I message him again regarding the refund. he says he will get it done by this week, I say ok. On Wednesday, 27th of June 2018, texted him and ask if the wire is being processed or initiated? No response. Radio Silent but he's last seen status is current. He went online and offline. Been texting him ever since, giving him enough time to get the wire done and it drags to today 29th of June 2018, texted him at 9am, 11.30am and he came online briefly onto whatsapp and offline again at 1.40pm. Called him multiple times over whatsapp voice call and normal cellphone call, no answer.

I am not sure what happened to him but I am sure his reception is good, phone were ringing and he's able to answer me but he chose not to.

I am thinking if I should release all his information online, including his bank details, photos, cellphone number and screenshots of our chat log.

I still trust that he's a good gentleman but being unresponsive is annoying the hell out of me and I could have used the money elsewhere but yet he's holding on to my money.

If anyone could help me out would be great.

[estrangable]

Hi,

I am sorry to hear that. I earlier asked one of the reference buyer - outtatime on this seller as well. Was told he is legit. Didnt know you encountered issues with goldcoastwatches... i hope Michael get back to you as soon as possible.

-------------------
Re: Your experience with goldcoastwatches
Quote:
Originally Posted by estrangable
Hi there

A good day to you. Sorry to trouble you but i just wanted to do a reference check with you on this seller - goldcoastwatches. Can i check if you have transacted with him and how was the experience? My concern is that he does not have a lot of references and you are the only one who have written something for him.

Just wanted to do a check first before transacting.

Many thanks in advance

------------
Hi, I bought a watch from him with no issues. Thanks.

[MoosicPa]

"Radio silence" is not a good sign. I suggest you contact the police and start the criminal process. At least he is in the US where he can be prosecuted.

[Old Expat Beast]

Looking at your thread history, it looks like you buy very often from many different sellers. Is this your first issue here? He was online here about an hour ago.

[gaoxing84]

Yes I do. I buy quite often.
He did called me 3 hours after I did this post.
Via a internet phone.

He told me he left his phone on a taxi and that's why he couldn't text or reply me.

He told me he's trying to get his refund from his watch broker and wire to me asap.

It's weird it has to happen this way because I have dealt with him several times and all was good.

Now I am keeping my fingers crossed. I hope this don't turn out into a criminal act.

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by MoosicPa

"Radio silence" is not a good sign. I suggest you contact the police and start the criminal process. At least he is in the US where he can be prosecuted.

I am not residing in the states.
So not sure how am I going to do that.
I do have his residence address and bank info.
I hope he does refund and close this case entirely.

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by Old Expat Beast

Looking at your thread history, it looks like you buy very often from many different sellers. Is this your first issue here? He was online here about an hour ago.

I think he read the thread and called me.
Yes this is my first issue here.
I will only do this only if I have done several deals with the person.
This is the first time I send funds even before seller got the watch.

Right now I am at 50/50 if he's going to refund me.
If he doesn't, I will contact the authorities.
I hope he does refund me and I will gladly close this case.

Just want my money back asap.

[GoingPlaces]

Interesting in that he contacted you shortly after your post.

[JayB]

He seems to have quite a few, unconvincing excuses. Never a good sign.

I hope I'm wrong and you get refunded but I personally wouldn't wait to explore other avenues.

Good luck

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by JayB

He seems to have quite a few, unconvincing excuses. Never a good sign.

I hope I'm wrong and you get refunded but I personally wouldn't wait to explore other avenues.

Good luck

If it's not someone that I have dealt with, I would have went to the authorities.
Right now. I am giving him a benefit of doubt and I am going to give him till Monday to send me my money back or any indication that money is being wired back to me.

The watch broker he's working with is pending the refund back to him.

Will report back here when I got more info.

Right, I am situated in Singapore, not sure how do I report this.
Can anyone help?
Please pm me.
I really hope this is not a scam or plot to take my money and run.

Sigh.

[77T]

I’d suggest all TRF’ers stop and read the entire list of posts. I am not judging but 2 things jumped out to me.

OP stated he inadvertently wired money to this seller twice before in the past. And then seller refunded money. Very curious that one can inadvertently wire funds to someone.

Seller is acting strangely. If I was looking at buying from Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches then I’d hit the pause button right now. I would find what I wanted elsewhere. Until seller comes here to publicly address his issues.

If you must use this seller I suggest taking precautions. Not only would I wait until OP is made whole, I would use a middleman as escrow agent of your own choice. Maybe a trusted seller here with no connection to Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches.

Just my opinion - but there is a sticky here about a TRF trusted guy who went rogue. While Le may not be doing that, the symptoms smell suspicious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[GoingPlaces]

The fact that the seller had no funds because he needed a "20K" downpayment on a car is enough for me to pass. If you are a serious watch seller and need the buyer to finance your purchase then forget it. At this point you are acting as a broker. Also, we're talking Sub here not some ultra high end 50K piece.

There a several highly reputable sellers here on the forum. Why don't people stick with them? In the interest of saving a few dollars?

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by 77T

I’d suggest all TRF’ers stop and read the entire list of posts. I am not judging but 2 things jumped out to me.

OP stated he inadvertently wired money to this seller twice before in the past. And then seller refunded money. Very curious that one can inadvertently wire funds to someone.

Seller is acting strangely. If I was looking at buying from Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches then I’d hit the pause button right now. I would find what I wanted elsewhere. Until seller comes here to publicly address his issues.

If you must use this seller I suggest taking precautions. Not only would I wait until OP is made whole, I would use a middleman as escrow agent of your own choice. Maybe a trusted seller here with no connection to Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches.

Just my opinion - but there is a sticky here about a TRF trusted guy who went rogue. While Le may not be doing that, the symptoms smell suspicious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Gotta clear this.
I wire twice wrongly. I set a fx alert on my ibanking and I did a manual transfer. It's a system error. Not that I went and wire twice. It's a duplicate.
He's supposed to receive one set of funds. He did refund the extra in a week.
I still received the watch. In total I bought about 4 watches from him if my memory didn't fail me.

So since he did refunded me within a week. Naturally, there is trust between me and him. So when he suggested that I wire him first for the 5th watch, I was hesitant. I told him I rather wait for him to grab the watch first.
That is when he say he is trustable and he point out that he refunded me once and he's legit. Of course. I took a leap of faith and trusted him.

By this Monday which I have given him a deadline to give me an answer. If he doesn't. I will share the entire chat log with him here including his personal info.
Then I will seek help from authorities.

I hope none of this will happen and I get my money back.

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by GoingPlaces

The fact that the seller had no funds because he needed a "20K" downpayment on a car is enough for me to pass. If you are a serious watch seller and need the buyer to finance your purchase then forget it. At this point you are acting as a broker. Also, we're talking Sub here not some ultra high end 50K piece.

There a several highly reputable sellers here on the forum. Why don't people stick with them? In the interest of saving a few dollars?

He told me he's out of funds because he just paid 20k downpayment on a car.
He's not liquid to pay the AD. That's when he ask for me to pay him first so he can pay the AD.

He's not reputable but he's been doing business with me a couple of times and all is going well till now. Which is Sad that things have to turn out this way.

[Beauregard]

Originally Posted by gaoxing84

I am not residing in the states.
So not sure how am I going to do that.
I do have his residence address and bank info.
I hope he does refund and close this case entirely.

Wire fraud is a criminal offense under federal law. It involves any scheme to defraud another person that uses electronic communications, either across state lines or internationally.

https://criminal.findlaw.com/crimina...ire-fraud.html

https://www.justia.com/criminal/offe...ud/wire-fraud/

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by Beauregard

Wire fraud is a criminal offense under federal law. It involves any scheme to defraud another person that uses electronic communications, either across state lines or internationally.

https://criminal.findlaw.com/crimina...ire-fraud.html

https://www.justia.com/criminal/offe...ud/wire-fraud/

Thank you! I am giving him a few more days to clear it up before i take the next course of action.

i hope he resolves this asap. I don't like when things get ugly. its a hassle.

[MinMay]

Originally Posted by 77T

I’d suggest all TRF’ers stop and read the entire list of posts. I am not judging but 2 things jumped out to me.

OP stated he inadvertently wired money to this seller twice before in the past. And then seller refunded money. Very curious that one can inadvertently wire funds to someone.

Seller is acting strangely. If I was looking at buying from Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches then I’d hit the pause button right now. I would find what I wanted elsewhere. Until seller comes here to publicly address his issues.

If you must use this seller I suggest taking precautions. Not only would I wait until OP is made whole, I would use a middleman as escrow agent of your own choice. Maybe a trusted seller here with no connection to Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches.

Just my opinion - but there is a sticky here about a TRF trusted guy who went rogue. While Le may not be doing that, the symptoms smell suspicious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

A very good point. I don't understand why people think a person is good in the past will never go rogue like you stated. I read several other thread about the same behavior.
We just don't know the whole story on the other end.

It's not right. Don't wait too long to take action OP. One too many excuses....

Reporting it to FBI is going to have his name on file.

https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Good luck.

And...all wire transaction has paper trail. Ask him for a copy of the wire receipt to AD. If he can't show proof, then he never did.

[DARK_KNIGHT]

Originally Posted by 77T

I’d suggest all TRF’ers stop and read the entire list of posts. I am not judging but 2 things jumped out to me.

OP stated he inadvertently wired money to this seller twice before in the past. And then seller refunded money. Very curious that one can inadvertently wire funds to someone.

Seller is acting strangely. If I was looking at buying from Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches then I’d hit the pause button right now. I would find what I wanted elsewhere. Until seller comes here to publicly address his issues.

If you must use this seller I suggest taking precautions. Not only would I wait until OP is made whole, I would use a middleman as escrow agent of your own choice. Maybe a trusted seller here with no connection to Michael Le AKA Goldcoastwatches.

Just my opinion - but there is a sticky here about a TRF trusted guy who went rogue. While Le may not be doing that, the symptoms smell suspicious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

77T .........excellent assessment.

I am not an attorney, but it sounds to me like if this ever hit a court of law (probably never will).............the OP is not buying a watch, he is extending (already extended) a non collateralized loan.

The "seller" did say he did not have the money to buy the watch, so he needed a loan from you to make it happen and you "loaned" it via a "leap of faith". If TV court room law, is anything close to real court room law, I could see it now: Sir, what was your primary reason to loan the money to Gold Coast Watches? Well, it was a "leap of faith"..........

Does a "leap of faith" constitute a reasonable expectation of a return of your funds?

[gaoxing84]

Latest update.
Michael called me 5mins ago explaining himself to me.
He told me that AD took his money and told him to wait for the stock.
They kinda over promise him on the watch and kept playing games like asking him to wait for a couple more days and it extended to about 2-3 weeks of wait.
So he has requested the refund from the AD and he says he will give me a definite answer by this coming Monday.

He told me he got messages and emails from trf members regarding this thread.
I am happy this worked because I needed people to get to him for a response to me.
Thank you guys! Really appreciate it for those who help contacted Mike.
At this point, he still has my trust and I will clear everything up here once I get the refund.

I am not here to tarnish or destroy reputation of any good people here. I am here to seek help and I got helped.

I made alot of friends here internationally by doing business, discussing and sharing information on watches. I appreciate this forum.

Will update again once i get anything.

Cheers!

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by DARK_KNIGHT

77T .........excellent assessment.

I am not an attorney, but it sounds to me like if this ever hit a court of law (probably never will).............the OP is not buying a watch, he is extending (already extended) a non collateralized loan.

The "seller" did say he did not have the money to buy the watch, so he needed a loan from you to make it happen and you "loaned" it via a "leap of faith". If TV court room law, is anything close to real court room law, I could see it now: Sir, what was your primary reason to loan the money to Gold Coast Watches? Well, it was a "leap of faith"..........

Does a "leap of faith" constitute a reasonable expectation of a return of your funds?

Leap of faith is probably a bad description.
I would say I trust the guy that I have dealt with multiple times. Everything was great.
He did refunded money back because I did 2 duplicated wire on my internet banking. He did it within a week.

So naturally, some kind of trust and relationship is being built from that and I trusted him for sourcing a watch for me.
So with that said, we entered a contract over text that I am going to pay him and he's going to get that for me.
If say this is on a court house TV, that's probably what I am going to say.

Yes I understand there are trusted seller going Rouge. Crap happens.
I definitely hope that my case isn't one. I am not ready to lose any money now.

Mike still have my trust till proven otherwise.

[BillA]

First mistake Mr. Buyer, why did you buy from a guy who did not have the watch in hand?
Let me get this straight....he wanted you to wire money to him, so he could go to an AD and buy the watch and then ship to you?
If so, rookie error. Surprised after you say you have bought many watches on the forums

[datejustrms]

Hope things work out for you.

[MinMay]

I hope you learn from your experience.

Based on your experience, I would never buy from him due to the lack of communication and excuses after excuses. It's hard for me to trust a seller who doesn't have an extra 10K to pay back the money you sent him LOL.

GoldCoastWatches site is dead...facebook hasn't been updated since 2015. It seems like he started buying new watches and flipping them for some extra money on the side.

[gaoxing84]

another update.

Mike just called me 5 mins ago. He is assuring that he will be wiring back the money. His AD is refunding him the funds and so he can send it back to me.
If the money from the AD isn't cleared by Monday, he would wire half the amount that he has on hand (his own cash) to me first.

So far, communication from him has been prompt.

Will update again once I have more news.

Once everything is done, i will clear the air.

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by BillA

First mistake Mr. Buyer, why did you buy from a guy who did not have the watch in hand?
Let me get this straight....he wanted you to wire money to him, so he could go to an AD and buy the watch and then ship to you?
If so, rookie error. Surprised after you say you have bought many watches on the forums

if you read what I type, I have a couple of transaction that has went very well with Mike.
To a point where i did wire him the money twice, duplicated because of a system error and he refunded the funds back to me within a week.

as business dealings goes, trust is being built. If there's no trust between buyer and seller, business wouldn't go thru at all.

That's what i learnt from all the business dealings that I had so far.

then of course, not all business transaction can go smoothly without hiccups.
This is a example of a hiccup.

[gaoxing84]

Update.
It's Friday here, 6th of July.
It's been almost a week from the day that Mike says he will refund half of the funds.
He told me he did the wire of 4,000 usd and it's in process to me since Wed 4th of July.
But I haven't received anything. Nothing pending.

[CorradoBrit]

Originally Posted by gaoxing84

Update.
It's Friday here, 6th of July.
It's been almost a week from the day that Mike says he will refund half of the funds.
He told me he did the wire of 4,000 usd and it's in process to me since Wed 4th of July.
But I haven't received anything. Nothing pending.

Get a transaction number from his bank. Bank transfers can take from 1-3 days depending on selected service. Only the transaction number will tell you if it truly is en route.

[Abdullah71601]

Originally Posted by gaoxing84

Update.
It's Friday here, 6th of July.
It's been almost a week from the day that Mike says he will refund half of the funds.
He told me he did the wire of 4,000 usd and it's in process to me since Wed 4th of July.
But I haven't received anything. Nothing pending.

The 4th of July is a bank holiday in the US. How did he execute a wire on Wednesday?

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by Abdullah71601

The 4th of July is a bank holiday in the US. How did he execute a wire on Wednesday?

he said it was done on a tuesday, so that's i guess.

he did reply me on wed that its in process.

[gaoxing84]

Originally Posted by CorradoBrit

Get a transaction number from his bank. Bank transfers can take from 1-3 days depending on selected service. Only the transaction number will tell you if it truly is en route.

that's what i just asked too!

I am getting alittle impatient.

even it's 1-3 days, I don't see any holding/pending funds by the bank.
which dates into the future of 2 days which the bank holds it before releasing it to me