J.Primus
Senior Member
- Location
- Northerner living in London
My friend is looking to buy a new bike after his old one got nicked and spotted one he fancied on the Halfords website. After a quick google he spotted one for sale on Gumtree saying it was hardly used and £80 cheaper.
He asked me to come along as he's not been cycling very long as doesn't know a lot about bikes and also so he could have a second opinion on if it's stolen as he wouldn't want to buy it if it's dodgy.
So....the bloke is really inarticulate on the phone and eventually says he lives near Bethnal Green tube and he wants to meet there to sell the bike, not at his house.
We get there and wait for 10m and call him up, he then says he's not there and can we call him back in 5 minutes. We call him back in 5 minutes and he says can we come to Bethnal Green train station.
We get to Bethnal Green train station and there's no-one there, we call him back and he says he will be there in 2 minutes. 15 minutes later we're about to leave when some youngish bloke with his hood up is walking round where we are stood pretending to be on his phone looking at us very intently. He does another lap and then comes over and asks if we're interested in the bike, he then asks if we have the money. Then he says the tyres were flat so we have to come with him to the estate to look at it and points down an unlit alley under the train bridge.
We tell him we're ok as we've not got all day and he doesn't say anything and slinks off at sharpish pace down the alley. We promptly do one!
I've heard of false sales of Gumtree where they basically use it as a lure to mug people in the papers. So what do you think, was this one of them?
ETA: Got a bit wrong before, he had already said the tyres we're flat and we told him it was not a problem as we had a pump, and he agreed to wheel it over.
He asked me to come along as he's not been cycling very long as doesn't know a lot about bikes and also so he could have a second opinion on if it's stolen as he wouldn't want to buy it if it's dodgy.
So....the bloke is really inarticulate on the phone and eventually says he lives near Bethnal Green tube and he wants to meet there to sell the bike, not at his house.
We get there and wait for 10m and call him up, he then says he's not there and can we call him back in 5 minutes. We call him back in 5 minutes and he says can we come to Bethnal Green train station.
We get to Bethnal Green train station and there's no-one there, we call him back and he says he will be there in 2 minutes. 15 minutes later we're about to leave when some youngish bloke with his hood up is walking round where we are stood pretending to be on his phone looking at us very intently. He does another lap and then comes over and asks if we're interested in the bike, he then asks if we have the money. Then he says the tyres were flat so we have to come with him to the estate to look at it and points down an unlit alley under the train bridge.
We tell him we're ok as we've not got all day and he doesn't say anything and slinks off at sharpish pace down the alley. We promptly do one!
I've heard of false sales of Gumtree where they basically use it as a lure to mug people in the papers. So what do you think, was this one of them?
ETA: Got a bit wrong before, he had already said the tyres we're flat and we told him it was not a problem as we had a pump, and he agreed to wheel it over.
