Harry Loeb, TradePro International Advertised 1000 r/c planes for $10 each, took my $5000 and disappeared. Surplus wholesale merchandise fraud. Toronto Ontario Canada

Harry Loeb/Tradepro Group International Inc advertised wholesale r/c planes for $10 each, minimum $10,000 purchase. We agreed on 50% up front, 50% on delivery, and I wired $5000 on 1/11/06 with the promise that they would be shipped on or before 2/12/06.

Weeks went by with no merchandise and no correspondence from Harry Loeb/TradePro. I called and emailed Harry Loeb/TradePro dozens of times throughout February, but no one ever answered or responded.

Then I posted a thread similar to this one on www.surplus.cc's Good, Bad, and Ugly on 3/2/06. When I did that, Harry Loeb contacted me within 24 hours.

He told me that there was a "problem with the supplier" of the remote control toys he advertised and collected my $5000 USD payment for in January, and that he will have to send a load of SOFAS instead. He then told me that this is not fraud because he never specified in writing when the merchandise would be delivered and that he will sue me and surplus.cc if the posts are not removed and replaced with apologies.

Well... I see things a little bit differently. I agreed to buy r/c toys. I paid him in good faith that he would deliver what he promised. This is months later, I have nothing, and he refuses to refund my money. I told him that I don't have anywhere to store or sell sofas and that they would not be useful or profitable to me, and he said okay he'll get the toys on their way by 3/27.

On 3/27 Harry sent me an email that says he will send me a BOL for the sofas he is sending as soon as possible. He also says he is in the process of suing me and surplus.cc because I am not respecting his right to scam me out of my $5000 privately, or something like that. But every bit of this is true, I can prove it all with documents, and I don't want his load of furniture. I can't imagine how he could ever come out ahead in court over this issue.

I have reported this to the police, who agree that it is fraud and then give me their own empty promises to eventually get around to doing something about it. They said nothing like "Oh, you'd better hush and just let him keep the money or he might sue you."

Totonto Police Services case#1538981
Arlington Police Dept case #060010902
Federal Trade Commission case #7697498

Harry Loeb uses the Bank of Nova Scotia and changes phone numbers somewhat regularly. The current numbers are: 416 322 4991, 416 550 4355, and 888 822 7507 (answering service).

Adam
Arlington, Texas
U.S.A.