Hi Everyone,
I wanted to reach out and try to protect other users from Art that try's to sell Keyence lasers. After making my post of inquiring about Fiber lasers, Art found our business phone number from a web search and was able to get ahold of me. I was convinced that Keyence was the laser for me from speaking with him and a little research. He offered to sell me an MD-X1020 for $15,000, yes i know its a lot for a fiber but we were able to stretch our budget as we saw the benefit for this. Now the concerning part, it took me awhile to get Art's first name, and still do not know if this is really his real name or not and we never got his last name, he was insistent that he would not provide a business name, his full name, or an address. This was a red flag for us but we got over it by saying that we wanted an in-person demo of the unit. Well after going back-and-fourth multiple times it was clear that he did not want to do this and he blamed COVID and not wanting to be around anyone. This whole time he kept saying call this person and call that person to verify I can be trusted, even-though he provides the people you are to call. It's also worth noting that during this time, he directed me to his eBay listings that for the same laser was $38,000 for one $35,000 for another and $18,000 for the final listing, EACH WITH A DIFFERENT EBAY ACCOUNT (another red flag). It also is odd that someone would list a laser for $38,000 and come down to $15,000. Art was insistent that PayPal Goods and Services was the only was he would do business and that I was protected by PayPal and I finally gave in to even shipping without an in-person demo. In the end Art took around 6 days to get us an invoice that was promised in 2-3 hours and it was the final straw and we moved on. When I look back at all of the red flags I am all but assured this is a SCAM and that something crooked would have happened; I guess I bent my general rules of working with vendors as we needed a fiber laser in a timely manor and options were limited.
I wanted to warn everyone else on here as I believe he was Banned from Sawmill Creek, but actively watches it and contacts people on here. So you can identify him if he tries to contact you he operates out of a suburb of Chicago IL uses emails: artdealXX@gmail.com, tonplazaXXX@gmail.com (emails partially redacted), and probably more. His eBay names are: lexilexilexus77, artlidarbest4u, theres another but the item was removed. He was on Sawmill Creek under the name Toni Plaza and art olin, but I believe he was banned. I will not share his full phone number but it starts with (773) 939 - XXX9. He currently has his lasers on eBay, laserresale.com, shoppok, and probably several other sites. He claims that he is affiliated with Keyence and has a reseller account with them, but I do not know if this is true. I suspect that he is most likely a scammer but if not hes probably an employee that is stealing the lasers and trying to remain secretive. I had a terrible experience throughout the entire process from him making commitment after commitment and not sticking to them, poor communication on about everything, and lack of budging on providing his name and address or even a business name. After all this was done, he kept messaging us, I told him that I felt like everything was sketchy, he still insisted on trying to sell me stuff and then went off on me, after I told him we purchased a md-x2520 and wanted a picture to prove it... how odd. Once again, I knew better but when you're in need of something sometimes you turn your head regardless if you know better or not.
Just trying to protect my fellow Creeker's here and hope that it saves someone a potentially expensive headache.
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