Reading that "I will find you and end you" reminded me...  
 
	About 10 years ago, I came very, very close to getting scammed on some musical gear.  
 
	I was gathering gear for the soon-to-open studio, and one of the things on my wish list was a tape machine.  A friend of mine (an audio engineer in LA) who knew what gear I was looking for forwarded me a promotional email from a gear broker in LA, and he happened to have the machine I wanted.  I contacted him, we negotiated a bit on price, I wired him the money --  it was over four grand. 
 
	About four or five weeks later, after a series of broken promises and ever-changing excuses for why he didn't have a tracking number - and NUMEROUS unanswered inquiries, I realized that I was getting ghosted.  I emailed my engineer friend "WTF is the deal with your gear broker friend?"  And he tells me, "I don't even know that guy, I just got on his email list."  Oof.  I remember the gut-punch I felt when my buddy told me that.
 
	So I start googling this gear broker's name and I find several people online who he had also scammed, and those people had posted "do not deal with this guy" warnings on some audio forums.  He was a real gear broker, but apparently one who had a history of totally screwing people over from time to time.  
 
	I was livid.  I found his home address.  I wasn't sure how... but I was going to have my vengeance.  I came very close to a rage-fueled threatening email, but I didn't send it.
 
	Instead, I sent him another friendly email telling him, "Hey, I just refinanced my house" (not true) "... and I'm getting a big cash-out from the bank in a couple weeks" (not true) "... and I really want that pair of soffit-mounted ATC mains on your gear list" (not true).   The monitors I told him I wanted were like 25 grand.  
 
	About a week later, the tape machine arrived.  He shipped it a couple days after that email.
 
	I was lucky.