Hi Everyone,
I wondered whether to post this or not, but I decided I should so others can avoid the same scam. I was recently scammed out of $5,000 by a person by the name of 'Clay Hunwick' who supposedly sold me a 1971 Husqvarna 400 Cross project bike and parts. It's been 10 weeks now and the bike nor a promised refund have arrived. There's a bit of a story to this, but I'd appreciate it if you can read it and let others in the VMX community know, as I'm sure 99.9% of the VMX community are good honest people. Here it is...
In August I placed a wanted ad on Gumtree for a vintage dirt bike and I had a number of responses, one of which was from a guy by the name 'Clay Hunwick' from Brisbane who said he had a number of bikes for sale. He was extremely knowledgeable about vintage bikes. He sent across loads of photos and we spoke a number of times (by phone and by text) over a couple of days and eventually settled on $5,000 for a 1971 Husqvarna 400 Cross with transport included from Brisbane to Canberra. I paid the money via bank transfer and was advised the bike would be picked up later that week.
Immediately he began to try and get me to buy another bike as part of the deal, which I politely declined (I was now quite suspicious). He followed me on Instagram, and we chatted back and forth on cars, bikes and watches.
So the pick-up of the bike was delayed a number of times due to COVID and border restrictions It was a month before it was finally picked up. The transport driver was a guy by the name of ‘Terry’ but despite my many calls to him he never answered the phone, he only texted. ‘Terry’ had a string of bad luck from COVID testing, border restrictions and his van breaking down almost every second day. The bike was always promised to be delivered ‘tomorrow’ or ‘by the end of the week’, but it was obviously all untrue. All the while ‘Clay’ was trying to sell me additional bikes (including ‘pay me half now, half when the bikes show up’) all offers of which I politely declined.
As this dragged on (I’d already reported this to the police by this stage) and I put the pressure on he began to suggest refunding me the money until the bike showed up. He said a number of times he’d send the money back and it of course never arrived.
I’ve learnt an expensive lesson, but I wanted to let the VMX community know that this guy is out there trying to scam people and he is quite knowledgeable. He says he has Triumphs, Elsinores, Huskys, Yamahas, Rickmans, that he has raced bikes in California. He’ll also use Instragram, Facebook etc to research you and what you like to build rapport and will call a number of times. The amazing thing is he is still in contact and has been the whole time, so it’s not the usual scam where they take your money and run, rather he’s always trying to lure you in. Just beware.
