Free Piano Scams

As a Music Academy, HomeMusicLesson have purchased a few pianos ourselves as well as helped some of our students/parents to purchase their pianos. Hence, that is why HomeMusicLesson is constantly on the lookout for reasonably good quality pianos that may be suitable for our own Music Academy use or for our students/parents who are looking to purchase their first piano for their home.

Of late we have come across more and more scammers that are potentially targeting used piano buyers. So, this has compelled us to eventually write this blog post to WARN others about the potential scams that are getting more and more rampant out there.

In order to be able to write this blog post in much more details, we have actually gone undercover and do some "spy" work to check out some of these scammers modus operandi. We have contacted 3 of these "scammers" to check out how they operate and we do see some standard operating procedures of how they are executing these.

Among the common things that they used to scam on others are as follows:

1. They post their "Free Piano" on FB Marketplace as this seems to be the place where many people would start looking at if they are keen to purchase a used piano. Potential RED FLAGS: (1) Their FB Profile is recently created. They may even put an innocent elderly profile picture which is most likely a fake picture. (2) They do not have a lot of friends on FB. (3) The picture that they used to give away their piano - it is usually a grand piano as grand piano has higher perceived value and it harder to move/transport. (4) The story of why they are giving away their piano. So far, these scammers have been using the same story as below. They are a widow/widower. Their partner has just recently passed away. Their partner will not be happy if they were to sell the piano away and so they are "giving" it away to someone who loves music and will have a great use of the piano. You can also do a Google Search on the subject of "Piano Scams" and you will be able to find some similar stories used.
2. Communications on FB Marketplace. Most of them will use the FB Marketplace as a place to "bait" potential used piano buyers but will tend to want to communicate with the potential buyers using other platforms e.g. emails. Another RED FLAG (5) Alert here. The reason i can think of this is likely because they would want to keep their FB profile for as long as possible to scam as many people as possible before it is noticed by FB.
3. Email Communications. When we contacted the scammers via email, the below is the general story that they will tell. "Hi, I got through to the movers now in order to let them know they will move the piano back. All you need to do now is to contact them and make new arrangements as regards to the rerouting process. I also would like you to take some pictures when it arrives at your house and send them.. The rep said you should present this Referral ID YMGP90SABC  to an agent via their live chat on their website at a logistic website setup by the scammer, for the purpose of illustration, i will use the domain "scammerlogisticscompanydotcom"  to initiate a reroute.. Let them know Dr. Scammer referred you and give me feedback." Another RED FLAG (6) here as this same story has been repeated across the 3 scammers.
4. Their "scammerlogisticscompanydotcom" website. There are a few more RED FLAGS which i will highlight below: (7) No Physical address listed on the website. How many reputable logistics companies do you know who do not state their actual address on their website! i cannot think of any. (8) US Phone contact number. This really defies logic......Who on earth in Melbourne Australia who is giving away his/her piano would engage a US Logistic company(with no physical presence in Australia) to move their piano. One of the 3 scammer actually has a website that put a Western Australia address. Upon checking Google Map to locate that address, the logistic company did not come out. (9) The Mover's Domain name is only recently registered. This may be a little bit technical but there is a way to check out the website domain name using the Whois Lookup tool. You can just google "Whois Lookup" on Google and there will be quite a number of Whois Lookup service that will popup. You can key in the domain name and check out about the domain that you wanted to check. From the image below, you will be able to find out details about the domain e.g. when the domain was registered, the registrar for the domain, Who was the owner of the domain (although most of them may not want to share this) as well as when the domain will expire. As can be seen below, the domain was only registered 2 months ago for the purpose of "scamming". Who would trust a mover who was in business for only about 2 months with their grand piano?!

(10) Information on their website. Firstly, their website is not very professionally developed. Secondly, there are not much information on their website. It is just a quick and simple website with not much posting or no posting at all. Thirdly, the website is not fully completed. Below is some of the information that is listed on their Main Page: There are no answers on their FAQ but "Lorem Ipsum".... By the Way, for those who are not familiar with what Lorem Ipsum is.... Lorem ipsum is a placeholder text commonly used to demonstrate the visual form of a document or a typeface without relying on meaningful content.

(11) Payment Options. Before the piano can be re-routed to you, you have to make full payment 100% to the Logistic company. This is another big RED FLAG especially when they do not have a physical address that you can locate them!

There are just too many RED FLAGS as highlighted above and i am sure these Scammers(i would prefer to call them SCUMBAGS!) may improve over time to make the process more believable but if there are any or a few of the above RED FLAGS, please run away as quickly as possible!!! The Rule of Thumb is "If something sounds too good to be true, it likely is".

By sharing our thoughts on this, we hope that we can do some Public Service to warn others about these Scumbags who are targeting on the general public for some quick bucks!

Please feel free to share this article with others so that we can stop these scumbags from succeeding in their evil plot to scam others of their hard-earned money. Anyway, i am sure karma will work its way and these scammers will one day pay for what they have done to others.