I Hate a Thief

I hate a thief. The Bible talks about thieves in several spots. Corinthians 6:10 teaches, “Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Recently I’ve had a run in with a professional thief.

I sold two of my really good calf roping saddles this fall. They were really heavy made and they didn’t ride around very comfortable. As much as I trail ride now, I’ve got to where I want a saddle that don’t hurt or rub me. My best calf roping saddle rubbed a blood blister on me the last time I went elk hunting. I rode over eighty miles during that week in the elk woods.

So I took the money from selling those two saddles and ordered me a new saddle. It won’t be ready until May. My son and I worked over Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks making extra money. We hauled some pipe and fixed up and sold a horse trailer we had. I paid him really good and had enough money saved up to buy a decent used saddle. It wasn’t long and I found one almost exactly like what I ordered. I found it on Facebook right before Christmas.

The guy that had it lives around Houston, Texas. He has over three thousand friends listed on his Facebook page. He trades roping horses and is all the time posting roping videos and horses he has for sale. Most of the scam deals on Facebook come from people that don’t have many friends, at least that’s been my experience. My wife got scammed on a show box a couple of years ago. She was able to get her money back. The bank basically stoped payment on the transaction. She sent money via PayPal, but the bank was able to get it back for her.

I don’t have any of the PayPal, Venmo, Cashapp stuff, so I had her my send money. The guy with the saddle requested that she send it what’s called “friends and family,” this saves on some fees that PayPal charges. The only problem is if you are scammed, PayPal doesn’t offer any protections for friends and family transactions.

So we sent the money for the saddle plus seventy five extra dollars for shipping. I sent fifteen hundred seventy five dollars in all. Then the guy quits returning calls, texts and messages. Not a word from him for over a week.

Saturday December 30 I was at a roping and my truck broke down, so I was stranded. I stayed the night with a friend. We got in bed about midnight that night. My mom called at two am and said the nursing home was taking my dad to the hospital. At three am she called and said he passed away in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

So my dad died, I was stranded with three horses and my wife and son. At daylight I began calling and about noon a friend came and got us. We buried my dad on Wednesday. Wednesday night as I laid in bed my mind went back to the guy that scammed me on the saddle. I was kind of in a bad mood so I posted in all of the roping groups I could find and offered a five hundred dollar reward for information that leads to the arrest of the guy that scammed me.

The next morning I had messages from people in six states that he had done the same thing too. He stole $300-$9500 from these people. The more I found out about him the madder I got. He’d scammed people on everything from saddles to horses and horse trailers.

My dad worked hard all of his life and it just really rubbed me the wrong way this guy was making a living by being a professional thief. I filed a police report at my local county sheriff’s office.

One man sent me the name and number of a Texas Ranger that knew about this guy. So I made a list of all the people that had been scammed, their name, number and the amount he got from them. I sent the list to the Texas Ranger. I got to thinking about it so I found the email of the district attorney in Houston and sent him the list as well. I heard back from both of them that day. They both wanted a copy of the police report I’d filed at my local courthouse.

The more I thought about it the more I thought federal law enforcement needed to be involved since he’d scammed people in several states. It looks like a mail fraud or wire fraud case to me. So, I contacted several US Congressmen and a couple of US Senators. They pointed me to the US Department of Justice and the FBI. I knew the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture had law enforcement that investigates agricultural crimes, so I emailed them and the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture. I figured the more people looking into this would be better.

Through all of the emails and phone calls I discovered this man already had charges filed on him and was out on bail. So the list of people I sent to the district attorney only strengthened that case.

I’ve learned a lot through this ordeal. First of all, I’d strongly suggest not sending money through PayPal, Venmo or other online transaction sites. Sure enough don’t send money through PayPal by the friends and family option.

Meet in person, in a safe place and pay with cash. I’m done with paying for stuff from Facebook before I have it in hand. If the person won’t meet up, I’d back out. There’s not much protecting buyers from scammers on Facebook.

Another thing I learned is that guy didn’t use his real name for a reason. His Facebook page was JS horses. This made it almost impossible to get his name and exact location, offering the reward was the only way I got some people to rat him out. I sent fifteen hundred every five dollars and didn’t even know his name or what town he was located in. The case is still ongoing and as of today (01-14-2024) I haven’t got a nickel of my money back.

The guy’s real name is Joel Stone, he’s a professional scammer and he doesn’t care a bit about someone filing a civil lawsuit against him. He knows how to work the system. I just hope that out of all the law enforcement taking a look at this they can convict him of several criminal charges.