UPDATE: Crowdfund Done! ❤ The target was reached in 4 hours after publishing and within a week it nearly doubled plus the donations continued to come in! It's amazing to have such a strong community supporting the project. Thanks everyone for supporting us. But we decided to close the campaign because we got more than what we need for now. Save your money for the Community Center ;) projectkamp.com/digger UPDATE: We continue to find the scammer! See what we found in the following update: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hbGAZ6aCyty9qJs.html

For anyone else who is trying to import any large value shipment: consider setting up a Letter of Credit(LoC) payment with a trusted bank. The bank holds the payment funds in escrow until the terms of the LoC are fulfilled. This usually includes presentation of original (not copies!) shipping documents to the bank that can be verified before payment is released (Usually an original BIll of Lading from the shipping company). The Terms can also include Proof of Delivery (PoD) documents that insure that the funds are not released until the goods are received.

You need to flag this to the Serious Organized Crime Agency, the National Crime Agency and Serious Fraud Office here in the UK and flag it to them to investigate in more depth

Warms my heart to see that nearly 3hours later of uploading the video, they’ve nearly reached 14k in donations

Banks can re-book money for 90 days. Make that ASAP, go to the police and make the scam official, give that to the bank as proof, and get a lawyer just in case the bank says it can't do anything.

Big up Graham for going out on the recon mission! Top lad!

2 hours after the upload more than $11k have been donated already! Incredible how dedicated your community is!

So sorry to hear you got scammed. Amazing from the viewer in Northern Ireland to take the drive and check things out. Wonderful!!

Although this is such a terrible situation, I was incredibly impressed with your sense of humor and ability to shoot a great video about it. Really rooting for you guys to make the best of this situation - and for them to get caught.

Well done to Graham for driving up there to do a recon. 🚘🧐💪 Calling all white hats to locate the scammer. There must be a way.

I had 5k$ stolen from a builder. I fought for a year to get it back, to no avail. The authorities did nothing. Town's people laughed and said, "he does that all the time. " Not one of my best experiences. I'd like to forget it.

I'm from Ballymena and I know that google location - its a local council road service depot - those vehicles are mostly gritters for road salt - unfortunately the address is a total dead end for your purposes. ...but looks like you'll be getting a digger soon in any case! good luck with it all and keep on keeping on!

Involve the police No reason to continue alone with this

One red flag for me would be that the company was just incorporated in 2023. 🤔 I'm really sorry that you got scammed. 😔

Just love to see how the power of community working... And specifically the mercy of the Project Kamp broader community, it really touches me. I'll send you by email the contact of my father who knows a looot of machine retailers in the Center part of Portugal (his job is to sell them filters for the machines). Use someone who speak Portuguese to get in contact with him, I'm sure he will be glad to help you guys!

You are not stupid. Today, scammers are very slick. So sorry this happened to you.

I was thinking last video that when you looked on Google Maps, "ask one of your irish fans to check out the location". What done is done, and I agree with Dave, make the most out of what happens.

'Head of sales department' is the first red flag. Sounds like an offshore scammer.

5 hours after posting and already reached their goal, shows you what good community is all about ! congrats!

Oh noooo 😢! Sorry to hear that! I also felt bad when I saw that the bad guy blamed "(Brazilians)" for the scam... besides being a thief he is helping to spread prejudice against Brazilian foreigners... so sad!

The bank should flag the account for fraud. Sad to see how useless the banks and stuff are with assisting or preventing this type of stuff.

The reason they delay for so long, is so you can't get a refund with your credit card campany, any thing over 25-30 days is impossible to reverse. Main reason why the scammers keep in contact for a certain time.

Amazing community support! 🎉 Looking forward to seeing your new digger help you. Yes for Justice. Yes for waterfall crying. You are blessed by many hearts Dave, pk and all.

Hey Dave. Scammers are out there hard these days, I work in the anti-fraud industry and believe me even the most experienced investigator could be scammed so don't feel stupid. You need to report this to your bank and to the Portuguese Police. With some luck, your bank could contact the receiving bank and they will evaluate and perhaps you might get refunded. Best of luck

Their are some very active youtubers that fight against scammers. One youtuber even made a video about fake companies pretending to sell such vehicules as your digger. These guys are amazing IT geeks and may be able to track and expose your scammers.

"we decided to import it" famous last words

Hi Dave you are a good person and Project Kamp is a virtuous mission with kind people. Please don’t be hard on yourself. You were scammed by a criminal. Nothing you did was wrong or foolish. Barclay bank should help you but trust me they won’t. I was scammed by a cab driver who charged me 1,000 euros when the actual fare was 8.30 euros he gave me a receipt for 8.30 euros. It took me 7 months to get Barclay to refund me the money. Please stay focused on your mission. It will work out in the long run. All my best…Joe.

So sad to hear about the scam! Thanks for your willingness to share the story with us. Good luck with everything moving forward!

You are not stupid. It makes you feel so bad. These scammers are so clever and so corrupt. It's the feeling of total injustice. I nearly got scammed by a person impersonating my friend and it left me feeling so bad. If you can sort it in anyway I really hope you can. But otherwise just put it down to a hard lesson learned. You are so genuine a group of people to even share this scam to us. Love you and bless you all

Man this is a very tough lesson. Your honesty about the whole thing is refreshing though. It’s easy to look back and see the red flags. Not so easy when you’re in the middle of it. The person you were communicating with didn’t seem like they spoke English as a first language but that isn’t always obvious. As a rule you shouldn’t really buy any plant equipment that you haven’t physically put hands on and checked out yourself. It would have probably cost you less than €200 to get a flight over and check things out in person. Not a lot when you think about the amount of money involved. I think I would stick to buying in Portugal or Spain where you can drive to and look at things yourself. Take a mechanic or an operator with you to go over the machine to make sure it’s as advertised. At least you won’t fall for it again. Definitely file a police report in Portugal and in NI. It won’t get you anything back but it’s the right thing to do. Good luck next time around!

Having worked in financial services, the first thing you should do is call the the bank where the payment went to (should be shown in your bank account statment) and report it that it's involved in possible fraud. Then report it to your bank account as a payment that has been involved in possible fraud. They might ask you for a crime reference number but I'm not sure how they would deal with it if it's a Portuguese account. In the UK the bank can issue a refund If it's confirmed to be involved in a scam/fraud.

This is probably the saddest episode I've seen so far. I'm sorry to hear about this situation. Greetings from Poland.

Contact the police in Northern Ireland, they are the PSNI. It is import to report it, as the higher the value of the scam, the more time and resources will be given towards the investigation.

Time to go to the police. And ask an attorney how to proceed. Also ask if your bank can recapture those funds. Oh God, I feel so bad for you all. Heartbreaking!! Don’t take it too personally. And remember, the law of karma ALWAYS catches up with you! Always. Just donated. Good will conquer evil , that too is a universal law!

Congrats on the funds for a new digger! ❤ People, let's give the camp a bad-ass digger!

Absolutely crazy situation but incredible you've raised MORE than you lost in such a short space of time. You'll be able to get a better digger now thanks to your fans

Don't think you need to be chasing Milo Webb. The guys name on Companies House is Ian Keith Furguson of 21 Carnlea Road, Ballymena. Looks very rural, but maybe send your man there?

Sorry to hear folks. Scammers are getting smarter, you're not the only ones to have been scammed. Hopefully Milo get what's coming to him.

You should look into buying a JCB 3CX Backhoe loader, you will be able to do so much more than with a mini digger. Look locally in Portugal.

So gutted to hear this. But on the positive side you’ve raised 166% of what you were looking to raise in a couple of days! Well done!

Sorry I don't have much. So sorry this happened to you. Hopefully he is caught and you all can still get a digger❤❤❤

Reading the title and clicking on this video was really hard... I'm so sorry for you!

I'm so bummed that this happened. 😢 That said, this video talking about it is really great.

😢😢 Heartbreaking… felt really sorry as I watched this episode. Thank you for this video despite feeling all shitty being scammed. The message fr ur vid helps keep our guards up against (possible) scammers.

Two things that raise a red flag for me: - the language in the messages from the “seller” does not read as if the writer has English as their first language - Barclays Bank does not operate in Northern Ireland

I screamed so loud saying NO when i saw the tittle...... how could this happen TT

I'm so sorry for you. But please don't let your head down, this wonderful community will definitely get the money together. ❤❤❤

I'm a 30+ year IT consultant, in cyber-sec and it doesn't surprise me that he dragged you along. I also wouldn't be surprised that all his information is made up and there's nothing there to trace him. When it comes to these scams it's much easier to track them down in real-time; to try to track them down once the communication is cut involves a lot of luck. Hopefully he left some real clues behind, or someone else comes forward with more substantive information. Good luck and I just subscribed, love what you young people are doing!

That’s so sad, I’ve been scammed as well. It’s horrible, it makes you so ashamed and you feel so stupid.

If you're using a Portuguese bank account I think you can still ask to withdraw the transfer. Contact your bank

Donated what we could. Hope this helps. Your videos are really cool and interesting and i look forward to them every Monday. Good luck with the crowd funder.

Hopefully the love of the community supporting you guys with an even better digger triumphs the feelings of being scammed!

I was really hoping this wouldn't be a scam, this is terrible and I hope no other things like this ever happen again!

You really should contact the local police in ireland and explain your situation and give them the info you have about the scammer

Biggest tip: when you don't have experience importing / exporting, use a quality control company you can find in most countries. They will visit the site, checks the thing you want to purchase and then you'll make further arrangements / pay etc. Costs a penny, but atleast you're safe.

What you guys are doing at project kamp is transforming old energy into new. This is part of it. How unfortunate and unfair it may be. Let it play our in a bigger timeline and your smiles will be big. Much luck on the path for all of you!

I am so disgusted with the type of people who think it's okay to steal/scam/whatever you want to call it! I am so sorry that this has happened to you but the scammers, as many have also said, are very clever! My husband and I have had a similar experience with buying a business and we, like you guys, carried out due diligence..... long story but essentially we lost everything we invested...... I really hope that you can get some justice and that karma comes and bites the scammer squarely in the back-side! In the meantime, we will make a small donation towards the next digger - maybe Caterpillar or JCB do the decent thing. 🥰

Hope the refund comes back to it. Go in-person to the next places. Its great to have super fans allover the world watching you guys. Use us as much as you can next time

So happy to see you've already made more than your money back in the crowdfunding campaign! What a community!

One lesson learnt is how strong and caring your community is! So maybe next time if you find a digger somewhere else in Europe you can ask the community to check them out before buying, and I saw a lot of very good advice on bank procedures to ensure the money is released to the seller only when you get the goods. Lots of good lessons learnt for all of us really ❤

Some people are being tough with you in the comments. Being scammed happens and scammers are becoming more clever by the minute. It’s not you’re fault and a victim of a crime should never been blamed for it! I hope everything goes well in the future for this great Project Kamp. 😊

Rips my heart out. It feels as if I was scammed personally. Donated as soon as you mentioned it. Cheers!

Donations target already reached, great work people. I hope you find another one soon i was waiting for the big update and to see how the digger was.

I know I'm not out there with you guys but after watching your vids from literally DAY 1 fell invested you know? I wanna extend a thank you to the guy in N. Ireland that made the trip up to look. I feel burned for your project, sucks! But you got great folks with funds to help and I KNOW it'll happen in time to still meet your goals this season! Cheers you guys!! And so sorry you got screwed!

That is absolutely wild! I live in Belfast, not too far from Ballymena. That was a fairly sophisticated scam, they went as far as setting up a company and picking an address that looked plausible from google maps. It might be worth while speaking to the PSNI, thats the local police force in Northern Ireland.

oh man Dave I feel for you, I am most impressed by what value a community as you build can bring to the table. I hope justice will come

More than 16.000 euros has been donated so far! Right on you guys! Love this community

I was really happy to look at the website and see you've raised 166% of your goal, go get that digger!

Usually the header information in the mail will give you some information on where the mail actually came from if it wasn't faked. Might want to check that. Sorry to hear that you got scammed. I think one good general rule is never to pay upfront and to use payment methods that give you extra security like PayPal. Good luck! Looking forward to the actual digger!

That really sucks, I am sure the scammers grandma is super proud of him.

Hindsight--I wish I had recorded my initial thought when you were in the midst of the purchase. I thot it might be good to pay the airfare for one of you to go there in person. I feel bad that I didn't at least suggest it. So sorry, poor Dave......

I love this video so much! Thank you for your transparency in this difficult situation and sharing with all of us! We all love seeing your journey every update, the good and the bad. I have been scammed in the past as well and I loved seeing that others on the discord were able to help and confirm suspicions for you from very far away! I was cheering when I saw the dashcam footage and loved that you exposed the scammer to 180+ thousand viewers! Much love from Los Angeles! I hope to come work and play at Project Kamp some day in the future :) May you never stop growing.

Don't feel stupid you did your due diligence and tried everything to confirm that is a real business. I've been scammed before and i was pissed. These people are low lifes and deserve to be in jail Keep working on it and you will get some satisfaction

COMMUNITY and FRIENDSHIP is everything! Good luck with your compensation and digger projects. Evil greedy people are in the minority, but nice guys are everywhere and will help you :o)

I don't know how you stay so calm. I wish I was so inclined. I am sick to my stomach that this has happened to you wonderfully thoughtful people. Good luck and sending good karma.

698 Thousand subscribers, most of whom have never bought any merch, or joined any subscriptions. If others like myself, who have absolutely found value in your Projects, would pitch in the most meager of contributions, your team would have enough money to buy a fleet of dirt work equipment. My donation is inbound as we speak... Keep up the hard work, and don't let the darkness throw shade on your souls. You are all doing a unique and admirable thing. Just another chapter in the story of the Kamp.

File a Police report urgently..here and on Ireland

Always buy on your own country so you can pursue legally if it comes to this.

1 day after posting and you’ve hit over 55% of your goal donation! Thats amazing!! I hope you catch them and get your money back!!!!

When you posted the video about buying the digger I was also a bit suspicious, just like you guys, but there were no giant red flags. The scam looks very well done so don't feel stupid for falling for it. Today with hindsight it's obvious that it's a scam, but a couple of weeks ago it wasn't.

So horrible for you all. It's hard enough to have faith in humanity at times without this kick in the teeth. Stay strong.

I donated for you! i know how painful getting scammed can be, really sad to see, but failing is the easiest way to learn from your mistakes

Bro, I hate when good people are scammed and I hate even more when it's hard to find justice. If things don't go well with the authorities, last resort is 4chan. Hope you get your money back and buy a proper digger to make wonders on that nice piece of land you got there! Thanks for being nice people and for sharing your journey. 🙏🙏

Although he kept a positive attitude through the video at some point you can see the sadness in his eyes… the lost faith in humanity kind of it… I mean this guys are doing such a noble work there, put so much effort in it, all for the greater good of their piece of this planet, maybe even more by being an example for others and then this happens, they run into greedy shameless pigs. I guess this is something that unfortunately most of likewise people have to deal with. Time to show resilience and with help, support and appreciation to keep going forward with this beautiful project.

I just sent you a little plaster for the wound... There really are som nasty people out there, totally killing internet trade. Best of luck, and hopefully the digger is soon in house.

Hey, really sorry to hear this. Please remember you guys are not to blame. Some scammers are just really smart and they could have fooled me as well. That said, dear fellow commenters, shall we just stop all this pointless hindsight advise? It taste really sour, does no one any real good, and shifts the blame to the victim not the perpetrator. I am sure Project Kamp are beating themselves up enough without all that. Love to you all!

In every adversity there is an equal or greater opportunity! WE will see!

Sorry you had to go through this 😔. On the upside the love and support demonstrated by your community as a result is heart warming. 💞 🤗

Highly distressing. Hope you find some justice.

Just by reading the title I went: " OH nooooo 😢"

8 hours later and they already hit and exceeded their target! Good going kampers! Feel sorry for you guys, but hopefully this outpouring of goodwill helps heal your heart a bit.

Feel sorry for you guys! I hope you get a better digger after all! ❤ ps. pissed me off the scam guy said that comment about “brazilians”… SO much prejudice 😢 we’re nice people 😂

Feeling so bad for you dude and projectkamp as well but for you much more... I can imagine how you feel but don't worry, its just money. Go ahead with the project, it was only just a stone in the way. Bad people only win if good ones do nothing.

thanks for sharing this very important info. the scammers got a lot better. i saw some scam listings before but the websites involved were so bad that it was obvious… this was really convincing imo. sorry this happened to you

Liked for the algorithm, but I'm honestly pissed for you guys! Glad to see the donation is successful at least! Don't give up!

25k donated. How wonderful to see! Best of luck guys x

Is sucks to get scammed, especially after doing as much due diligence as you possibly can. Sometimes these scams are highly sophisticated and are extremely difficult to tell truth from fiction. Hopefully you guys will be able to get this resolved and your money returned! All the best with your digger efforts, much love from Australia

I'm so sorry to hear about the scam, I've experienced one myself, and I felt so foolish for a while and didn't want to tell my family or friends because I was embarrassed. Very brave of you to share, and i will make a small contribution to help your project along. Good luck and stay strong.

Jesus. I am so sorry guys... I can only imagine how frustrating can it be. Is really difficult to avoid this kind of things. They play with people's needs. Cannot support you economically at this moment, but always watch you and speak about your project as a reference.

Nearly 22K ! The power of crowdfunding is amazing