I wanted to share this story, despite it being incredibly embarrassing partly to seek advice and partly to warn others that such scamming skill sadly exists.

In brief: my friend and I (32 years old) arrived in Fes at midnight from the train, we are both fairly well travelled and knew to seek a taxi driver rather than let one come to us with a high fare. So we did. And his friend asked us where we were from - New Zealand. He lost his shit and said he'd been there because his son went to school. I said what school - Burnside, which is from my city (Christchurch). He was really excited and called his son immediately. He answered with the most NZ accent I've heard and it was like talking to an old friend - he knew all about the city and we had a nice chat. He asked if we wanted to hang out tomorrow. I said "sure that'd be great" and we met at 9.30 the next day.

We literally had the best day in Fes, walking around like locals and popping our heads into the off temple and shop and the Dad would say "these guys are my friends, please no push" so we felt pretty cuffed to not be treated like tourists.

The son said that he one thing to do that day and it was to buy some rugs - because, with his NZ passport he found a loophole that is, to buy rugs and onsell them in NZ, Australia and the UK.

He said he spends most of his time in Sydney but is just back in Fes for a little while to get more rugs. So we went in to this large palacial rug store (called Dar Essaard) and he seemed like he just wanted to get out of there. He bought 6 rugs and we'd put aside a handful because that's just what they lead us to do. He just kinda casually mentioned - if you want to get some you can. You just sell them through the art auctions. We were kinda keen. He then said "just don't sell them for any less than $5000 because it will affect my business".

I knew that rugs could be worth a fair bit, so it just made sense that these rugs probably would be worth a lot, and it made sense that you could only buy 6 at a time, to avoid taxes and that yeah, he does in fact do this for a living.

I thought hard on this and the feeling was that I trusted him. But I wasn't so confident about on-selling them so I said since the limit is 6, how about I get 4x and you get another 2x sent to my address. Then I can sell them on your behalf. He said "yeah that'd be great, and went and selected another 2x and paid for them. So I bought 4x rugs ($10,000NZD) to be sent to NZ and my friend bought 2x rugs (to be sent to London).

And it was like nothing, we felt like we were going to make some money back, and at the very least sell them for what we got them for. I'd actually looked up rug prices in NZ and seen many for $6000 so really didn't think it'd be a problem. We continued to hang out and he showed us around some ruins and stuff and we went back to his mates place (BackHome Hostels) for some beers and shisha. We genuinely felt like we'd made some friends - he paid for everything through the day too, as if he had a lot of money from this rug trade.

A few weeks later both of our respective rugs arrived. Except for the 2 that he had sent to my place. That was the first dent in my confidence, he said via What'sApp "they sent it to my other address. Damn I hope I don't have to pay tax" and I just asked where to sell them. He didn't reply. A few days later I asked again. And he said he'd let me know soon because he was about to go on holiday to Portugal. Then his What'sApp disappeared. And actually, we still didn't feel scammed. We received the rugs, and we knew we just had to sell them through an art auction.

We were still feeling pretty chuffed and in fact, we were in touch with his mate from the Hostel still who suggested sending an email (and giving us his email address).

But of course, when I got home and went to sell the rugs the market is definitely not suggestive of these rugs being worth $6000. They are more likely to be worth $1000 if that (half of what we paid). So I'm looking at getting the fees reversed through my bank on counterfeit charges, or just biting the bullet and seeing it as a sad lesson that you can't trust anyone friendly and selling them for whatever I can.

There are a number of little intricacies in this story that I've left out, but if you want to see more details including photographs and copies of messages then you can follow the Facebook page I set up for my close friends: http://ift.tt/2w5ESQi

Also when I got back I heard a number of similar stories from friends who bought diamonds or whatever from someone pretending to be a local. My friend and I have been recalling the events in our heads and we still can't believe it was a scam. It was so well done that I still have doubt.

We currently have the rugs and I've launched a dispute with my bank and with the rug company. The best thing would be if I could get the fees reversed.