who is liable in this situation ?

a friend of mine buys and sells cellphones,
Yesterday a Japanese man approached me selling cellphones at a reasonably good price.
Thinking that this deal would benefit my friends business I called my friend and asked him if he might be interested in buying them. My friend was very interested and told me to get the guys details and facilitate a meeting for them. I facilitated a meeting for them for that same day.
They met at my house, I just supplied the venue they dealt with each other, my friend paid the man and the man gave him the goods, about 30 smartphones.
When the Japanese guy left my friend noticed that 25 boxes were empty, he was just conned.

My friend now holds me liable for getting him into contact with this person. I am afraid he is going to arrange people to threaten me etc, I am just as upset as he is for being conned and my wife is paranoid

who is liable

spare_widget2013-09-13T10:06:18Z

Favorite Answer

Fraid Rob's absolutely right. You facilitated the meeting - your friend dealt with the Japanese man.

The Japanese man was a stranger to you both. Your friend made no enquiries into this Japanese businessman's background, and spent ABSOLUTELY no effort in checking out that the Japanese business man was legit - nor did he check the merchandise he paid for.

I'm even prepared to bet that he paid in cash. - You're not responsible for that either.

Get into sports. Buy a baseball bat, now!

Chris2013-09-14T11:47:57Z

It's not like he could even bring it to the cops if he wanted to because there's no way he could convince the police that his intention wasn't to buy stolen goods since he didn't vet the person nor the products or made any indication he gave a crap where the phones came from.

Rob2013-09-12T18:12:03Z

your friend now ex is wholly liable for loss.
not you.

he did not inspect all the boxes = dumb on him