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I think I have been scammed by a new member… how do I warn other TC members

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3 hours ago, svenb said:

I never got as far as emails, smelt fishy straight away

Mine didn't. I've been searching for the blue head driver for the Ford F-150 XLT.  I received the message below which sounded reasonable. Not until I received pics of a brand new kit did I think something was up. I just kindly told him I wouldn't have him break up a kit for a little blue head and told him that he could get more off ebay for the whole kit. Never heard anything back from him.

Hello 

I have the  driver head and steering wheel let me know if you're interested in purchasing. 

 

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19 hours ago, Collin said:

I wanted to write that too. Locked trade section for users with less then 50 postings or so...

I’m on an Airgun site and you can’t post into trades section until you’ve posted a certain number of posts.

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16 hours ago, tamiya_1971 said:

I wonder if you all received the same email address of this guy- tompowell***@gmail?

 

Quote

Hello 

Sorry for bothering you.... I have the Tamiya 74030 caliper just shoot me a mail Tompowell132@gmail.com if you're still interested in buying 

Best Regards 

 

:lol: we have the same penfriend.

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22 hours ago, M 800STD said:

On one forum, new members did not have the option to post in the trade section until a certain amount of rep had been earned.

Maybe this can be employed here?

I agree with earing the community reputation score first in order to advertise rather than just posts as the rep score is earnt from other members rather than just posts put up 

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Hopefully @netsmithUK will be able to check if the forum software we use has the ability to place extra protection in place. Will feedback when we know.

Until that time, please make sure you ask for the relevant pictures etc with your username in them and pay with a recoverable method.

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yeah Scammer for sure got me too, I have listed his details with PayPal also, and spend a bit with them, so at least they are looking into him for me, Admin needs to eject him 

used these emails with me

amosndutire@yahoo.com

c.kingoina@yahoo.com

 
Edited by Tgrif
detail update

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Me too for my battery and tyre foams wanted ad.

Under two separate TC accounts at different times but wanting payment to the same paypal account and both times said the items were located in VA, USA.

FedricJ and EasyLion were the user names and John M being the contact name given in PMs

Both were new accounts with no content posted and no rep

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It sad that it's getting like this, I've never had a bad experience with any member on this forum in the past, all have been perfect.

Other forums I'm on have the minimum posting rule, so would be a good thing if it was implemented on here too.

I've got to the point now where if someone doesn't have paypal and wants a bank transfer, I assume they are a scammer so I just say no. I got caught out on Facebook last year, I stupidly thought they were genuine, I even got a phone call from the person's 'boyfriend' to assure me they were genuine, and they still turned out dirty. I got half my money back, which I wasn't expecting as it was my own stupidity that got me scammed in the first place, but I contacted my bank and gave them all the details. Luckily the scammer banked with the same one as me, so they put a block and suspended their account straight away. 

It's not as if setting up a paypal account is a difficult thing to do either, and well worth it to protect both parties if needed. I'm even happy to cover the fees for Goods and Services so the seller isn't out of pocket. 

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Im all for the club doing what ever it can. On the main site I even go as far as putting a warning in all trade messages that are sent through the site.

What we see here is the true scammers being called out, what you are not seeing is all the good deals that people have done but people signing up to just sell unwanted kit (ie not be part of the community) Nobody posts about them. I am a bit reluctant to introduce restrictions that make it harder for those people to list for the sake of maybe deterring a relatively low number of scammers. In particular, with restrictions that don't really provide any more protection. As other have pointed out even with a reputation or posts restriction there is nothing to stop scammer DMing people directly and making offers.

Think we already have a pinned post at the top of the trades section that gives tips on avoiding scams (if there isn't I'll add one) Maybe I can add something to every actual trade post that reminds people of the risks and makes it clear they have to be sure before sending anything on trust? (not sure that is possible but will look into it)

Chris

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@netsmithUKOne more suggestion about restricting selling posts, how about requiring the seller to fill out that location info? While it will not cut off scamming completely, it will cut down on the number of hits they can get as not everyone are willing to do cross borders trades, especially on an unsecured platform. This can cut down on their potential targets number. 

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Just now, alvinlwh said:

@netsmithUKOne more suggestion about restricting selling posts, how about requiring the seller to fill out that location info? While it will not cut off scamming completely, it will cut down on the number of hits they can get as not everyone are willing to do cross borders trades, especially on an unsecured platform. This can cut down on their potential targets number. 

Not sure how that really helps. As soon as the scammer sends details of their location the other party can make that decision based on borders anyway?

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The only thing I can think of that significantly reduces risk is using Paypal and not doing choosing 'friends and family'. As soon as anyone asks me to use a different process or do it as friend and family (unless they are really friends and family) I walk away. Im not having a dig at anyone thats been scammed here - its happened to most of us at some point, just talking about how I protect myself.

Any other method and you run a risk, no matter how convincing someone sounds.

Chris

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Personally I think the 'friends and Family' option was not introduced by PayPal for the good of its users as opposed to limiting their liability. If you use this route they lose their 5% commission, if you didn't and lose money to a scammer they lose all the money and have the additional overhead of trying to resolve it. In that one decision they moved a lot of their scammer headaches into something they don't have to be responsible for

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As the scammers just send pms rather than directly responding to a post or making any contact it might just be that you only ever pay someone friends and family or bank transfer if they are someone you know to be a trusted member. If someone is a new seller but still legit then you can ask them to take payment for goods / services with the fee (and buyer protection) and if they refuse - avoid trading with them. The paypal fees can be added onto the buyers payment so if the seller still refuses then its probably dodgy

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I think someone else mentioned it - if they ask for friends and family route, you could always say 'no' and then offer to pay the fees on the goods and services option. (if it makes financial sense of course) If they say no to that alarm bells should really be ringing

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Also - if anyone wants to restrict their trading to anyone with a certain post count or reputation score, you have that now both are shown and you can make your decision based on that. If someone isn't at the level you've personally set yourself then you just ignore the offer.

I don't think its the clubs position to tell you what that level should be, otherwise that might me suggesting false confidence in the trades and suggesting the club is saying 'you are safe' 

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12 minutes ago, netsmithUK said:

Not sure how that really helps. As soon as the scammer sends details of their location the other party can make that decision based on borders anyway?

Well, a real member offered me a TT02R once and one click on his profile shows that he is in the US and it ended there and then. He did went on successfully to sell it on in the forum. Just a thought that can end scams before it starts. Sending details after being asked for can be lied about. I do sometimes work with Trading Standards and while there is no one cure for stopping scamming, every little thing helps as everyone's scam alert alarm triggers at different things. 

Anyway just a suggestion. 

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1 minute ago, alvinlwh said:

Anyway just a suggestion. 

No knocking any suggestions - keep them coming -  Im just trying to make sure 

a) the pain of anything we do add does not outweigh the gain it brings

b) no one thinks that anything on the site we do makes them safer, to the point where they don't have to worry about it.

The location thing, if they lie when asked, they can lie when entering the details so Im not sure what it brings. If there was a plugin that automatically pulled their location from their IP address, its equally worthless as you can get around that easily with a VPN. So that fails both my points - ie extra step for everyone but no really benefit.

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16 minutes ago, netsmithUK said:

The location thing, if they lie when asked, they can lie when entering the details so Im not sure what it brings. If there was a plugin that automatically pulled their location from their IP address, its equally worthless as you can get around that easily with a VPN. So that fails both my points - ie extra step for everyone but no really benefit.

That means they, potentially, can only hit one country at a time. As in my example (which was a real member, but let's say it was a scammer), they contacted me before changing their location, so ended up as no deal. If they said it was an error or some other BS, my alarm bells will sound even louder, as I knew the location box is a free text box, not drop down. . Of course if they had changed it before, then it is a different story. But then they will have more work to do, and scammers don't like to do that. Same with VPN, they have to set it for each mark. And for this possible scammer particularly, he used the same username on a number of marks. IDK where they are but if the wrong mark looked at the wrong time, the location may not match. 

In TS, we have brain storming like this and the saying always is "if you can think of it, someone else would have thought of it before you". 

Put it the other way, most of us (at least myself), when doing an eBay search, usually filter by UK (or EU or US or whatever) first and then expend our search and pay more attention to foreign sellers. 

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I agree checking location is an indicator you can use, also continually checking it after contact has been made to see if it changes might alert you to something dodgy but going back to your statement of, if you've thought of it so have they, then it only takes them to set up an account per region they want to target (not per person they want to target) so its not really adding any protection as such and if you are prepared to do deals outside your region anyway then it brings even less to fewer people.

Perhaps the place to start is to collect all the things together that people use to protect themselves. Just a simple list of personal precautions taken and then make sure we spread that as far and wide around the club as possible.

Lets make this thread a positive on by people posting their top tips here. Try and keep them short and start them #TopTip then I'll pull them together into a list.

 

Chris

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I also was contacted by "Easy Lion"  regarding a wanted post .  Didnt  go anywhere as i asked his/her location.....USA so no use for me .  Might have been different had they stated they were in the UK ......

QK.

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Just my 2 cents on this, I joined the club 10 years ago, and when I joined it was primarily to be able to sell off some kits. I had no reputation on the forum at the time, so agreed with buyers that we would meet and do a trade in person. That way I knew I was getting paid, and they could see exactly what they were buying, plus there then would be people I could ask for a 'reference' and build a good reputation on the forum. I would not necessarily stop low count posters from being able to access the sales forum, a lot of people may initially join the forum for trading. It's just a question of exercising prudent caution when trading with people. It would be easy enough for a scammer to sit on the forum and build up a post count to circumvent a 'minimum post' limit.  The best method is to self police and report potential scammers to make other forum members aware. Plus of course the advice about not using Paypal F&F with people without a reputation, if you're cagey about trading.

 

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1 hour ago, quattrokid said:

I also was contacted by "Easy Lion"  regarding a wanted post .  Didnt  go anywhere as i asked his/her location.....USA so no use for me .  Might have been different had they stated they were in the UK ......

QK.

HI. Please I am still in a nice and (hopefully soon) funny conversation. We are just trying to find a way for cheaper shipping : )

 

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