FYI - Scam Alert

i4Marc

i4Marc

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Oct 19, 2011
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I was almost taken by a scammer today. A prospective buyer with an Instagram account contacted me about the knives on my website. He was very interested to find out if any of the knives were available. I told them that they were all sold but I had a couple in stock that were not yet advertised. I sent him photos and a couple of videos. I gave him the prices and he said he wanted both. He wanted to get me paid right away and showed me a screenshot that said money was sent through Paypal. I got an email, seemingly from Paypal that funds were sent. But......the email stated that they needed the buyer to pay an additional $305 dollars to upgrade my account to a business account or the money would be frozen until the upgrade was paid for. There were even instructions on how to refund the buyer the $305 when the upgrade had taken place. This didn't make too much sense to me but many companies these days are engaged in some pretty stupid behavior. I tried to send the refund to the "buyer" but the payment wouldn't go through. The "buyer" tried to suggest I use Zelle to pay the refund but I told him to wait while I called Paypal. After speaking with one of their reps and checking the source email account of the Paypal email, it was determined that it was a scam email. I confronted the "buyer'" with the facts and haven't heard from him since. Luckily, no knives were sent out and no money was lost. So be wary when dealing with new customers! Scammer info below.


Instagram account name: Alex Chance
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Fake Paypal email address: paypalmobileservicepay@gmail.com
 
What is wrong with people. If you are going to scam someone scam a billion dollar corporation, not a small time custom knife maker that pours their heart and soul into every blade.
 
Always hover over the hyperlinks in an email. Every scam points you to a random site or one that doesn't make any sense. Always avoid clicking on a link that you are unsure of.

If you were prompted to enter your PayPal username and password, go change it immediately before the scammer accesses your account.
 
None of the names mentioned in either this thread or the others in the link provided by navman show up when I search them in Instagram, which tells me that they’re likely aliases of someone else I’ve blocked before. Perhaps that someone is:


All of these things reek of his methods. He’s also known as ‘knifecritiques’ on IG, an account where he’s portraying himself as the defender of all that’s right in the knife world, and town crier for all that’s wrong. Interesting behavior for a pathological liar, but this seems to be indicative of the world we live in.
 
Did you click the link inside the email he sent? If so, I'd recommend changing PP passwords ASAP (at minimum)
 
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