Bigburly912
Gold Member
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2018
- Messages
- 570
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All For Sale threads must have a pic showing the knife being sold with written date listed, your username & Bladeforums or BFC to prevent photo harvesting from elsewhere - scammers hate this one trick! The rules for The Exchange can be found here. Please read and follow them. Stop using Paypal Friends & Family and follow our best practices to prevent getting ripped off or having a bad deal.
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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is available! Price is $250 ea (shipped within CONUS).
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I got scammed - a warning to all!
- Thread starter MauriceN
- Start date
The issue for me here is that the scammer created a gmail address with Kal-El as his name. This is common in people who are not scammers too. It is my fault for going off-site as I didn't know that the PMing issue was based on me not re-upping my account. I don't pay for the account every year if I am not active in conversations.
Yes, but sometimes you go out of a hobby for years at a time, which I did and I am sure others do. Not everyone keeps active in a hobby and pays to be on a site year after year when they are not active. I assumed that with a 5 year reputation I could come back and message if I was not listing new items for sale. My bad.
I was scammed on websites before, at one instance for more than $5k so I understand your situation and have learned my lesson too. again, sorry for your trouble, I don't mean to sound like an a**hole towards you. people that scam others out of their hard earned cash, for any amount, should receive barbaric level punishments. did you try canceling the gift card with Apple? does that even work?
Wow, I wish I had seen this post a little earlier. Sorry that you got taken like this and I'm sorry that my sales thread is associated with it!
I certainly hope that no one associates my profile with any wrong doing. I do sympathize for your monetary loss, but this infuriates me on a whole other level.
I certainly hope that no one associates my profile with any wrong doing. I do sympathize for your monetary loss, but this infuriates me on a whole other level.
Live and learn... I am not some shy flower. I own up to my stupidity. It's been 25+ years since I was taken in the past from a fake cashier's check. I just wanted to put my stupidity out there and hope others lear from it.
I was in a generous mood and did some fun things this holiday, like buy a while bunch of Civivi knives and engrave them for a bunch of our coast guard members and send them out as gifts, as well as a bunch for our guys in the military. I had my guard down. This person who pretended to be Kal-El and faked his email told me he was a retired firefighter in Florida and I had just sent a bunch of custom engraved knives to a friend in the Florida Coast Guard as Christmas gifts. it wrapped into a personal conversation and I got trapped feeling this scammer was a real person. It's funny how being nice can make you feel safe and trust someone.
I tell this story as I want others to learn from it. Be careful who you trust. I have met some great people here on these forums and I projected those great conversations and feelings I had onto someone who pretended to be one of the good people of this community as they (the scammer) seemed to know quite a lot about knives. Beware!
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I believe the original seller is not the scammer. I also believe BF was not at fault, HOWEVER the original seller states "PPFF" only and this continues to be allowed. BF has a warning posted above. I haven't bought a knife for years off of BF because of the PPFF brigade and the warning above. PP in general is problematic and has been discussed AdNauseam. This entire situation is F'up. I don't know the answer except to buy new.
I have spoken with the original seller today. He is a very nice person. This is my fault completely. But with the sophistication of scammers and technology, I believe this is only going to get worse. I just want everyone on here to read this thread and be aware.
sorry you got scammed.So, I need to inform everyone here of a nice, elaborate scam. I just got taken here on the forum.
I have been a forum member for over 5 years. I replied to an ad for a member named Kal-El. Since I had not paid this year's membership fee, he could not directly message me back - the scammer took advantage of the forum forcing you to pay to message people - he knows this forum well and was most likely a past member.
Here is the ad:
I didn't understand why he couldn't PM me. I tried to message him back. I didn't know that the forum ops don't allow messaging unless you pay. He took advantage of this.
A few hours later, I got an email from a Kal-El from bmoody10@gmail.com, He said he searched my past transactions and found my email since I couldn't PM him on the forum. We chatted back and forth - he was knowledgeable about knives. I saw he had a well established profile and he sent me photos of himself in Florida - older gentleman. He told me a little about his collection. I was feeling comfortable as he posted on the forum with photos with a sticky and the date as the forum requires. Kal-El just finished a transaction at the end of November with someone on the forum, so it all seemed legit.
I couldn't paypal him as his account had an account issue. He asked me to pay with Apple Pay. I bought him a $400 gift card. He acknowledged he got it and said he would ship the knives and send me the tracking info.
After that - he stopped replying.
It seems he scraped my name and contact email from the forums and created an email address and pretended to be Kal-El, a member in good standing. He took advantage of the fact that if you didn't pay to be an active member here, you cannot PM someone back. He knows this system, the users and the knife market.
I since spent $30 this week to become an active member again just so I could research what happened here and how I got scammed.
I feel stupid for being so trusting. I have done several transactions here over the years and everyone has been so nice and trustworthy. Now, I am out $400 for being trusting... plus another $30 to buy membership just so I could email people.
Attached is the photo he used
Beware. Learn from my mistake (I am sure this scammer is reading this post too)
that pic likely isnt the thief who got your money. these dirt bags go out and grab pictures from Facebook profiles and such of random people to match their fraud storylines.
think about it....if you were gonna scam someone would you give them a real picture of yourself?
likewise they won't use it again and have hundreds more to use.
- Joined
- Oct 2, 1998
- Messages
- 47,302
We have been reporting on and giving advice on this very problem for a year or two now...and folks continue to ignore the warning signs...primarily because they never bother to read the rules or the banners posted by the owner and staff regarding the dangers that lie in the path of purchasing without having performed due diligence.
The scammers are counting on your rush to claim a particular knife or item that has been on your want list for some time...and too many members rush headlong into the pit awaiting them.
The simplest and most obvious way to avoid 99% of the scams is to only deal with the seller via direct message. From that point you can obtain and verify any further information you require. Why folks think that a $10 commitment for a "Basic" membership is not warranted when risking hundreds of dollars or more is beyond me.
There's only so much we can do to protect people from their own poor decisions or failure to read. This sub-forum is replete with threads about being taken in, in exactly this fashion...with one confession after another.
The scammers are counting on your rush to claim a particular knife or item that has been on your want list for some time...and too many members rush headlong into the pit awaiting them.
The simplest and most obvious way to avoid 99% of the scams is to only deal with the seller via direct message. From that point you can obtain and verify any further information you require. Why folks think that a $10 commitment for a "Basic" membership is not warranted when risking hundreds of dollars or more is beyond me.
There's only so much we can do to protect people from their own poor decisions or failure to read. This sub-forum is replete with threads about being taken in, in exactly this fashion...with one confession after another.
Exactly this. How many more times can it be discussed and how many more places can the warnings be posted? At some point you have to take personal responsibility for your own actions. At least the OP does for the most part. Like you said, what is ten bucks compared the hundreds - at the very least - most people here spend on a single knife. Somebody mentioned that they’re not sure how posting a timestamp is helpful. It’s helpful because at least you know the person you’re talking to has the item in possession. You could go a step further and ask them to send you a pic of the knife with a specific item or positioned a certain way that you specify as well. It can happen to anybody yes, but 99.9 percent of the transactions here go well or you would hear about it. It’s not too hard to do safely if you use your head.
r8shell
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2010
- Messages
- 25,971
I pretty sure I've seen that photo posted before, possibly more than once, in this Feedback Forum, but I can't remember when or what threads. Maybe someone smarter with computer stuff could do an image search.
It probably doesn't matter & it's a stock photo of "Stern, honest, gruff but fair, middle aged white guy, could be a veteran or retired LEO so you know he's totally trustworthy"
People use PPFF because PayPal is super buyer biased. And scammers use that too. They will buy something from you using GS and then they will find multiple reasons to open a case with PayPal and get their money back and also keep the package. I am also active on high end audio forums and it happens a lot there. I guess it will happen on any expensive hobby related places. If you got burned by PayPal GS I assure you that you will rather risk not selling the item than using it again
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2018
- Messages
- 1,565
Anyone who has a paypal account that is "having a problem" is either lying or shouldn't be purchasing knives at the moment. And anytime gift cards are involved, it's a scam. I work retail and the gift card scams are the most common amongst the elderly and gullible.
People tend to pay me in PPFF but its not something I ever ask for, partially for this reason. I always put PPGS in my sales threads.
People tend to pay me in PPFF but its not something I ever ask for, partially for this reason. I always put PPGS in my sales threads.
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2006
- Messages
- 44,344
Removing it does not mean that it has not already been found by a scammer and recorded for future use. Once a person has posted personal information in a public forum, he must assume that any email communication might be from a scammer.
Also, the information might have been found on another site. Some people use the same or similar user name on multiple sites. If you have recorded your information in a public section of any site, beware.
There also has been several instances over the last few years of knife shops whose sites were hacked and their buyer records made public.
Bottom line:
BF treats email addresses as confidential and does not hand them out to anyone. Any email you receive from someone to whom you have not specifically given your address should be viewed with suspicion. Make the person prove that they actually are the seller and that they have the item you are trying to buy in hand. Make them email you specific pictures of the item.
