Good Safe To Buy From Photoman12001 - Account Hack Resolved

jlauffer said:
Correct, but you have to prove it. Some states have lowered the threshold to $600 (from the federal threshold of $20,000), so many people are/will be getting 1099K's, and it's up to the recipient to show whether there was any profit or not, via Schedule C.
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That only applies to a business, not a hobby. Also, that 600 will apply to all 50 states on Jan 1.
 
jlauffer said:
So if you receive a 1099k from PP, but it's only a hobby, do you just ignore the 1099?
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There's a thread about this, but the short answer is no. :)

Bad - Paypal 1099

So I just got a 1099 from Paypal for selling through Goods and Services. I was under the impression that would only happen to those who sell large amounts, like over $20K. I only sold about $800 worth of items. I'm kinda pissed, especially since it was mostly stuff I had bought previously...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com
 
Dadpool said:
There's a thread about this, but the short answer is no. :)

Bad - Paypal 1099

So I just got a 1099 from Paypal for selling through Goods and Services. I was under the impression that would only happen to those who sell large amounts, like over $20K. I only sold about $800 worth of items. I'm kinda pissed, especially since it was mostly stuff I had bought previously...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com
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Yep, I've posted in that one too. Don't know about others, but I use the H&R Block home tax software, and as far as I know, there is no mechanism to claim hobby vs business. Once I tell it that I have the 1099, it basically forces me to do Schedule C. Have done it twice so far...2017 and 2020...and will have to do it again for 2021.
 
Lone_Wolfe said:
This is exactly why scammers are hacking accounts, because it's an effective way to scam. We have people creating accounts on FB, 'borrowing' the name and profile pics of a reputable member with the same intent.

As for the tax laws, it's best to look up the changes than me try to explain.
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Yeah I see this on FinTwit all the time where scammers borrow a profile pic and change the handle slightly to try to trick people into sending them money. This one got me because it is the actual seller's profile, not a copy cat. I was blinded by trying to respond quickly to a too-good-to-be-true deal and a knife I really wanted. When I first joined BF, there were cheap deals like this once in awhile where the seller was just being really generous. I remember a GM1 that was like $280 someone called dibs in 0.2 seconds. But again, at that time I never saw anyone asking F&F. How times have changed.
 
Cosmik001 said:
As someone who was cheated from this sales post, I would like to add some feedback:

1. This would not have been a concern if G&S only rule had not changed.

BF used to be a relatively safe platform for buying and selling knives. Now that the G&S rule has changed, it has left the door wide open for scammers. Now it is about as safe as buying/selling knives on Reddit.

Why was this rule changed? How does it benefit BF to make changes to provide a more unsafe trading environment?

This was the first time I used F&F to purchase a knife on BF. Why? Because it is now COMMON for sellers to ask for payments via F&F, and the only safety we can use is either a. not buying or b. relying on the feedback of the user, which is what I did.

2. Don't blame the buyers.

Whoever this scammer was, they did not post 'lack of details.' The details they provided was in line with what is typical for a sales thread. While it is possible they copied/pasted from another sales thread, adding details such as "snail trails" and "perfect centering" is not exactly something that a non-knife nut would post.

You can't blame the buyer for agreeing to F&F when it is now COMMON that legitimate sellers are asking F&F, Venmo, and other method of payment that offer 0 buyer protection.

It is also unfair to blame it on the Too Good to be True price. Cheap deals do come up on BF from legitimate sellers. They aren't too common, but they do happen.

3. No evidence provided

There is no evidence presented to any buyer of a hack. Anybody who wants a little free $$$ for Christmas could have logged into a VPN, posted a few "fake" sales threads, collect cash on a second Paypal account and THEN reported it was a hack. Again, I find it surprising that those of us who were cheated are supposed to just have faith that this is what really happened with NO evidence and NO accountability other than "I was hacked" and "I'm sorry."

I submitted a dispute with Paypal yesterday evening. Luckily, they sided in my favor and refunded the money. Going forward, I will not be renewing my Gold membership until BF starts taking the safety of their members into consideration.
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I really don't know what evidence can be provided to appease you.
  • I got the notification of an email change to my account and immediately tried to login to try to stop any fraudulent activity but they had already changed my password.
  • I then tried to contact admins via the "Contact Us" feature of the site but I wasn't getting any responses. I did this repeatedly as you can see this by the screenshot about 5 emails below.
  • At that point I attempted to create a new account so I could try to post and warn people. For some reason I never got any of the confirmation emails to activate the account.
  • As a last ditch effort I contacted Lone_Wolfe via Facebook because we interact on there pretty regularly in the Chris Reeve groups. She graciously assisted by starting this thread.
  • Basically, I did what I could to intervene as quickly as possible but there was little I could do.

As far as blaming the buyers, that's not my intention. However, there comes a point where you have to admit there were red flags, particularly in your situation.
  • You stated in the PMs that you'd been looking for a Slysz Bowie for a while so you had to know $150 was beyond a good deal. Sure good deals happen, but it's at least a red flag.
  • Something prompted you to look at my previous sales posts. Then for some reason you chose to ignore the fact that all of my sales posts over at least the past year follow a well-defined format with a lot of preliminary information before I even begin talking about the specific knives. What prompted you to look at my previous sales post? After looking at them, what made you decide there was nothing suspect about the current listing? While things stated in the fraudulent sales were in line with some sales threads in general, were they in line with my previous sales threads using bulleted lists and detailed videos? They were not even close.
  • I stated in previous sales posts that I wanted to avoid using PayPal and explained why. You chose to interpret that as not wanting to use G&S only.
  • I definitely feel bad for folks who got duped. However, my sympathies start to wear thin when it appears someone chose to ignore warning signs and then accuses me of staging a fake account hacking. A criminal used my account to commit fraud. That's all there is to it.

Example of one of my real sales threads: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads...co-swayback-urban-ukpk.1796694/#post-20589444
Example of one of the fraudulent sales threads (the Slysz Bowie thread was modified or deleted): https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/sold-chaves-redención-228-stonewash-ti.1822895/#post-20877316

These are all the email addresses I found in PMs that were used to acquire funds.
  • I encourage anyone who sent money to contest it with PayPal.
  • I seriously doubt that these will be used again but they might.
  • I actually saved myself from a scam a while ago by searching out the email address given to me for PayPal when the deal seemed suspect. Someone had posted it in a thread like this.
ogacigi@gmail.com
jammos1444@gmail.com
paulmungai567@gmail.com
swanyap24@yahoo.com
samkie1444@gmail.com
omeble@yahoo.com
reublann@gmail.com

This was from a conversation from a non-BladeForums message service when some great folks were assisting me in regaining access to my account.​

Those are emails I was sending trying to get the sales posts flagged and regain access to my account. I definitley went a little nuts but it's a terrible, helpless feeling to see something like this going down.​

Swamped.png

This email is what flagged the account hack to me and I immediately started attempting to rectify the situation.​


Email Change.png
 
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Okay fair enough. Thank you for providing some details about what happened and what you did to fix it. You did what you could. It appears we both learned something from this hacker. I traced the IP and it’s in Haarlem, Netherlands. Probably a VPN but it’s worth me pursuing with the ISP.
 
Cosmik001 Cosmik001 For what it’s worth, and don’t take this as victim shaming or blaming, it’s just me throwing in two cents. This place is not exactly like FB or any other, newer social media interest group, but a long-standing community of hobbyists, hardcore users, sellers, makers, and craftspeople discussing knives, with the added benefit of an available marketplace. It is not just a place to buy and sell wares, and yes, sometimes there are stellar deals by folks just trying to promote the hobby to others with similar interests after they’ve had their fun with something, but generally no one is just giving anything away. That said, I find it much safer in my mind, as I’m probably dealing with an actual “knife nerd”, not some new FB group short-timer who probably doesn’t respect the reputation of the community built here over such a long time.

Many of us who have been around awhile are familiar with how certain sellers post their sales threads. Having dealt with photoman12001 photoman12001 before myself, and seeing many more of his posts over my time, I can tell you he is jam-up, and his sales posts are always VERY comprehensive. He also has a particular format which one gets to know. Someone more familiar with him may have noticed the scammer post wasn’t in his usual style, and would be able to avoid it. As such, just relying on his feedback stats (which are phenomenal) are usually reliable, but don’t always necessarily tell the whole story. The combination of factors however, such as the “too good to be true” pricing with a posting style unusual for him, may have been a tip off for more regular perusers. In other words, it pays to hang around, engage, and learn instead of just coming here to buy and sell. I still maintain it’s a great place to do that, and better than most as far as this hobby is concerned.

I’m sorry you got taken, but I’m glad you got refunded. As you no doubt know, there are unscrupulous jerks attacking everything attached to the internet wherever money is involved ALL THE TIME. As evidenced here, they’re also relatively sophisticated and willing to prey on people’s passions, regardless of how trivial “stupid knives” may seem to some. Always be vigilant and don’t let a good deal on a hard to find item completely blind you without some additional probing.

Finally, like others have said, “F&F only” has never been completely disallowed, but has always been discouraged for the very reason of allowing the buyer to have some added recourse after the transaction. Therefore, it is still a red flag to many when it is required by the seller. Conversely, some of us know others here well enough that if both are comfortable using it to save some money, they will, and everything goes hunky-dory. Unfortunately, upcoming 1099 issue will probably greatly affect the continued ability to use this as a litmus test for potentially shady deals, which will indeed suck.
 
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