The scammers are thick tonight

Boru13 said:
That's not true, those with a Basic membership have the ability to DM.
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I guess instead of "Basic", I should have said "non-paying" as a lack of ability to communicate. And it's 10 bucks a year or .83 cents a month? Totally worth it. I always just do Gold, and totally forgot there was a paying Basic membership. Taking all comms through messaging would DEFINITELY alleviate most scammers by taking away their ability to contact a member. It may also be a consideration to make the sale forums member only, from Basic on up. It sucks for the non-paying members, but come on, it's ten bucks a year. Cheap. Scammers hate to have any identification attached to them and that would immediately cease them anonymously lurking in those forums looking for victims. Eventually they would probably find an end-run around that, but hopefully by that time feedback will be back to route out the scam memberships.

And Peter, I think they do use the search function to find email addresses that were posted and take a chance that they're still valid if it's been a few years since it was posted. I posted my email in the thread in question for the buyer to contact me, and it was literally a matter of a few minutes before the scam occurred. I scrubbed any email I had in posts a few months ago, but all it took was the one time. I was also contacted by a couple of other members I've had transactions with in the past with the scammers spoofing my email address asking for payment on previous deals done many months ago. And it's not only email posted. I had a long time member a few months ago be contacted via phone messaging asking for payment early in the am. When he figured out it was a scam, it was too late. In his case, he posted his phone number years ago and they found it, all from a simple "I'll take it" in the thread. He scrubbed every post he made afterwards. In this case, the scammers phone number was in Oklahoma, north central part of the state after running it through a few websites.

Funny thing, when all this was occurring my firewall was inundated with IP addresses from Brazil, including my authenticator app on my phone. They had no luck though. Probably using a VPN, or not. There's not much of a history of firewall attempts stemming from Brazil in the past month, and the timing was just far too conspicuous. But whoever it is, they are actively scouting for victims it seems 24/7. And that has to end. If we take away their opportunities and it's no longer a profitable operation for them, they'll move on to where the money can be made (stolen).

Not2sharp, yep PP GandS. Venmo and Zelle are a scam waiting to happen with no real recourse when it does happen. Kind of convenient for them to deny they have no way of doing anything, since they have do have the account holders info as well as the banking institution info where the money was transferred immediately to afterwards. At least with PP the buyer and the seller are getting some protection, no matter how much we may detest them.
 
alex said:
I have done both multiple trades and purchases in the last few months and each time I have temporarily posted my email in my post so I can be contacted directly. As soon as I am contacted I email back the seller or trader with a code word and ask him to post that code word as a new post. Once he does that I edit out my email contact info and this verifies to me that I am dealing with the original legit poster of the ad. Safe for both parties. YMMV.
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Don't do it. After I posted my email in my thread last night it was literally a couple of minutes before the buyer was scammed. The scammers (probably plural) are actively looking at every thread and post, getting the money and disappearing.
 
John Johnson John Johnson ,
If you post my code word in your ad and it shows up as John Johnson doing the posting I have just verified it is you I am dealing with and not any scammer.
It works. And I only will use Paypal Goods and Services backed by my credit card, never Venmo, Zelle, etc.
 
I recommended a version of that method months ago...but since folks don't bother to read, let alone follow advice, it primarily fell upon deaf ears...or blind eyes...or what have you.

So glad you were able to save the $10 Alex.

(Sarcasm may be intentional.)
 
Danke42 said:
The other option no one likes is locking down the exchange to unpaid members.
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That's been ruled out. Let's not waste time on non-starters.

(BTW, all of the members are unpaid. I think you meant non-paying.)
 
Blues said:
That's been ruled out. Let's not waste time on non-starters.

(BTW, all of the members are unpaid. I think you meant non-paying.)
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Any chance of making the entire forum at least a basic membership to enter at the $10 level? I know revenue and traffic would be lost, but would the cost of the basic membership help cover that loss?
 
John Johnson said:
Any chance of making the entire forum at least a basic membership to enter at the $10 level? I know revenue and traffic would be lost, but would the cost of the basic membership help cover that loss?
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The owner has already ruled out these changes.

They are unlikely to be revisited.
 
Blues said:
I recommended a version of that method months ago...but since folks don't bother to read, let alone follow advice, it primarily fell upon deaf ears...or blind eyes...or what have you.

So glad you were able to save the $10 Alex.

(Sarcasm may be intentional.)
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I knew that someone would bring up the $10 and that didn't take long. If you see my join date you can see I was a plank member just like you. Back in the early days after Mike Turber sold this website to Spark and this website and all parts of it were free to use many of the members like me donated several times to help keep the doors open before there were any paying memberships at all. Spark posted at the time that he would never ask anyone to have to pay to use this website. He has kept his word to date. I also decided at that time when the paying memberships were started that I would not pay and took Spark at his word.
Someday if I decide to sell my knives on here I will actually join as a paying member.
Edit: Finally made my 1000th post milestone. Only took 26 years.
 
Congratulations on your 1,000th post...and your continued support.
 
Gotcha Blues.

Over the last couple of decades plus the forum has been through a lot. I guess in many ways we've been lucky to dodge the flavor of scammers we have today. We ALL have to be smarter now, including myself.

We'll weather it and come out the other side better. BF has stood the test of time while other forums have disappeared. It still freaks me out though when I look at join dates from the last century on profiles and realize I've been here for almost half my life and still learn new things I didn't know about before.
 
Blues said:
That's been ruled out. Let's not waste time on non-starters.

(BTW, all of the members are unpaid. I think you meant non-paying.)
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I see that is around a specific decision made way back when so I can certainly appreciate that commitment.

The follow up questions is what to other websites do?
 
I posted an “2nds” in a thread earlier today and received 2 different emails from scammers claiming the initial sell fell through. Both had terrible grammar and were pretty obvious.
 
Danke42 said:
I see that is around a specific decision made way back when so I can certainly appreciate that commitment.

The follow up questions is what to other websites do?
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It has been revisited recently in conversations I had privately with Spark in trying to evaluate available options. He was emphatic and the matter was tabled.

I don't know what anybody else does.
 
Blues said:
It has been revisited recently in conversations I had privately with Spark in trying to evaluate available options. He was emphatic and the matter was tabled.

I don't know what anybody else does.
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Well that's where hopefully the membership kicks in and says " I buy and sell stuff on Stereo Forums and this is what we do".

I"m pretty sure Spark is the last person who's happy about the scammers falling in love with the page. Maybe no one will say anything, and we're already following all the best practices. I can't hurt to check the temperature.

I don't buy or sell anything online and I've bought 2 knives and a hatchet in nine years here so I don't really have a wish list to fix the exchange but I hate to see this too.
 
If you want to play ,you have to pay!!!!! Only paying members should be offered exchange use.........Basic and up..........If you cant spend ten bucks to cover your ass or check who you are dealing with you deserve to be bent.over................Cant fix Stoopid........
 
While only alowing PP G&S or paying members to buy likely would wotk, to reduce the victoms, creating forum rules will do nothing that you can't do for yourself. No one should be more concerned about your money than you. It is pretty easy to avoid this scam-don't send money to email contacts, unless you are sure who is behind the email. At least a basic membership , and you don't need to respond to any email solisitations, without a little work is needed.
The forum doen't need to solve this for you.
 
not2sharp said:
Make payments via PayPal goods and services or through direct credit card payment and the problem goes away.

This nonsense started with the Federal government jumping into to steal from our transactions (taxing PayPal transactions). They have driven most into a virtual black market which enables the thieves.

N2s
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This
 
I agree with the posts that have been written exposing the scammers.. I so close to the edge of the world, I can see the drop off from my location.. Over the years, I have had exceptional luck with the members when I try to purchase edged implements with those who sale them.. I do a lot of research on their postings of the forum, look at their ratings and use the PM function to coordinate the purchase of the blades with the original seller to those who are willing to sell them to me being I am on a floating piece of whale dung in the pacific.. Once the coordination of the sale is concluded, the payment is done via paypal.. I have been scammed a couple of times using fleabuy on some computer parts, but the situation was solved by coordinating paypal and contesting the purchase price after the item is supposed to be received.. I also report the fraud to my financial institution in the states and they do a quick response to rectify the situation

As said before, buyer beware, so I always suggest doing a deep investigation on the seller and watch their ratings before purchase..
 
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