Updated: Scammed For a Knife on Another Forum

XJ-linux

XJ-linux

Gold Member
Feedback: +88 / =0 / -0
Joined
Feb 4, 2007
Messages
2,210
I posted a WTB for a knife, and I fell for it. Not blaming that forum - stuff happens when you party naked - but, I did want to point what I did wrong... or ignored...

1. I couldn't zoom in or out very much on the photos - like when you pull a photo from the internet that was formatted for the internet - pixellation was heavy very quickly as opposed to taking a photo with your phone where you can zoom in and out quite a bit for detail.

2. I requested a slip of paper in the photo with the forum username and date. The scammer did that, but it was photoshopped.

TIP: import their photo to a photo app , go into eedit mode, and slide the "light" or "color" settings up and down. When I did, I immediately saw they erased something and doodled a new user name on a photoshopped paper they added to the photo. I could see the color gradient around the name/date, which looks to have been drawn with the photo app with the felt pen tool as well. I suspect they just erase and re-draw the name as needed or it just took a few tries and erases to get the sif to look natural.

3. A quick Google image search would have shown we the photos were from AKC, an online knife reseller. The photo came up pretty quick when I googled Wilson Combat Sebenza 21. That photo zoomed in and out just fine at AKC, so they just grabbed the photo from the Google search and didn't bother to grab the big one from the actual website. Wear marks in the photos confirmed it was the same knife.

4. I did this at 10AM Thanksgiving morning while getting food ready, and jamming to tunes. Don't gamble online with your $$$ when you are distracted.

5. PPFF of course, cause I'm too smart to be scammed, and the guy was very well written grammatically, and wished me "hope, peace and love" for the holidays. A real sweetheart. Dumb me, no recourse.

6. The user participated, a little anyway, on the forum I assumed guy was GTG, but in retrospect, the comments were vague cheerleading, and any dope who plays video games could have said the same. Nondescript, non bragging, average member. Might be the account was hijacked?

Just be careful out there. The slip of paper thing isn't perfect.

Email addresses used:with Paypal for the scam:

alkies6985@yahoo.com April Kies
rbrown931@icloud.com Raymond Brown Skies
greenolive606@gmail.com No name given

i-LMrfCWc-M.jpg
 
Last edited:
Vaporstang said:
That sucks. Hard lessons.
Click to expand...

Yep. Totally avoidable by me, to. I've been doing this too long to fall for that crap, and once I started getting suspicious, it took all of about 10 minutes to put together.

Might be time for me to call it a day, as that one hurt a bit.
 
Holy crap. Sorry this happened to you, but I appreciate you sharing your story. If it happened to you, it could easily happen to most anyone.
 
beeinak said:
I appreciate you sharing your story
Click to expand...

Thanks. Hopefully people start looking at those photos with slips of paper a bit more closely. It helps to include them, for sure, but it can be faked easily and a few A.I. queries can tell anyone how to do it.
 
So sorry to hear that man. Appreciate you sharing so we can all stay aware. I loathe worthless criminals.
 
Thank you for the informative post. Sorry that it happened to you! No recourse is why I do not use PayPal F&F, here or anywhere else.
 
Dragon_Man said:
Thank you for the informative post. Sorry that it happened to you! No recourse is why I do not use PayPal F&F, here or anywhere else.
Click to expand...

I am going to avoid PPFF now except for a few folks I’ve known for some time now. My biggest mistake was doing a deal on an iPhone while distracted. I caught the photo and had it validated in minutes on my crappy 13” 2018 laptop. Dummy! In a rush, distraction and didn’t use the proper tools to check it out.
 
Sadly the scammers are here and reading this thread to refine their technique. I'm sorry you got caught. If it's any consolation it could have happened to any of us.........:(
 
Sorry you got scammed, but that photo should have raised all kinds of warning flags. Not to mention PPFF.
 
toker said:
Sorry you got scammed, but that photo should have raised all kinds of warning flags. Not to mention PPFF.
Click to expand...
With all due respect, the 'For Sale' sections of Bladeforums are loaded with PayPal F&F. While I do buy knives, I do not buy them here with F&F.
 
It is possible to reverse the charge via your bank even for PPFF, PayPal won't help you much with this of course but nothing they can do if sender's original payment source reverses the charge. Just let the bank know it was a scam and they should be helpful.
 
Dragon_Man said:
With all due respect, the 'For Sale' sections of Bladeforums are loaded with PayPal F&F. While I do buy knives, I do not buy them here with F&F.
Click to expand...
If you're buying from a trusted seller, sure. But a lot of legitimate accounts have been phished or hacked in recent times.

So as usual, buyer beware. But if I was going to spend a good amount of money, I would rather pay the G&S fee for protection.
 
You should be able to file a claim with your bank and get the money. That happened to me with a scam website I fell for several years ago when I first started buying knives.
 
Call paypal, then your bank. One might be able to help you.

Just a note about F&F, you can fund it with your credit card and be protected.
 
Set up your account with 2 step authentication like I did. Do a little homework on the seller. Last but not least, go with your gut feeling on the deal.
 
Thanks to all who suggested disputing it!!!

Paypal didn't care, and the seller blocked me from their Paypal after I sent a money request to it, so I can't send or request money (or interact at all) with them.

However...

I had assumed that since I used PPFF, the credit card company would not be receptive. I was incorrect. I shot craps, called them, and thus far they have stepped up, have disputed it, cancelled the charge (to disappear from statement in a few days) and told me to disregard the charge. The Rep was very helpful and said, essentially, don't feel bad it happens all the time, and to never hesitate to call even if it seems dumb or I'm at fault. So, lesson learned... Always call the CC company, even if you used Paypal or ApplePay or whatever. I'll update the thread when/if the charge disappears.

Please Everyone Remember - don't buy stuff when you're distracted, using a tiny iPhone screen, without being able to really inspect those slips of paper in the photos. Don't trust photos you can't zoom in on, pixellate easily, have strange color gradients, or are really tiny in file size - like in the kilobyte size - they're probably edited and/or photos harvested from the web. Always do a quick Google search using the words you or the seller used to describe the knife and check the photos against what Google shows - it's what the scammer just did before they sent the photos.

Good luck, and thanks again BF for the support!
 
Last edited:
Ya, never PPFF. If a seller won’t accept goods and services because of a 1099, then just pass on the purchase
 
XJ-linux said:
Thanks to all who suggested disputing it!!!

Paypal didn't care, and the seller blocked me from their Paypal after I sent a money request to it, so I can't send or request money (or interact at all) with them.

However...

I had assumed that since I used PPFF, the credit card company would not be receptive. I was incorrect. I shot craps, called them, and thus far they have stepped up, have disputed it, cancelled the charge (to disappear from statement in a few days) and told me to disregard the charge. The Rep was very helpful and said, essentially, don't feel bad it happens all the time, and to never hesitate to call even if it seems dumb or I'm at fault. So, lesson learned... Always call the CC company, even if you used Paypal or ApplePay or whatever. I'll update the thread when/if the charge disappears.

Please Everyone Remember - don't buy stuff when you're distracted, using a tiny iPhone screen, without being able to really inspect those slips of paper in the photos. Don't trust photos you can't zoom in on, pixellate easily, have strange color gradients, or are really tiny in file size - like in the kilobyte size - they're probably edited and/or photos harvested from the web. Always do a quick Google search using the words you or the seller used to describe the knife and check the photos against what Google shows - it's what the scammer just did before they sent the photos.

Good luck, and thanks again BF for the support!
Click to expand...

Congrats and be thankful. I was scammed for $475 last year. I paid FnF and used a CC. However my CC company told me to get F’d. I guess I should have kept calling hoping for a different person. Sucks to suck
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top