Updated: Scammed For a Knife on Another Forum

Anderdale said:
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
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That stinks! I’m sorry they stiffed you. Truth be told, I’m still waiting for the change to reappear and a nasty email from the CC reversing their reversal.

Was so much simpler back in the day with USPS MOs and a tighter community. Never lost a dime back then, though it might take two weeks to complete a transaction.
 
XJ-linux said:
Was so much simpler back in the day with USPS MOs and a tighter community. Never lost a dime back then, though it might take two weeks to complete a transaction.
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I remember that! Why are we in such a hurry to get the "precious" now? No patience? High performance is risky and high maintenance. So we are better off, how?
 
Whether you do it the old way or the new way, either way you take your chances with the party on the other end of the transaction.

Most folks are honest. Unfortunately, there will always be thieves and ne'er-do-wells living amongst those who do things the right way.

Using DMs goes a long way to limiting their reach here...at present.
 
XJ-linux said:
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
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Man I’m sorry that happened to you. It’s infuriating to think they got away with it Scot free. . . 🤬
 
I think CC companies will be more receptive to chargebacks if you have thorough documentation of your interactions via screenshots of your phone and/or computer screen. It's mostly an aid for remembering and adhering to my end of an agreement, but it can come in handy for exposing misconduct of other parties, if needed. If you are in the right, and supported with well documented communication and transaction records, CC companies are unlikely to deny a chargeback.
 
A couple sale adds in the folders section right now with time stamps posted separately from the knife pics themselves. One guy got warned and he came back and spliced the two separate pics of the timestamp and the knife together. Maybe the wording on the rules should be changed to include that. Seems pretty self explanatory to me but apparently some people don’t get it…
 
BP Green said:
A couple sale adds in the folders section right now with time stamps posted separately from the knife pics themselves. One guy got warned and he came back and spliced the two separate pics of the timestamp and the knife together. Maybe the wording on the rules should be changed to include that. Seems pretty self explanatory to me but apparently some people don’t get it…
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Please forward me a link. I addressed a couple earlier. It's not friggin' rocket science...but maybe I'm too optimistic.

I also removed one sale post today because the seller didn't do a time stamp and it's been a couple days since I asked nicely.
 
When seller scammed me, and I paid FF my CC company gave me money when I filled police report and sent them.
 
You were scammed as a buyer, but let's not forget that sellers can also be scammed. It goes both ways and unfortunately there is no surefire way to unequivocally guarantee that someone will not get scammed.

Paranoia is not conducive to a sale that results in two happy parties, but whether you're a seller or buyer, DO listen to and trust your gut instinct. If you hear a distant faint voice telling you to not go through with a deal, it's probably best to not go through with it. No reason is necessary except that one simply does not feel 100% comfortable. At the end of the day, we will occasionally make a mistake (we don't have the knife or whatever bc we did not go through with a deal that would have been fine), but at least we can still play another day under those circumstances.
 
Blues said:
Please forward me a link. I addressed a couple earlier. It's not friggin' rocket science...but maybe I'm too optimistic.

I also removed one sale post today because the seller didn't do a time stamp and it's been a couple days since I asked nicely.
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I’m sorry Blue, I jus now saw this and where you took care of it. Thanks for that. . . 🙏🏻👍🏻
 
UPDATE

Received an email from my CC company today that my account credit for the full amount including the FF fees was final. They removed the charge immediately, but the caveat was that the investigation could take up to 90 days and ultimately reappear. It's officially in the tail lights now and I lost nothing but my pride.

I can't stress enough... If you do get scammed, save all the documentation, get screen grabs, and IMMEDIATELY CALL your CC company fraud number, even if you use Paypal Friends & Family. PayPal Friends & Family is a distinction that Paypal makes, but it doesn't necessarily mean squat to your CC company's fraud department when it comes to determining if you were scammed. My CC company asked if I had the documentation, but never asked me to submit it. The person helping me did say that the faster it gets reported the easier it is to resolve quickly.

And again... Zoom in and look at those timestamp photos in a photo editor, not just on your phone, and slide those color/saturation/brightness bars to both extremes a few times. Stuff that looks "Meh" suddenly looks obvious. Don't accept tiny photos you can't zoom in on - they're web photos from the internet! Even 5 year old Android and iPhones take photos in the multiple megabytes in size with 1080p HD quality resolution as standard. Don't accept less before you turn over your hard earned cash.

Good luck. Over and out.
 
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XJ-linux said:
UPDATE

Received an email from my CC company today that my account credit for the full amount including the FF fees was final. They removed the charge immediately, but the caveat was that the investigation could take up to 90 days and ultimately reappear. It's officially in the tail lights now and I lost nothing but my pride.

I can't stress enough... If you do get scammed, save all the documentation, get screen grabs, and IMMEDIATELY CALL your CC company fraud number, even if you use Paypal Friends & Family. My CC company asked if I had the documentation, but never asked me to submit it. The person helping me did say that the faster it gets reported the easier it is to resolve quickly.

And again... Zoom in and look at those timestamp photos in a photo editor, not just on your phone, and slide those color/saturation/brightness bars to both extremes a few times. Stuff that looks "Meh" suddenly looks obvious. Don't accept tiny photos you can't zoom in on - they're web photos from the internet! Even 5 year old Android and iPhones take photos in the multiple megabytes in size with 1080p HD quality resolution as standard. Don't accept less before you turn over your hard earned cash.

Good luck. Over and out.
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Glad you got sorted out. Thanks for sharing it's a warning to us all. Merry Xmas!🎅
 
XJ-linux said:
UPDATE

Received an email from my CC company today that my account credit for the full amount including the FF fees was final. They removed the charge immediately, but the caveat was that the investigation could take up to 90 days and ultimately reappear. It's officially in the tail lights now and I lost nothing but my pride.

I can't stress enough... If you do get scammed, save all the documentation, get screen grabs, and IMMEDIATELY CALL your CC company fraud number, even if you use Paypal Friends & Family. PayPal Friends & Family is a distinction that Paypal makes, but it doesn't necessarily mean squat to your CC company's fraud department when it comes to determining if you were scammed. My CC company asked if I had the documentation, but never asked me to submit it. The person helping me did say that the faster it gets reported the easier it is to resolve quickly.

And again... Zoom in and look at those timestamp photos in a photo editor, not just on your phone, and slide those color/saturation/brightness bars to both extremes a few times. Stuff that looks "Meh" suddenly looks obvious. Don't accept tiny photos you can't zoom in on - they're web photos from the internet! Even 5 year old Android and iPhones take photos in the multiple megabytes in size with 1080p HD quality resolution as standard. Don't accept less before you turn over your hard earned cash.

Good luck. Over and out.
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Good advice and I’m glad it all worked out for you. . . 👍🏻
 
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