Use messaging when buying

[Gary W. Graley]

In a recent sale I had, the person posted on the thread that they would buy it. We corresponded with direct messages for the details but shortly afterwards that person received an email saying that they were me and wanted to know if they were still interested in buying my knife. They said that they would use my wife’s PayPal or venmo to accept payment.
Fortunately the person and I have had many transactions and knew something was not right and contacted me in message's about the email.

So while the forums is asking people to include a written note in the photos of your listing and not to use friends and family when buying. I would suggest that you don’t post in a forsale thread at all, but to send your request through the forums direct messaging to share the details of your purchase.

This way those with ill intentions won’t know who to try and intercept and attempt to steal from you.

I was surprised that this happened and how quickly it was done!

So be wary folks!
G2

 

[PBnTi]

This is currently the best advice on the forum. DMs only for all things trade or sales related.

If you comment in a sales thread and you have your email or phone number anywhere public in your account or linked to your username anywhere online the scammers will email you pretending to be the seller and start a man-in-the-middle attack/scam, you dont even need to say "I'll take it" or something like that to get them to try and pretend to be the seller. They take any scam tip or lead they can get and it will only get worse with AI eventually being used to run these scams. If you use the same username on another site that shows up on google then the scammers can jsut google you user name and find it there. Their job is to scam you and dont think they try everything. They are like ants trying to get into your house so you need to secure all the tiny gaps and be careful of old postings that are so far back that you forgot you posted your email on someones page somewhere trying to get them to contact you because thats all you could do.

Once the scammers figure out how to make foolproof AI generated timestamp still images that actually look like they are real its going to get interesting but right now they still look poorly photoshopped but it will happen eventually so ask for a video timestmap if the user is new or has few feedback stats. We will be only be able to use video timestamps as "proof of knife" for a brief period before that timestamp method is no longer a secure way to make sure the seller has the item in hand once AI video gets better but I really hope they add some kind of law that prevents AI images from reproducing exact images of things like knives because of copywrite law so I hope they put in blocks that prevent AI produced accurate images of things like a spyderco delica with all the correct shapes, texts and makers marks for example. But given how fast this tech is changing and progressing I bet there are AI image services that dont follow those laws or guidelines to prevent fraud and copywrite abuse. A new way to authenticate a person online as being both a real person and their photo being real is needed beyond any other tech advancement right now or we lose all trust forever online and that will make site like this much harder to use to sell/trade/buy.

 

[RayseM]

Yup - excellent advice. Good that you guys sorted this out Gary.

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Thanks and one other tip I think would be helpful is to Lock your sale thread so that people can only contact you through the messaging here on Bladeforums, that way no one can post on your sale thread and get lead astray by some neredowells !
G2

 

[StuntDouble]

This is why I will only complete a deal through direct messages on here from now on. It may cut out legit people that don’t have a paying membership, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m pretty sure it’s already saved me a hassle a couple times now.

 

[Crag the Brewer]

Thanks and one other tip I think would be helpful is to close your sale thread so that people can only contact you through the messaging here on Bladeforums, that way no one can post on your sale thread and get lead astray by some neredowells !
G2

Lock, the sales thread.