Scammers are getting out of hand

[irishmurph01]

I got taken for $100 last week trying to buy a soft top off of a POS scammer. Very sophisticated, sent pics of the top with my info written on a piece of paper and dated. This loser was just camping out and watching threads and seeing who responded. He somehow got my number (probably dark web BS), and opened up communication. I have sent my number to a few people about soft tops, so I didn’t confirm I gave it to them, I just assumed it was given. After realizing I was taken for a $100 dollar BS ride, I went back and finally saw the red flags. Be diligent and ask for a vid chat or whatever. Take all doubt out of your mind. This POS was talking about how he is a Christian and a family man, and blah blah blah. Nothing is sacred, and they would steal from their own mother if they could. If anyone reaches out to you OFF OF THE FORUM, report them and by all means Eff with them just a little bit…….

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[Easy-v]

“Kind regards” is a tell
Sorry to hear it, got scammed on an fb group too

 

[Area51BS]

If it has to be shipped. Then forget it.

 

[CalvinT]

This POS was talking about how he is a Christian

I'm always skeptical when someone talks about being "Christian." Too many claim to be "Christian" just to lure people in. IMHO and experience, true Chistians don't talk about being Christian. They let their actions speak for themselves.

My dealer is a Christian, and so is the guy who does all my body work. But they don't talk about it. With both I found out after the fact. They don't make it part of their advertising.

 

[irishmurph01]

If it has to be shipped. Then forget it.

Yeah, lesson learned….. I’m only dealing with royalty from Nigeria from now on

 

[Fastmc25]

I would Never mail cash unless you know the person. I always use A Certified bank check or through Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, Postal Money order.

I Also have used Walmart for wiring cash. They have to go to the Walmart and physically show ID to pickup payment.

Then you have some way of tracking where it was cashed and by who.

Only cash payments are in person.

Sorry you’re going through this. Been there a long time ago

 

[mdainsd]

"Buddy" is a red flag in my book.

 

[flip]

Our parts store got nailed in December, all of the orders were in the $300 range, different names, different locations. PayPal denied all of the claims even though their merchant service is to screen for fraud.

Here's another good one we've seen twice now. Had a guy come out to repave our driveway at home. He's one of the few left in our area that still do asphalt. Met him at the house, he took some measurements and said he would email an estimate. Got estimate later that day and replied back I was good with the price and to put me on the schedule. A few hours later I got an email from the same sender address saying that they needed half down and either Zelled or ACH to their account. Odd, because he didn't mention anything when he was at the house measuring.

Replied back and told him I wasn't comfortable with Zelle, asked if they would take cash and was told no, electronic deposit only and gave me the account info. Bank was a Chase branch in the same state but not where his business is located. Later that evening I got another email asking when I was going to do the transfer and to provide proof when it was done. At this point I knew what was going on because it happened to a guy trying to buy a truck from us a couple years ago.

A few days later and more emails asking when I'm going to transfer funds, I sent a text to the guy saying I would do cash, check or cashier check. He replied back saying he never asks for down payments so I told him to call me immediately.

Here's how this works. The company owner and his wife share the main company email address. At some point they were phished, likely got an email asking them to log back into their email or whatever. Once they have that and a session token they either create a hidden folder on the account where all incoming goes or change rules to forward incoming. These dirt bags just sit there screening emails until they see an opportunity to ask for money. The person who's account has been compromised does not see any of their outgoing communications or can see an incoming message has already been opened. All of the back and forth I had with said POS was completely hidden from the account owner.

I told the company owner what was happening, told him to contact their email provider (local fiber company), call anyone he recently gave estimates to and that I was going to report this to local PD and bank to let them know the account was a scammer. Mgr at the bank verified the name on the account was not the business I was dealing with and owner of that was not in Indiana.

Business owner's wife apparently got provider to reset account because I got an email the next day from the scammer at [email protected], instead of the legit business email. Here is my final email to said prick. Please forgive the mildly salty language.

Obviously you got kicked out of the previous email (you’re welcome) and went through all of this trouble setting up a fake account at Chase and a new gmail account hoping I wouldn’t notice. Already seen this once with another person that was hacked so I had you nailed as soon as you asked for a down payment.
My IT friend is curious though, if you had set up a hidden folder on their computer or changed rules to do an email forward. Our city police cyber crime division already has all of this information as well as the customer and the Chase branch where you set the account up. I was hoping to fuck around with you a little while longer just to waste more of your time and kill the thrill of me saying money was transferred. You stupid prick. Don’t you know both banks verify transfer information?
Anyway, fuck off, die, do something productive with your computer skills beside trying to steal from people. Not sure which god you worship but they probably don’t approve of this kind of shit in the afterlife. Hopefully you find the root side of the grass sooner than later you dog fucking, goat sucking piece of shit.

Points to consider.
Don't share an email address, it doubles the chances of getting phished, especially if you are a business.
Change your password on a regular basis.
Go through mail setting and make sure there's no forwarding rule set up (unless you know about it) as well as go through all folders and sub folders to look for one that doesn't belong.
You will not see the incoming or outgoing mails so if you get a call or text from someone asking about odd requests for money or account numbers, you're probably hacked.
If they have a session token, email provider may need to kill it on their end to completely get them out. Worse case is the email address has to be completely killed and new one created.
Remember, if you got hacked, they have copied all of your conversations, folders and address book and will use it to go after people in your sphere hoping to do the same thing.
Watch out for increased phishing and flag anything that remotely look odd. Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure....

 

[Bigave33]

I always use PayPal Goods and Services. Follow the guidelines on Pinkbike. They have had a lot of issues with scammers and following their steps have protected me the few times I've interacted with a scammer. Buy & Sell Safety Tips – Pinkbike

 

[irishmurph01]

I would Never mail cash unless you know the person. I always use A Certified bank check or through Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, Postal Money order.

I Also have used Walmart for wiring cash. They have to go to the Walmart and physically show ID to pickup payment.

Then you have some way of tracking where it was cashed and by who.

Only cash payments are in person.

Sorry you’re going through this. Been there a long time ago

The cash email was a joke, I was messing with a different scum bag scammer. They’re all over the marketplace. Be careful guys

 

[irishmurph01]

I always use PayPal Goods and Services. Follow the guidelines on Pinkbike. They have had a lot of issues with scammers and following their steps have protected me the few times I've interacted with a scammer. Buy & Sell Safety Tips – Pinkbike

Yes, for sure! I originally went through PayPal, but “he never received it” I got that money back. So many red flags

 

[RobWTX]

Scammers are really getting good at fooling people, their use of AI has helped them tremendously.
If you think it is a scam, text or email, don't reply, you acknowledge they reached you at a good address/number. Just block it/mark as spam, whatever, but don't confirm they reached you.

 

[irishmurph01]

Our parts store got nailed in December, all of the orders were in the $300 range, different names, different locations. PayPal denied all of the claims even though their merchant service is to screen for fraud.

Here's another good one we've seen twice now. Had a guy come out to repave our driveway at home. He's one of the few left in our area that still do asphalt. Met him at the house, he took some measurements and said he would email an estimate. Got estimate later that day and replied back I was good with the price and to put me on the schedule. A few hours later I got an email from the same sender address saying that they needed half down and either Zelled or ACH to their account. Odd, because he didn't mention anything when he was at the house measuring.

Replied back and told him I wasn't comfortable with Zelle, asked if they would take cash and was told no, electronic deposit only and gave me the account info. Bank was a Chase branch in the same state but not where his business is located. Later that evening I got another email asking when I was going to do the transfer and to provide proof when it was done. At this point I knew what was going on because it happened to a guy trying to buy a truck from us a couple years ago.

A few days later and more emails asking when I'm going to transfer funds, I sent a text to the guy saying I would do cash, check or cashier check. He replied back saying he never asks for down payments so I told him to call me immediately.

Here's how this works. The company owner and his wife share the main company email address. At some point they were phished, likely got an email asking them to log back into their email or whatever. Once they have that and a session token they either create a hidden folder on the account where all incoming goes or change rules to forward incoming. These dirt bags just sit there screening emails until they see an opportunity to ask for money. The person who's account has been compromised does not see any of their outgoing communications or can see an incoming message has already been opened. All of the back and forth I had with said POS was completely hidden from the account owner.

I told the company owner what was happening, told him to contact their email provider (local fiber company), call anyone he recently gave estimates to and that I was going to report this to local PD and bank to let them know the account was a scammer. Mgr at the bank verified the name on the account was not the business I was dealing with and owner of that was not in Indiana.

Business owner's wife apparently got provider to reset account because I got an email the next day from the scammer at [email protected], instead of the legit business email. Here is my final email to said prick. Please forgive the mildly salty language.

Obviously you got kicked out of the previous email (you’re welcome) and went through all of this trouble setting up a fake account at Chase and a new gmail account hoping I wouldn’t notice. Already seen this once with another person that was hacked so I had you nailed as soon as you asked for a down payment.
My IT friend is curious though, if you had set up a hidden folder on their computer or changed rules to do an email forward. Our city police cyber crime division already has all of this information as well as the customer and the Chase branch where you set the account up. I was hoping to fuck around with you a little while longer just to waste more of your time and kill the thrill of me saying money was transferred. You stupid prick. Don’t you know both banks verify transfer information?
Anyway, fuck off, die, do something productive with your computer skills beside trying to steal from people. Not sure which god you worship but they probably don’t approve of this kind of shit in the afterlife. Hopefully you find the root side of the grass sooner than later you dog fucking, goat sucking piece of shit.

Points to consider.
Don't share an email address, it doubles the chances of getting phished, especially if you are a business.
Change your password on a regular basis.
Go through mail setting and make sure there's no forwarding rule set up (unless you know about it) as well as go through all folders and sub folders to look for one that doesn't belong.
You will not see the incoming or outgoing mails so if you get a call or text from someone asking about odd requests for money or account numbers, you're probably hacked.
If they have a session token, email provider may need to kill it on their end to completely get them out. Worse case is the email address has to be completely killed and new one created.
Remember, if you got hacked, they have copied all of your conversations, folders and address book and will use it to go after people in your sphere hoping to do the same thing.
Watch out for increased phishing and flag anything that remotely look odd. Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure....

Damn….. I’m going to go through my account now!! I’m at ford getting a shifter and Procal install, I’ve got some time

 

[projectbadlands]

“Kind regards” is a tell
Sorry to hear it, got scammed on an fb group too

Exactly what I came here to say.

"Kind regards" screams india or nigeria to me.

 

[Alfa]

Unfortunately PayPal / Ebay are not foolproof mechanism for not getting scammed. I ordered a small item on eBay, about $75. I never received the item, so I initiated a refund request via Ebay, then PayPal's buyer protection mechanism. It was rejected because the scammer provided a UPS tracking number for a package to the same city (Austin, Texas). The tracking number showed a 25 pound package delivered to a receptionist somewhere in my tiny town of 2 million people, instead of a 1/2 pound package delivered to a residence. That was enough for Paypal's automated rejection system to tell me to pound sand.

A couple of takeaways are that scammers can search UPS for recent tracking numbers going to particular location and provide that as proof of delivery, and I also didn't notice that the eBay item was mis-categorized as some sort of business category, which limited what eBay would do to help.

I am just glad that this was only a $75 "lesson"...

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