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Michael Brookes - Scammer Alert

Wanted ads are a bait to some of these people. One additional thing I do is when a seller sends me pictures I reverse image search them in Google to see if they have been scraped from the web. Happened to me when I was looking for a specific record for a friend's birthday present... seller came back to me saying he had a copy and sent me pictures and a PayPal address for payment... quick search in Google images and hey presto they were taken from Discogs... I quizzed him as to why and he never got back in touch. Funny that.
 
@Nagraboy Really sorry to read this and I hope you get your money back.

I was thinking about possible fake post it note detailed photos the other day. Any chance you can show us the photo sent to you?
 
@Nagraboy, also meant to say hope you get this sorted out and don't beat yourself up about it. Some scammers are pretty sophisticated these days and it's no wonder honest people get had. I also think that pfm is generally such a good place to buy and sell from we get lulled into a false sense of security. I do wonder if Wanted ads need to be in a separate section with warnings emblazoned on each post about checking out respondees and the best way to do that. On a car forum I used to be on the seller rating was in the avatar so you could immediately see if they had some reputation or not. Anyway just thinking out loud.
 
Commiserations nagraboy. I very much hope this ends well for you!
I was very nearly ‘taken to the cleaners’ last year on diyaudio by a guy selling AN speakers in Glasgow - oh yeah!!
It was only when I offered to pay cash and pick them up, that all went deadly quiet.
 
Sorry to read this @Nagraboy hope that your bank sorts this for you.

AV forums is pretty bad for this sort of thing especially with iPhones, I've no idea why they allow sales of contract phones to be honest, some guy got scammed recently for over £700 on an iPhone 14, apparently there was a list of previous owners and one of them initiated an insurance claim and the phone was blocked/bricked.

Heartbreaking reading some of these tales especially when it happens on the forums.
 
Echoing the thoughts of everyone else I’m really sorry to hear this and hope your bank can help.

The 50 posts plus 3 month membership system we use here is pretty robust IMO, the problems only come if people deal with users with less than that. Review all the posts, view them as a CV. Don’t like the look, then bail. Even then some basic background checks are essential, e.g. always check where you are sending something on Google Earth etc.
Something I’ve seen on other forums dealing in high value goods is the hijacking of an established but dormant user account and the use of that to respond to WTB ads.
It’s something you might not have considered if you are in the habit of re-using usernames and passwords across a range of sites. If one is comprised in a data leak, a Google search can mean they all are.
If you get a WTB response from an established member who has not posted for a while it’s something to consider.
 
Hope you get it sorted my friend. Even PayPal can be a lottery. I paid 450 for some headphones and received an empty box. As far as they were concerned I had received the item as it was marked as delivered. Grrr
 
Something I’ve seen on other forums dealing in high value goods is the hijacking of an established but dormant user account and the use of that to respond to WTB ads.

This has only happened here once to my knowledge. The legitimate account owner quickly let me know and I fixed it. As ever it is a lesson to use secure and unique passwords.
 
This has only happened here once to my knowledge. The legitimate account owner quickly let me know and I fixed it. As ever it is a lesson to use secure and unique passwords.

Do you think there might be any merit in raising the 50 posts? I'll only deal with established members nowadays...
 
Do you think there might be any merit in raising the 50 posts? I'll only deal with established members nowadays...

To date no scammer has got even close to 50 posts. They contact users directly via PM hoping the recipient doesn’t check their post count or length of membership. The disturbing trend is to clone an established name, e.g. just closely misspell a letter, add an underscore or whatever, again trying to trick people who don’t check.

The only realistic options available to me are:

a) Just shit-can the whole classifieds area and have sales as trade & me only.

b) Keep the >50 post criteria and put the classified area on a locked/hidden annual subscription basis at say £20 per year. This would work well for me as I could really do with better monetising the site as I’m effectively losing >10% income a year at present (I’m just not covering inflation/energy prices etc, everything is going up except my income!).

c) Do nothing.

Being honest c) is the most likely.
 
Wanted ads are a bait to some of these people. One additional thing I do is when a seller sends me pictures I reverse image search them in Google to see if they have been scraped from the web. Happened to me when I was looking for a specific record for a friend's birthday present... seller came back to me saying he had a copy and sent me pictures and a PayPal address for payment... quick search in Google images and hey presto they were taken from Discogs... I quizzed him as to why and he never got back in touch. Funny that.

I vote to use image search as well.

Only this week there was a question about Rega Aethos on gumtree.
https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/rega-aethos-on-gumtree.278045/
I did reverse image search to found out that was scam and pictures were taken from ebay auction.
 
To date no scammer has got even close to 50 posts. They contact users directly via PM hoping the recipient doesn’t check their post count or length of membership. The disturbing trend is to clone an established name, e.g. just closely misspell a letter, add an underscore or whatever, again trying to trick people who don’t check.

The only realistic options available to me are:

a) Just shit-can the whole classifieds area and have sales as trade & me only.

b) Keep the >50 post criteria and put the classified area on a locked/hidden annual subscription basis at say £20 per year. This would work well for me as I could really do with better monetising the site as I’m effectively losing >10% income a year at present (I’m just not covering inflation/energy prices etc, everything is going up except my income!).

c) Do nothing.

Being honest c) is the most likely.

I would opt for b) especially if it helps to support the forum financially.
 
I vote for B too and hope with this comes a new rule about people commenting on for sale threads...its a for sale thread, its one single purpose, not a conversation! - we don't need to hear that you had one in 1956 and your neighbour loved it or that the power cable a person is selling is worthless because the freebie one in the box is the most hero of all cables.
 
I'd happily pay £20 to scam someone out of a few 100* unfortunately it won't stop them.

You start taking a fee to advertise then some people might expect some sort of protection, arbitration etc.


* I'm kidding of course, I was just making a point that I doubt a fee would stop them
 


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