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Scammer of the day "felixcart740"
- Thread starter 500AMM
- Start date
@Glen took care of the scammer -- many thanks to him as I was out at an appointment this morning. Evidently he was quite prolific; in the space of about 75 minutes, he sent somewhere north of 20 private messages to people attempting to scam them.
For good measure, I referred this particular case over to @The Emperor for a "force-choke" to ensure that this individual is taken care of, permanently.
In any case, he was despatched quickly. But, of course, he'll be back under another name/email address. They always come back.
It is heartening to see that most folks here are now wise to this scam, whereby someone newly registered to the forum sends a DM to a member and refers them to a "friend" at another e-mail address (usually a hotmail address) that supposedly has the part for sale.
This scam is starting to actually, get quite old.
I'm sure another scam style will surface in the near future.
Again, the best thing you can do when approached by someone here, is to look at when they registered for the forum. If newly registered and they have no posts publicly, it's cause for extreme suspicion. ONLY deal with well-established members here with a track record of many posts, and perhaps even past parts for sale.
It's easy for all members to do a quick check on any other member's profile.
For good measure, I referred this particular case over to @The Emperor for a "force-choke" to ensure that this individual is taken care of, permanently.
In any case, he was despatched quickly. But, of course, he'll be back under another name/email address. They always come back.
It is heartening to see that most folks here are now wise to this scam, whereby someone newly registered to the forum sends a DM to a member and refers them to a "friend" at another e-mail address (usually a hotmail address) that supposedly has the part for sale.
This scam is starting to actually, get quite old.
I'm sure another scam style will surface in the near future.
Again, the best thing you can do when approached by someone here, is to look at when they registered for the forum. If newly registered and they have no posts publicly, it's cause for extreme suspicion. ONLY deal with well-established members here with a track record of many posts, and perhaps even past parts for sale.
It's easy for all members to do a quick check on any other member's profile.
There is no need to, as these scammers continually come and go, and usually are reported very quickly when they start reaching out to people via DM.
The best thing one can do is just to hit the "Report" button (post or DM), which flags this to the admin staff for investigation / remediation.
Seems we get up to one or two a week.
The site's admin logs contain record of ALL scammers and others who have been banned (either manually by an admin, or automatically by the system before they are even able to post). Most scammers never even are able to consummate their registrations, as the system "Poofs" them immediately.
Attachments
This is a very common type of scam that these people do on automotive and other types of forums -- it is not just native to our forum or MB forums in general.
It is unfortunate that a number of our members have been successfully scammed in the past. However, it seems that the knowledge level and "Spidey Sense" here has grown among the membership so that they can see these scam attempts for what they are now.
It really is! No fluff here, just the meat and a wealth of knowledge
This is all over Facebook. You should see some of the stuff posted for sale. First giveaway is rare items, new in box for cheap. Second is PayPal F&F or Western Union, or other non-traceable payment platforms.
Most of these scammers are using stolen photos, so if you ask for more photos, they can not provide them. Always ask for more photos and/or a photo with something else to ensure the photos are current (your name for example) and be on the watch for poorly photoshopped images, images already posted with your name or theirs photoshopped into them. Always ask for different angles, side, bottom etc.
Also be wary of these scammers hijacking known sellers internet handles or changing them slightly. This is also becoming more common. It's a serious infestation in the Mercedes Facebook groups.
Most of these scammers are using stolen photos, so if you ask for more photos, they can not provide them. Always ask for more photos and/or a photo with something else to ensure the photos are current (your name for example) and be on the watch for poorly photoshopped images, images already posted with your name or theirs photoshopped into them. Always ask for different angles, side, bottom etc.
Also be wary of these scammers hijacking known sellers internet handles or changing them slightly. This is also becoming more common. It's a serious infestation in the Mercedes Facebook groups.
I sometimes go on a vintage hi-fi forum, and a while ago I joined a group that tried to shut down a prolific scammer. He'd post ads on Craigslist, all over the country, for nice gear at a too-good-to-be-true price. Once he'd get his mark on the phone, he'd be all buddy buddy, and give reasons why he couldn't meet in person to demo the gear (even though the ad said he'd be happy to).
After a while, the buyer would feel like he knows the seller, and sure, he'd be happy to send money electronically, and the seller would be happy to carefully pack the item and ship it. Of course, after the money is sent, the seller can't be reached again and no shipment is ever sent. One or two guys on the forum went to a lot of trouble to search all of craigslist to identify his posts, and then the group would act quickly to flag them. After enough flags, the post would get taken down.
But eventually we gave up. It was just so easy for him to put up new posts, and we were all spending time that felt futile to flag things. I sometimes still see his posts on my local Craigslist, and I flag them. But all I can do is hope no one falls for it.
After a while, the buyer would feel like he knows the seller, and sure, he'd be happy to send money electronically, and the seller would be happy to carefully pack the item and ship it. Of course, after the money is sent, the seller can't be reached again and no shipment is ever sent. One or two guys on the forum went to a lot of trouble to search all of craigslist to identify his posts, and then the group would act quickly to flag them. After enough flags, the post would get taken down.
But eventually we gave up. It was just so easy for him to put up new posts, and we were all spending time that felt futile to flag things. I sometimes still see his posts on my local Craigslist, and I flag them. But all I can do is hope no one falls for it.
We have created a "New Member" category for folks who register with the forum for the first time. This New Member category will NOT have any type of "private message" capability, until they reach a certain threshhold of posts on the forum, plus time on the forum, when they are promoted automatically to a Registered Member. At that point they will have PM capability and all other normal privileges of registered members.
Hopefully this lack of ability to send PMs to members, by newly registered people here, will help reduce the amount of scammers.
New members WILL have the ability to make regular posts to threads here on the forum.
Hoping this helps close the "new member PM" loophole.
We will do some testing on this new category over the coming days, and tweak as necessary.
OK, I think we have this now sorted out.
All newly registered folks will be indicated by a yellow "New Member" banner under their name, and WILL NOT have PM privileges, until they meet the threshhold for promotion.
When they meet this defined threshhold (which is pretty low, but should weed out most scammers), they will automatically be promoted to a regular member with PM capability.
All other user categories and promotions are in effect as before.
All newly registered folks will be indicated by a yellow "New Member" banner under their name, and WILL NOT have PM privileges, until they meet the threshhold for promotion.
When they meet this defined threshhold (which is pretty low, but should weed out most scammers), they will automatically be promoted to a regular member with PM capability.
All other user categories and promotions are in effect as before.
Again, the VERY BEST thing you can do is to click the "Report" button at the bottom of the screen for any suspect PMs or regular forum posts.
This sends an immediate alert to forum admins, who can -- with just a couple of clicks -- take care of the problem once and for all. This includes deleting all of the scammer's PMs and/or posts instantly; even those that have not yet been read by members who haven't logged in to see them.
Nothing more at my end.
Yep, I received a couple of messages from him on the 500E headlight lenses. I didn't follow up as he sent two messages in the same day with different email addresses he wanted me to contact.
Thanks, Gerry!
Thanks, Gerry!
You received messages within the last week, when the changes were made to new members' permissions? Or you received the messages BEFORE that.
I'm just trying to clarify if anyone has received scam messages AFTER the changes were made (November 24th) to new member permissions. There is a possibility that people who registered for the forum as new members before November 24th, may be "grandfathered in" with PM permissions, but this should not be the case.
Thanks in advance for clarifying as to WHEN you received the scam messages.
Before changes were made
One scammer who registered on November 26th tried some scams today, also he waited it out by making a bunch of pretty much nonsense posts here. We'll see if any further scammers slip through and/or game the system -- if so, then we will need to tighten up the parameters even more for new members to be able to provide PMs to other members.
Sigh.
Sigh.
