Scammer of the day "felixcart740"

[500AMM]

I got several PMs from that guy today about available parts.




Seattle?! so that's where those are coming from. I bet it's @TimL...

 

[TimL]

The man sent me an email too. Seems to be more frequent now that when you post a WTB ad you get these scam messages

 

[gsxr]

@xfadmin apparently used the Pooferator® on Felix:

 

[TimL]

Thank you to xfadmin and all those folks involved in making this forum such a great place

 

[maw1124]

I feel like "we" should rename this thread to capture all scammers of parts for these cars of which we are aware.

Alas, when I joined such would not have been necessary or even useful. Yet here we are.

maw

 

[gerryvz]

@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.

 

[gerryvz]

I feel like "we" should rename this thread to capture all scammers of parts for these cars of which we are aware.

Alas, when I joined such would not have been necessary or even useful. Yet here we are.

maw

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.

 

[Bogeyman]

Maybe the scammer increase is due to the fact that so many people "work from home"?

 

[gerryvz]

Maybe the scammer increase is due to the fact that so many people "work from home"?

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.

 

[duuder]

Thank you to xfadmin and all those folks involved in making this forum such a great place

It really is! No fluff here, just the meat and a wealth of knowledge

 

[puchak]

I got a message from him as well. Thanks for putting out the fire and getting this scum off the website.

 

[2phast]

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.

 

[Melville]

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.

 

[Goran124]

I got message from him also! I dont answer on messages from newbie with 0 posts!!!

 

[Goran124]

As soon as I write that I'm looking for a car part, new users contact me with 0 posts, 0 messages, 0 reaction score…
Maybe the “wanted to buy” section should be made invisible to new users until they reach a certain number of posts?

 

[xfadmin]

That is one possibility - to make the For Sale and Wanted sub-forums available only to established members.

I think the better way would be to restrict PM capability for new members.

 

[xfadmin]

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.

Separately, any folks who are already registered and are currently under the radar (sometimes scammers will register and then sit tight for a month, six months, a year or even longer on a registration) will be "grandfathered" in as Registered Members, so if they log into the forum in the future, they will be able to send PMs.

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.

 

[xfadmin]

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.

 

[xfadmin]

As soon as I write that I'm looking for a car part, new users contact me with 0 posts, 0 messages, 0 reaction score…
Maybe the “wanted to buy” section should be made invisible to new users until they reach a certain number of posts?

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.

 

[Lavaone]

Sent me a message too.

Thanks guys.

 

[gerryvz]

Anyone received any "scam" private messages since the forum was modified to not allow new members to send PMs?

 

[nocfn]

not me, but I never have since I HAVE BEEN HERE. Good work Gerry! Thank you.

 

[500AMM]

Anyone received any "scam" private messages since the forum was modified to not allow new members to send PMs?

Nothing more at my end.

 

[gerryvz]

Generally, it appears that these scammers have mostly stalked and approached people who had posted in the "Wanted" sub-forum. I guess that's the lowest common denominator scam.

Hoping this scourge has now been solved once and for all. Guess we should have done this some time ago.

@xfadmin:

 

[oaklandw124]

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!

 

[gerryvz]

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!

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.

 

[oaklandw124]

Before changes were made

 

[gerryvz]

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.

 

[Goran124]

I was also bombarded today with “offers”:

 

[Eno]

This scammer coltongreer21 PM’ed me but it looks like he was filtered/blocked by the forum’s system as I received it by email notification only.

 

[gerryvz]

We are now starting to see our first
“AI spammers” arrive here on the forum who are posting generic, AI-driven garbage that sounds reasonable at first read, but is inane nonsense when you think about it critically.

If you see something with someone’s post (especially a new user) please flag it for review by management.

Generally this type of post will take the form of generic text or questions or statements that either don’t apply to the V-8 cars at all, or that apply to all cars to the point of being meaningless. Watch for “organized” bullet pointed posts that offer seemingly helpful toned “advice” but in reality don’t offer anything specific to the 124 chassis.

Generally you should be able to spot the difference between a newb question that is from a legitimate owner or new owner, and a generic question that could apply to a Honda as much as a Mercedes.

Just be on guard and don’t hesitate to hit the “report” button for staff review.

Thanks
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Also, asking a new user to provide photos of their issue will also help separate legit users from spammers here. It’s likely the spammer will pull a generic photo or one that has been posted elsewhere, and can easily be checked online against existing photos.

With these AI spammers, getting specific and technical will instantly cause them to show their stripes. AI responses won’t be able to handle specific replies from forum members referencing well established concepts here, or asking them to post a photo or detailed description of their issue.

Again though, the easiest and quickest thing to do is to report and flag a post for review, and the admins will take a look and deal with it.

 

[gerryvz]

The attached are three of the five posts made by the AI spammer. As you can see, they are completely irrelevant to the forum and what people care about here.

Also, the IP addresses of this spammer were all from very warm Southern climes (such as Arizona), and thus a block heater would be irrelevant to his needs (unless he was VPNing from Alaska or Canada).

But for reference, you can see the utter inanity and nonsensical-ness of what this person was posting.

 

[gerryvz]

The attached are three of the five posts made by the AI spammer. As you can see, they are completely irrelevant to the forum and what people care about here.

Also, the IP addresses of this spammer were all from very warm Southern climes (such as Arizona), and thus a block heater would be irrelevant to his needs (unless he was VPNing from Alaska or Canada).

But for reference, you can see the utter inanity and nonsensical-ness of what this person was posting.

Interesting that a scammer with the same name was present (and deleted by mods) on another forum I'm on, the Toyota/Lexus forum "Ih8mud.com":

 

[yao500e]

the actual time and effort to try to scam. seriously one of the dumbest waste of time activities ever.

 

[gerryvz]

it actually time and effort to try to scam. seriously one of the dumbest waste of time activities ever.

It must have SOME benefit, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Granted a lot of the scamming is automated, but for any scammer to get onto this forum, there is some manual work involved to set up the two-factor authentication and such. So they really have to want to be here.

I would have loved to see what this scammer wrote on ih8mud before the mods there deleted it.

 

[yao500e]

It must have SOME benefit, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Granted a lot of the scamming is automated, but for any scammer to get onto this forum, there is some manual work involved to set up the two-factor authentication and such. So they really have to want to be here.

I would have loved to see what this scammer wrote on ih8mud before the mods there deleted it.

i suppose you are right and make a good point, but the actual effort on doing this is baffling.
it would have been nice to see what the scammer did actually write.

On facebook, I always easily can see who is scamming. For one, they always want cash apps or money wired. they never offer to do a transaction on a proper safe payment system and create a proper invoice document.