[ResIpsaLoquitur]

FotiosF90M5, you may have missed this in all of the melee — go back to your screenshots and obscure your address. You’ve already been targeted my scammers, and this is just another piece of info for someone to use.

Really sorry this happened to you. Hope you can get your money back somehow.

[FotiosF90M5]

[QUOTE=ResIpsaLoquitur;30539616]FotiosF90M5, you may have missed this in all of the melee — go back to your screenshots and obscure your address. You’ve already been targeted my scammers, and this is just another piece of info for someone to use.

Really sorry this happened to you. Hope you can get your money back somehow


.

Thanks man. Appreciate that. I think I got all of them. Whole thing just through me off. Sux.

[jnotrom711]

If any MODs are seeing this, or anyone who can implement something on the forum to stop scammers, can y'all do something or create some sort of rule to be able to post in classifieds ? and new members vet better? Have to imagine there could be some type of method to track IP addresses of these scam usernames?

Can a BIG sticky be put on top to be ware of these scams and explain them so its obvious ? Something where it cant be missed to help stop the scamming? Wouldn't BIMMMERPOST want members to not get or be scamming other users? (maybe there is this but its easy to miss)

to the unsuspecting buyers or sellers:

NEVER EVER pay with ZELLE, VENMO, CASHAPP, or PAYPAL, or anything else unless you know for a fact these people are legit, and you have protection on both sides to be able to cancel a transaction. If youre not sure a couple things you can do....

1)Before payment make them send you a photo with the item in hand and a piece of paper or something stating the same user name, date, something proving they're indeed who is selling the item, and they have the item in hand.

2) tell them you'll only pay with PayPal (non friends and family) or another method that offers protection for BOTH parties if item never shows up, or isn't as described, or money doesn't show up.

There are other things you can do as well, but, these 2 easy things to do are very very simple to do, and pretty much any scammer will get defensive or go dark when tasked with to something like these strategies. Asking to pay with protection will usually weed them out quickly.

And for any seller who is legit who gets irritated having to do an additional step to prove you're legit, sorry, it shouldn't bother you and shouldn't be a big deal if you are indeed legit.

Ive both bought and sold on here, and would never be upset or not comply with someone trying to make sure im legit. I imagine most others wouldn't as well. Unless of course... youre a scammer...

[Rafichicago]

Got scammed like that once here. For much less money though. Even though mostly honest people sell stuff here I will not try again. I feel sorry for you OP cause I know exactly how you feel.

[FotiosF90M5]

Originally Posted by jnotrom711

If any MODs are seeing this, or anyone who can implement something on the forum to stop scammers, can y'all do something or create some sort of rule to be able to post in classifieds ? and new members vet better? Have to imagine there could be some type of method to track IP addresses of these scam usernames?

Can a BIG sticky be put on top to be ware of these scams and explain them so its obvious ? Something where it cant be missed to help stop the scamming? Wouldn't BIMMMERPOST want members to not get or be scamming other users? (maybe there is this but its easy to miss)

to the unsuspecting buyers or sellers:

NEVER EVER pay with ZELLE, VENMO, CASHAPP, or PAYPAL, or anything else unless you know for a fact these people are legit, and you have protection on both sides to be able to cancel a transaction. If youre not sure a couple things you can do....

1)Before payment make them send you a photo with the item in hand and a piece of paper or something stating the same user name, date, something proving they're indeed who is selling the item, and they have the item in hand.

2) tell them you'll only pay with PayPal (non friends and family) or another method that offers protection for BOTH parties if item never shows up, or isn't as described, or money doesn't show up.

There are other things you can do as well, but, these 2 easy things to do are very very simple to do, and pretty much any scammer will get defensive or go dark when tasked with to something like these strategies. Asking to pay with protection will usually weed them out quickly.

And for any [...]

This is good info. I pm’d Jason about it as well with screen names. I did not include MiguelM3 because I’m not positive but still not sure. I’ve bought and sold a ton here since 2007. Never an issue until now.

[jnotrom711]

Another tip I just thought of that could be helpful in at least determining the legitimate-ness of someone, is if they send you a photo to your phone...

If its an iPhone, (probably a way with other phones also but dont know)...

If they send a photo, a lot of times people dont know you can pretty quickly see the metadata of a photo... location, date photo was taken, type of phone, megapixels etc.

Essentially, unless they have metadata turned off, which some people do... it would be easy to see if... say.... a seller is located in Phoenix per their handle/ad. and they text you a photo and the metadata says their in New York, it doesn't align with their story, that would be a good indicator to at least do some deeper vetting of the seller.

This is far from a perfect way to do this, because it wont always work. iE if its a screen shot, or a photo of a photo, or they have metadata turned off, or its not an iPhone, etc, but at least could help in determining if someone is legit.

Pretty creepy, but some people have no idea if they sent me (or anyone) a photo in iMessage to another iMessage account, and they have their metadata turned on, in about 5 seconds, I could tell you the exact location the photo was taken, as well as time, date, etc. Would be great if a scammer did this and you were able to text them their location and let them know you'll be on the way to collect your money. LOL!

Of course many of these scammers use text apps, WhatsApp etc, so it's far from perfect, but theres a lot of dumb ass criminals out there.

[ResIpsaLoquitur]

[QUOTE=FotiosF90M5;30539801]

Originally Posted by ResIpsaLoquitur

FotiosF90M5, you may have missed this in all of the melee — go back to your screenshots and obscure your address. You’ve already been targeted my scammers, and this is just another piece of info for someone to use.

Really sorry this happened to you. Hope you can get your money back somehow


.

Thanks man. Appreciate that. I think I got all of them. Whole thing just through me off. Sux.

You’re welcome. Hope everything works out.

[Rafichicago]

I think that it would be great to have someone here with access to certain data to be able to check (in some cases) if messages buyers ręce here are from legitimate phone numbers or if they’re generated by some messaging software of some sort. Those phones have to belong to someone and this shouldn’t be a problem to track.

[damianwo]

Originally Posted by Rafichicago

I think that it would be great to have someone here with access to certain data to be able to check (in some cases) if messages buyers ręce here are from legitimate phone numbers or if they’re generated by some messaging software of some sort. Those phones have to belong to someone and this shouldn’t be a problem to track.

I can check a thing or two.

[bbradyc5]

All listings should require a photo of product with sign including members username and date at a bare minimum. Secondly only ever pay thru a payment service where there is a fee that covers both buyer and seller. These two simple things will eliminate 90% of scams

[FotiosF90M5]

Originally Posted by damianwo

I can check a thing or two.

That would be a huge help.

[Rafichicago]

I am not sure if that’s something worth doing for the forum owners but I have an idea that’s coming from website selling used brand name fine watches. What they do is this.
Buyer intends to purchase the item.
Buyer pays for it. Money than goes to escrow.
Item is than shipped.
Buyer receives the item and confirms its arrival and condition.
Seller gets funds released.
Safe for both parties.
As complex as it might seem at first there are quite expensive pieces for sale for various vehicles. I believe that could put an end to s**t like this. I was scammed for $180 still a PITA but buyer here lost a lot more. Let’s do something about this. I think that it would be super helpful if we could get some sort of assurance and assistance here. Let me know what you guys think.

[zman21]

Rafichicago is spot on. That is a safe way to do online business for both parties. I know the website he's referring to and used it several times without fail.

[mjr24]

Stop paying with these stupid ass cash apps. You know you have no protection. Quite honestly you just look shady if you only take cash apps.

[jnotrom711]

Originally Posted by mjr24

Stop paying with these stupid ass cash apps. You know you have no protection. Quite honestly you just look shady if you only take cash apps.

You do have protection for the most part with PayPal (non friends and family), there is buyer and seller protection. But they charge 2-3% (I think), friends and family with no fee, there is no protection. Zelle, Cashapp, Venmo, pretty much sh*t out of luck if you send money to someone you dont know, and get scammed.

An escrow account is definitely an option, and they do work, but I would say, it's likely more trouble and hassle than it's worth for a lower dollar amount item. Certainly there is items on here that would definitely not be too low of a dollar amount for it to be worth it, but just keep that in mind, its normally a better option on a bigger ticket item.

A lot can be weeded out by not accepting or sending via, cash app, Venmo, zelle, or PayPal F/F.

A scammer quickly runs and goes away if you simply tell them youll only pay with a method that has protection for both sides, and ask them to prove they actually own the item, and have it in their possession, with a simple photo mentioning both user names, or date etc. Scammer situations they just go dark at this stage and weed themselves out.

[mjr24]

I use PayPal or credit card for everything. I don’t mind the extra 2-3 percent on PayPal for piece of mind.

Also using friends and family via PayPal is never advised. Even beyond the fact you get no protection, they can “fine” you like up to $1500 per transaction where they catch you doing this. This was put into their user agreement years ago so if you have PayPal, you accepted that as a term of your account. It’s just not worth the risk anymore.

Maybe file a police report and see if they can find out whose Cash app it is. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure cash apps require you to give them your social security number (because they now are required to report to the IRS if you receive more than like $600 in a year).

So that money must be traceable to someone somewhere. I don’t think a lot of cash app users realize this (that cash apps are going to tell the IRS how much you’ve received from people).