Help some brothers out.. scammer content

JR-GibboMan

Sorry to hear that 2 members got scammed. All the above points are relevant and you should never send money friends n family to anyone, especially on a forum where you have no idea who the person is thats behind the account and have zero recourse should you get scammed.
That's one of the main reasons that using a trusted platform like ebay or Reverb is better than direct sales on a platform such as here.
It's also one of the reasons that buying from a shop or a known dealer is a good idea too. 100% protection if something doesn't turn up or turns up with issues. Buyer protection is key when buying online especially when there's a chunk of money involved. The figures above are not chump change that the buyers can lose and not bat an eye.
If anyone buys on here at distance you should never use fnf or just make the trip yourself to pick it up.
Even post a photo on your socials in the car with a coffee marked "Guitar safari" is better than losing £1500 on an online scam.
Or get in touch with someone local to the seller..give them some beer money to sort it out. I'm sure a local dealer would do it for you if you asked them.

glitterjet

For everyones benefit, Paypal have told me I have no Buyer Protection (which i know sadly), I have asked them if they can freeze the account that the money was sent to or investigate the account and any linked as they are being used fraudulently.   All too late I know.  Might be an idea for the @mods to run something highlighting this event on the home page to make all using the forum aware as an actual story means more than a list of advice, unless someone clicks on one of the threads they will not be aware, hopefully if someone reads the background to all this it may make them think long and hard before making any decisions around a purchase.

JR-GibboMan

glitterjet said:

For everyones benefit, Paypal have told me I have no Buyer Protection (which i know sadly), I have asked them if they can freeze the account that the money was sent to or investigate the account and any linked as they are being used fraudulently.   All too late I know.  Might be an idea for the @mods to run something highlighting this event on the home page to make all using the forum aware as an actual story means more than a list of advice, unless someone clicks on one of the threads they will not be aware, hopefully if someone reads the background to all this it may make them think long and hard before making any decisions around a purchase.

is the advice of not sending anyone you don't know free money, with zero protection for yourself if its a scam, not a known thing?

glitterjet

JR-GibboMan, this was not a response to your post, think we both were posting at the same time.   Agree with your second post however on a forum of fellow musicians and having conversed with someone who is shown to be a member for 10years I felt things were ok, on hindsight obviously not.   Yes it is 'a known thing' however I believe this story highlights an issue that could have been, maybe not you, but a number of us in the FB community.   I do and have used reverb/ebay but have had great deals on FB as well, it has certainly been a costly experience.   Your advice is all 100% correct

Rich31k

Obviously gutted for @glitterjet. I wanted to share the steps I took last night to check if it was a scam in case it helps anyone in the future. By the time I looked, it was too late to help much here apart from confirming the scams. 

First I downloaded the main photos on my phone (even a screenshot will do) and went here:

https://www.labnol.org/reverse/

You can do a google reverse image from your mobile here. You could do it direct from google on a computer. 

If the photos have been cached on Google, they will show up. Unfortunately eBay and other market places delete photos after a while, so it doesn’t always work. 

Next step was to see if the advert text had been reused. I just copied the text into Google and put speech marks around it like “this”. 

Both times it brought up the advert on here first, but after those, it found the old listings on offerup.com - proving it was a scam. 

I can’t access offerup.com from the UK without a VPN and the images didn’t appear on Google search. That’s probably why the scammer chose it.

For anyone, if you’re in doubt about an advert, doing the above is a quick way to check its veracity - it’s not exhaustive though so best to pay by a method with protection or just pass if in any doubt. 

Successful scammers are believable and plan what they are doing carefully, so try not to feel bad about being caught out.  

Dumodal

Really sad about this, I can't blame anyone for trusting what seemed to be a well established member of the community, I did find the price to be in the lower than usual realm but we don't know the situation of each other and some people needs the flow of cash urgently. It's a pity things like this happens and the people who scam are scums, I wish both of you good luck with this situation.

prowla

I got scammed for a pedal a few years back and it turned out that the very same item had been sold to a number of people, so a number of us got together and were able to get a refund.

During the course of things, it turned out that the scammer was already a convicted fraudster and also an events promoter who musicians were saying withheld their money; further, some folks had commented regarding threats and physical intimidation.

The scammer sent the same tracking info to several people saying the item had been returned, but it turned out to be something completely different posted to them.

In my case the scammer stalked me on various sites and wanted to come to my house to sort things out "man-to-man" (the police were on standby in case he turned up). They also posed as a legal intermediary threatening portents of doom and stipulating conditions on the refund.

In an interesting switch-around, one of the victims took a photo outside of the scammer's house for leverage.

I found the whole matter a mixture of annoying, insightful, and intriguing; the possibility of physical confrontation was an added potentially interesting practical challenge.

As far as buying and selling, the outcome is that I won't use an unsecured means of payment when buying from people I don't know; in some cases I've had to step away from buying things when the seller has insisted, but I've set my rules.

A golden rule is don't use PayPal Friends & Family to pay someone who isn't your friend or family.

ElectricXII

I've been a Fretboard member for about two years, so I'm relatively new. All of the transactions I've done on here so far, buying and selling, have been PayPal F&F, as it seems to be the default method for members. 

This forum is a community, with relationships based on trust, but perhaps we need to make PayPal Goods & Services more of the norm, particularly for higher value stuff?

prlgmnr

prowla said:

the possibility of physical confrontation was an added potentially interesting practical challenge

one for the feedback profile

Roland

glitterjet said:

...  Might be an idea for the @mods to run something highlighting this event on the home page to make all using the forum aware as an actual story means more than a list of advice ...

That will be these two:

stimpsonslostson

Really sorry to hear about your experience here. That totally sucks. 

There have been a few issues like this in the past, but the mods do an incredible job of maintaining this place. 

I don't think there's much that can be done about a stolen/hacked account & it's horrible to hear people got burned by it. 

That said, there's a world of difference between "being a member here for 10 years" and "being a member in good standing". 
We have many lurkers and people who only use the sales section without contributing more widely. 

I've bought and sold several items on here both in-person and remotely without issue but that's because I've always dealt with people I feel I know due to having read and reacted to their posts in other areas of the forum. 

There has been talk in the past of restricting the sales sections to people with a post count over X but that would lead to spam posts attempting to reach the threshold. How about needing a certain number if "frets" as this is like XP and has to be earned within the community? 

CavemanGrogg

ElectricXII said:

I've been a Fretboard member for about two years, so I'm relatively new. All of the transactions I've done on here so far, buying and selling, have been PayPal F&F, as it seems to be the default method for members. 

This forum is a community, with relationships based on trust, but perhaps we need to make PayPal Goods & Services more of the norm, particularly for higher value stuff?

I've not been a member here for long, despite my post count, and didn't join with the intention of using this place as a platform to sell off equipment, I ended up selling some parts, and did it via bank transfer - nothing over £200 I got the the prices I asked for in my parts clear out thread.  I have to say, I prefer payment on collection, with smartphones and various banking apps various forms of payment can be done almost instantaneously nowadays.

TTony

Roland said:

glitterjet said:

...  Might be an idea for the @mods to run something highlighting this event on the home page to make all using the forum aware as an actual story means more than a list of advice ...

That will be these two:

@Roland ;;

There are too many pinned topics.  There are too many for anyone to bother reading, and too many for any one to stand out and capture attention.  Our eyes just skip over them.

• In your s/shot, there are 2 separate posts relating to scammers (combine them into one).  
• The suggestion to use video isn't going to fly - it's difficult enough to get people to take decent photos (even when many people use their camera to browse the forum!), so de-sticky that one.
• The No Fakes should be folded into the Rules thread.

That observation holds for a few of the sections of the forum.  The announcements have become noise that we (readers) filter out, they're not effective for their intended purpose.

[edit]
And a PS - anyone using the "Recent Discussions" view doesn't see any of those announcements anyway.  And I'm not suggesting that you add them to that view!

TTony

ElectricXII said:

I've been a Fretboard member for about two years, so I'm relatively new. All of the transactions I've done on here so far, buying and selling, have been PayPal F&F, as it seems to be the default method for members. 

This forum is a community, with relationships based on trust, but perhaps we need to make PayPal Goods & Services more of the norm, particularly for higher value stuff?

It's the default method for established members because of the origins of the community but has probably been adopted by everyone else because they see it being used by many others.

I've highlighted those words deliberately.  The forum began as a much smaller and more stable community wherein many members knew each other directly, or one person removed.  The Classifieds were a useful add-on to those people to (effectively) swap gear amongst each other.  We were, mainly, friends.

The forum has grown, membership has changed, and the Classifieds has become the only area that some people now visit.  I'd no more send them untraceable cash (ie PPF&F) than I would send cash to a stranger on eBay.

glitterjet

Roland said:

glitterjet said:

...  Might be an idea for the @mods to run something highlighting this event on the home page to make all using the forum aware as an actual story means more than a list of advice ...

That will be these two:

It is for sure Roland and I had previously looked at these tbh.   It was just a thought that our experience being somewhat different may be of benefit other members of the FB Community.   

topdog91

Horrible to read all this, it's never a good time of year for this to happen but really this sucks.

Google reverse image search is available on Android via Google Lens, not sure about iOS.

It's true about pinned topic fatigue and they aren't that prominent - perhaps there's a way to get (okay, force) users to read and confirm a few things e.g don't use F&F unless you're prepared to lose the money, before going into the trade forums, a bit like filter questions for new members on a FB group.

OilCityPickups

My sympathy to those who have lost money here. 

As a business we were scammed by a low life who hung about our stand at a guitar show a few years ago ... we got shafted for a few hundred quid's worth of pickups which smarted ... but on here things have been good. 
I was part of this community back in the old 'Music Radar' days before Fretboard was a forum in its own right ... am a 'founder member' and have been trading with folks on here since day one and have never,luckily, had an issue. 
The problem is it's a bad world out there and we are an open and welcoming community (er mostly lol) and the odd bad apple does occasionally slip in.  Sad ... 

Roland

@TTony ”one man’s meat …” People’s views of what’s important vary. It’s always a balancing act.

• Combining threads looses the story, and results in an overlong thread and TLDR
• Some people do use videos, especially of acoustics.
• The No Fakes is there because many people don’t read the rules, or don’t want to follow what they say. We’ve banned two people this month for trying to sell fakes. 

TTony

Roland said:

@TTony ”one man’s meat …” People’s views of what’s important vary. It’s always a balancing act.

• Combining threads looses the story, and results in an overlong thread and TLDR
• Some people do use videos, especially of acoustics.
• The No Fakes is there because many people don’t read the rules, or don’t want to follow what they say. We’ve banned two people this month for trying to sell fakes. 

• Right now, you've got TMDR.
• So, put that in the Acoustics section if you really think it's of value.
• If they don't read the rules, will they read the No Fakes (which they need to do to understand the forum's definition of "Fake").

My post was intended as a constructive suggestion.

goldtop

Re sellers insisting on PPF&F, if you really REALLY want the specific item is for sale, offer an extra 4% to cover the PP fees for Goods & Services.

If the seller refuses, it's clear that it's not the PP fees he's trying to avoid - it's the chances of a chargeback. Walk away.

(That said for long-standing tFBers, I've sometimes used PPF&F. Also, some buyers here have sent payment that way without me asking.)