Classifieds Transactions: Red Flags (2 Viewers)

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Ha, there's an outfit now that uses AI to answer scammers, pretending to be grannies and such, and ties them up for hours...
Yeah, pretty soon it'll be AIs trying to scam AIs, and half the world's power generation will be tied up in doing that. Welcome to the future...
 
So, the latest scammer game....

A classified is posted in the forum. You respond that you are interested. You AND the seller are REAL forum members, not scammers.

BUT, the scammer sees the classified, and uses AI/Google/whatever and chases down an email for you.....and you get an email that CLAIMS to be from that real forum member, emailing you regarding that item you want to buy, trying to get you to bite on a deal.

The email they use does NOT match their forum registration email. Their language, typing style, etc does not match what you can read on the forum from their past posts.

AGAIN, report report report!! REPORT! I did some digging today on a suspicious classified transaction via email and it was my "best guess" that it's a scammer impersonating one of our forum members OUTSIDE of the forum.

NEVER EVER post your phone number or email publicly. It IS worth doing a Google/etc search of your own phone/email/etc data and requesting it be removed (I do it all the time).


BTW: if you got this far, RE RE RE read post one.
 
So, the latest scammer game....

A classified is posted in the forum. You respond that you are interested. You AND the seller are REAL forum members, not scammers.

BUT, the scammer sees the classified, and uses AI/Google/whatever and chases down an email for you.....and you get an email that CLAIMS to be from that real forum member, emailing you regarding that item you want to buy, trying to get you to bite on a deal.

The email they use does NOT match their forum registration email. Their language, typing style, etc does not match what you can read on the forum from their past posts.

AGAIN, report report report!! REPORT! I did some digging today on a suspicious classified transaction via email and it was my "best guess" that it's a scammer impersonating one of our forum members OUTSIDE of the forum.

NEVER EVER post your phone number or email publicly. It IS worth doing a Google/etc search of your own phone/email/etc data and requesting it be removed (I do it all the time).


BTW: if you got this far, RE RE RE read post one.
This is a common scam on craigslist and marketplace. I cannot believe that it's leached into a landcruiser forum. I guess that just shows how big this site has become.
 
This is a common scam on craigslist and marketplace. I cannot believe that it's leached into a landcruiser forum. I guess that just shows how big this site has become.
How does a scamer insert themselves in between a real prospective buyer and real seller on CL?
 
How does a scamer insert themselves in between a real prospective buyer and real seller on CL?
My guess would be some folks who sell on CL don't use the CL provided e-mail anonymous option and put their regular e-mail and/or phone number in the ad.
 
A new one for me that caught me off guard on another forum I frequent... I have been conversing with an individual to sell some parts for another car I have. I thought it was odd that I received a new PM instead of keeping the original PM thread we had going. After a couple messages back and forth in this new thread, I realized that someone had created a username extremely similar to the actual and portrayed themselves as the other party. In my case, instead of a lowercase "l", they had replaced that single character with the number "1".

Stay on your toes, folks!
 
A new one for me that caught me off guard on another forum I frequent... I have been conversing with an individual to sell some parts for another car I have. I thought it was odd that I received a new PM instead of keeping the original PM thread we had going. After a couple messages back and forth in this new thread, I realized that someone had created a username extremely similar to the actual and portrayed themselves as the other party. In my case, instead of a lowercase "l", they had replaced that single character with the number "1".

Stay on your toes, folks!
Damn….. Thanks for the heads up.
 
I got one of these scammy emails today. I responded to a classified post last night and we talked over pm. While I was sleeping, I got an email from someone pretending to be the seller asking for my shipping info. Photos from the classified post were included. Mind you, me and the seller haven’t exchanged emails anywhere on this forum.

I did a little sleuthing this morning and found that I have published my email on this forum one time three years ago when I was selling something in the classifieds. I have since gone and edited that post.

This scammer goes by Gods Grace at godsgraces434@gmail.
 
Love the email address :rofl:
 
A new one for me that caught me off guard on another forum I frequent... I have been conversing with an individual to sell some parts for another car I have. I thought it was odd that I received a new PM instead of keeping the original PM thread we had going. After a couple messages back and forth in this new thread, I realized that someone had created a username extremely similar to the actual and portrayed themselves as the other party. In my case, instead of a lowercase "l", they had replaced that single character with the number "1".

Stay on your toes, folks!
Another example. This one actually tripped me up, I didn't realize the scammer just added an extra "r" at the end and truly thought it was the seller. Keep your eyes peeled, folks!

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1747329665585.png
 
Another example. This one actually tripped me up, I didn't realize the scammer just added an extra "r" at the end and truly thought it was the seller. Keep your eyes peeled, folks!

View attachment 3906822

View attachment 3906823
If scammers hired a 14 year old American kid to proofread then I would probably get scammed. The weird wording like "workout details" always raises a red flag to me.
 
If scammers hired a 14 year old American kid to proofread then I would probably get scammed. The weird wording like "workout details" always raises a red flag to me.
A large number of the regular forum members on here who have both spelling and more importantly grammar mistakes when they are born and raised in a country where English is the main language and its their first makes that proofread thing kinda pointless.

Just in the 100 series today I've run across more than 20 posts with grammatical/spelling errors.

The main one I've come to rely on is, do their replies match how they usually post. Do the grammar/spelling mistakes actually carry over?
 
A large number of the regular forum members on here who have both spelling and more importantly grammar mistakes when they are born and raised in a country where English is the main language and its their first makes that proofread thing kinda pointless.

Just in the 100 series today I've run across more than 20 posts with grammatical/spelling errors.

The main one I've come to rely on is, do their replies match how they usually post. Do the grammar/spelling mistakes actually carry over?

It's.

And commas are your friend ;)
 
Voice to text is the devil....
 

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