Really sorry to hear this
truth is that deal looked so good I thought about buying it

 

I am super upset about this situation and the bad timing as I have not been very active on the forum recently due to too much work after coming back from a family trip.
Never experienced this before so now I am mega paranoid and working on changing all my passwords to those long ones created automatically instead.
I still hope someone can offer some advice about anything that can be done to report this and find out who that scumbag is.
So sorry, man :/

 

I am super upset about this situation and the bad timing as I have not been very active on the forum recently due to too much work after coming back from a family trip.
Never experienced this before so now I am mega paranoid and working on changing all my passwords to those long ones created automatically instead.
I still hope someone can offer some advice about anything that can be done to report this and find out who that scumbag is.
So sorry, man :/

I want to know how someone got your password. What was the exact vulnerability, etc. And why didn't they change it to lock you out.

I'll be changing mine.

 

@imakeller did you pay with credit card through PayPal F&F? If so, can file a claim with credit card company.

 

No, it was paid from my bank account. It hurts being scammed out of hard earned money, but karma is a b*****, as they say. People that go through life like that never win in the end.

 

With AI, scams like this are only going to get more sophisticated. Get ready for a believable version of Luis--or a close family member--to chat with you on the phone as part of a scam.

 

I normally ask for a short video of the unit with a sticky name with my name but with AI getting more advanced it will get harder and harder to tell reality from fake for sure :/

 

Also, admin mods can likely see the IP addressed used by the scammer, although I’d doubt that would be of any benefit cause they’ll likely be using a VPN or masked IP or something

 

Even though you used Friends and Family, try contacting your bank or card company. They may be able to refund you.

 

I will go to my bank tomorrow morning to see if I can file a fraud claim. If they can do anything, I know they will.

 

Also fyi regarding a picture of the item and user name / date … I’ve even heard of those being faked lately, so that’s not really a good option anymore

“Safest” (but probably still not fully safe) option out there is basically credit card via PayPal G&S, that way it’s two sources of intervention / dispute if needed.

 

Great advice!

 

So sorry to hear of this @imakeller . Fwiw, in the past I offered to pay the extra 3% to not use F&F. Unsurprisingly, the seller didn't reply.
Just something to keep in mind.

 

I like that approach!

 

@Luis Gabriel Gerena

Was the recent iPhone 17 Pro ad also a fake? That looked real as well.

 

@Luis Gabriel Gerena

Was the recent iPhone 17 Pro ad also a fake? That looked real as well.

Yes I haven't posted anything for sale in a while and never even had a single apple product :/

 

I could have refused to use PP F&F.

Another forum I frequent, that is their policy for anything advertised there, no Friends & Family. So sorry about your $1000. All these scammers should be put on the rack, have thing slices opened all over their skin, coated with honey, then let the fire ants loose. Their screams would be music to my ears...

 

Agree. I watch a lot of those romance scam catfish youtube videos etc. While many of the people there is hard to feel pity for, the ones that hurt are when they take advantage of the elder robbing them of life savings. Skin them alive...I am all for that!

 

I think the real question that needs to be asked here is HOW the scammer got into Luis's account on here.
Is there a vulnerability in this forum's systems that could affect anyone, or was it just some kind of carelessness on Luis's part?
Not trying to single him out, but if even extra careful users could be targeted, we need to know.

 

I'm a member of another Verticlescope forum where scams like this are prevalent. The members on there are adamant about NEVER using friends and family. No matter what. Even between long term members.

Another good recommendation when buying somewhat expensive items is to exchange phone numbers and chat for a second on the phone. I've bought a couple nice/expensive items on ebay and did that both times. Legit sellers will have NO problem giving you their number. One of the items I bought was from a guy who scammed a lot of people on there before I knew about him. Maybe because we chatted on the phone, I got exactly what I bought in the exact condition he listed. He knew I knew who he was.

 

Ugh, I am so sorry to read this. I hope you can take it in stride, and write it off to a $1,000 class in modern online self-protection.

 

Thank you. I’m usually on guard with fake listings or sketchy sellers, but the whole account hacking angle blindsided me.

 

So sorry about this. But I still believe it ain't your fault.

 

Normally if a marketplace listing asks for Friends and Family payment it will be reported, and removed
I still think OP has recourse to PayPal since fraud was involved

 

Unfortunately, when I tried PayPal said “As this is a ‘Friends and family‘ payment and is not covered by Purchase Protection, you won‘t be able to file purchase-related cases on it.” I will be visiting my bank this morning to see if there’s anything they can do.

 

Based on the above, it seems that between insisting on talking to the seller on the phone and paying through a credit card [directly or via Paypal] we would have considerably more protection. Until this post, the concept of someone accessing an AVS user account who has been a regular user to execute a scam is an idea that never occurred to me. I will also be changing my password when I finish typing this.

 

Yes, the “identity theft” definitely lowered my guard. I don’t know if Luis has any idea how this could have happened. Maybe someone has access to one of his devices? It seems so out-of-left-field, but scammers get more creative every day.

 

That sucks. Sorry to hear that.

 

Sorry to hear about this...

I was hacked about a month ago for a few hours. The guy was posting nasty comments on a ton of threads and later emailed me asking for crypto to stop. I had the password saved in google and there was a data breach at some point so they got it from there. This was totally on me as I forgot to change the AVS password which was saved there even though I changed almost every other password for other sites.

I sell quite a bit on here including to @imakeller recently and hate this happened to him. I would agree with @rcohen and others:

Change your AVS password and use 2FA and Use a good password manager.

A request I've been getting from scammers who have taken over accounts or new accounts is to take a picture of the item with their username on a post-it note. They will take this and use it on other sites with your item so I'd warn against doing this.

 

Change your AVS password and use 2FA.

2FA is necessary for anything financial. That helps security a ton, since both would have to be hacked.
When there's not money involved for hackers to profit from, it's up to you whether that's worth the inconvenience.
When using a password manager, simply strong unique passwords are no inconvenience beyond changing your password once.

Aside from having something real to lose for financial-related accounts, another key difference is that hackers have something to gain.
Really, anything where hackers can gain something, like classified sections or games that support gifting.

 

I had never changed my password for this site since I first joined AVS back in 2005. Due to this topic I just changed my AVS password. Banking, investment and money app passwords I change and use 2FA, but I had never really thought about forums like this so I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread today.

 

Well, I went to my bank about this. They opened a dispute, which now gets reviewed by the “back office.” The bank will contact PayPal. They said based on past experience with my method of payment it’s unlikely that PayPal will accept the dispute. However, the back office will also consider that I am a good customer of the bank. They said I should have paid with a credit card and not used PayPal F&F (I know, I know!). They also shared a couple of horror stories (no names, etc) about identity theft, account hacking, and fraud. Yikes.

 

might it be appropriate for AVS members to take up a fund to reimburse the OP?
I would contribute

 

I would contribute!

i just sold a center channel to an AVSer and instead of sending him a Paypal invoice, I PAID the member and it was north of 3K. The member sent me a refund right away but that could have been ugly real fast. It has restored a little faith in people. It cost the member 100 bucks to refund me, I was happy to pay him for his trouble. This fraud stuff makes me sick. I live in Minneapolis and the fraud with the state funded programs are out of control. What kind of world do we live in?

 

Well, I went to my bank about this. They opened a dispute, which now gets reviewed by the “back office.” The bank will contact PayPal. They said based on past experience with my method of payment it’s unlikely that PayPal will accept the dispute. However, the back office will also consider that I am a good customer of the bank. They said I should have paid with a credit card and not used PayPal F&F (I know, I know!). They also shared a couple of horror stories (no names, etc) about identity theft, account hacking, and fraud. Yikes.

It sounds like they might take care of you. I was thinking, anytime I have a long-standing financial relationship with some company, they go the extra mile. I had computer speakers porch-bandited last year, and Amazon just covered it without needing any proof or anything.

might it be appropriate for AVS members to take up a fund to reimburse the OP?
I would contribute

I was just thinking about this too. I would contribute as well.

 

Very sorry to hear this. I alwys suggest that you speak to the buyer and ask for references incding address and phone number.
This is one of the worst incidents that I have heard of on AVS. You can also ask the buyer if he or she will accept Pay Pay if you pay the 3%.

 

That recommendation on the buyer eating the 3% is a good idea and probably one that's worth doing. I recently bought something using F&F and could have been screwed but thankfully wasn't. If someone is only willing to take F&F even though there is no fee for them, it's probably a sign that you shouldn't do that transaction.

 

AVS is a victim of its own success with regard to the marketplace; I am glad that most transactions are completed successfully. I see a large number of new sign ups to AVS that are only interested in access to the free service.

I am trying to convince AVS that we could do more to warn/protect about Marketplace fraud, but they claim little more can be done

 

I am trying to convince AVS that we could do more to warn/protect about Marketplace fraud, but they claim little more can be done

I see that statement a bit differently:

This is from the Kaleidescape User Forum: "Marketplaces Free for buyers, but paid membership required to be a seller here."

Or, AVS could require some specific time period that someone must be member; or maybe a specific number of posts - or all of the above which I would be in favor of.

The above notwithstanding, we as buyers and sellers still must still do our own checks to insure we are not about to get taken advantage of. I was on the wrong end of a fraudulent AVS transaction some time ago. I was too anxious to sell what I was selling and I didn't do my due diligence. That won't happen again.

 

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