For Sale BUYER BEWARE Zelle

[rhwestfall]

And the worst part is decent folks are being portrayed at criminals because someone has hacked their identity. These have been some stand up folks you would be able to trust. And they know nothing is happing in the sake of their username......

 

[The Chairman]

And they know nothing is happing in the sake of their username......

Until we contact them. Andy is a great friend of mine. His account has been recovered.

You guys are smart. You're smarter than this turd. He tries to scam using a different UserID and I get alerted within minutes. You've only missed one, but it's an odd offering and no one is interested in it. If a deal is too good to be true... it is. It just is. Doesn't matter where you find it, either. So, keep on ratting this guy out.

 

[The Chairman]

We are going to put an announcement into the classifieds. You'll get to see it once and it will disappear. Let me know what y'all think of this...

Buyer beware! We have had a scammer hit ScubaBoard and he's been quite pernicious, assuming names of people we know. It's important that you become very leery of doing business with anyone you don't personally know, even if it seems they have a long history here. I do suggest that you take the time to protect your account and change your password, which should be done periodically anyway. He has a preference for Zelle (which may change) and posts deals that are too good to be true. So, we will remind you of a few things to do in order to keep yourself from being scammed...

• If at all possible, make the final deal in person
• If you must do it over the interwebs, use PayPal
  • Do NOT use the "Friends and Family" option
• Avoid using payment options like Zelle that have no way of recovering your money
• Check the pics being used via Google
  • Ask for a recent pic with a date
• Abort and report the sale if the seller becomes aggressive or abusive
• He will change his pattern as he continues to fail, so be smarter than him
• If a price that seems to be too good to be true usually is
• It's smarter to patronize businesses that advertise on SB anyway
• Report any suspicious activity ASAP
  • We will not arbitrate any deals
  • We will ban anyone who seems to be a scammer

 

[Akimbo]

You'll get to see it once and it will disappear. Let me know what y'all think of this...

Good idea but you might want to also post it in Site News in case someone wants to go back and read it after some days have passed.

Abort the sale if the seller becomes aggressive or abusive

And report it!

An price that seems to be too good to be true usually is

Typo, Any not An.

 

[lexvil]

This is going to mess with selling but that’s better than someone getting ripped off. Does the hacker also have access to the PM’s of the hacked account? Do we have any idea of where this hacker is located?

 

[The Chairman]

This is going to mess with selling but that’s better than someone getting ripped off.

We have actually contemplated just closing Classifieds. That seemed unreasonable.

Does the hacker also have access to the PM’s of the hacked account?

He does.

Do we have any idea of where this hacker is located?

Nigeria?

 

[BalekFekete]

We have actually contemplated just closing Classifieds. That seemed unreasonable.

Glad (it seems) that the decision was not made to follow that route. I've secured a good amount of my equipment via the Classified section and think - with a good dose of common sense and simple rules...many of which you've laid out - people can keep themselves relatively safe in the online transactions. Frankly, the alternatives (i.e. FB Marketplace or Craigslist) carry far more risk normally than what I've seen here over my limited tenure with the group.

 

[OTF]

I understand if this sort of thing can't be answered as it might compromise whatever investigation/defense is happening but I'm very curious...

Is this person phishing login details, guessing easy passwords, or actually using some sort of exploit in the website or forum software?

Normalizing the request of timestamped pictures might be a good idea if this is a persistent issue around here.

For what it's worth I've had nothing but great experiences in the SB classifieds section and it's an incredibly valuable resource that makes quality dive gear a little bit more accessible.

 

[lexvil]

We have actually contemplated just closing Classifieds. That seemed unreasonable.

He does.

Nigeria?

If I was to just guess it would be Ukraine or Russia as they seem to be the leaders in hacking, can you isolate the IP and block it?

 

[The Chairman]

Is this person phishing login details,

It's our belief that they got hold of a user/password dump from another (hacked) site. A few Scuba related sites have disappeared, but their databases still exist somewhere. They simply needed to Google those usernames and they came here. Many, many people keep the same username and password between sites year after year, so they luck out and can now pose as someone they aren't. They've been frustrated on SB so far and since they've seen no benefit hopefully, they'll move on to something more productive. The users of ScubaBoard are our first and best defense. It's hard to get something over on you guys. Stay frosty. Change your password often and use a password manager like "Free Pass" to keep track of multiple passwords. And please: report things if you suspect anything. I was asked by one user about a sale, and I actually knew the person whose account was hacked. Oh hell no!