By default no one's email address is visible to the public, unless you shared it in a public field.
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Detecting Scammers in the Classifieds
- Thread starter rootdude
- Start date
Hi Michael!
I set up a test account to verify that my statement is correct.
First screenshot is my account now, after adjusting my Privacy settings.
Second screenshot is a test account I set up and checked the Privacy settings immediately after registering. As you can see, "All Visitors" can view my profile details.
Third screenshot are the account details that "All Visitors" can view - which includes my email address.
I should mention, that I use an iCloud service that creates email aliases for all online accounts I have to keep my email address unique and private to each website I register on - meaning the email address I have used to register here is unique - no one can find it unless the website allows it to be leaked. So, that person [email protected] got my email address from the forums here - before I noticed that my email address was exposed because the default settings do not make that information private to Members here.
I'm not posting this to cause any drama, but I believe that the default settings for new registrants should be changed at the very least, and perhaps those more restrictive permissions to account details can be applied site-wide to help close the door to this kind of data harvesting.
Any protection from scammers would be greatly appreciated @Michael and changing these settings would be helpful - as an Administrator the change should be trivial.
Thanks again for the awesome resource - I love the community here!
Regards,
Mark
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Kindly share where you think a viewer is shown a members information like an email address. As far as I know the only information presented is within the About section of a users profile (which does not include any field for an email address). Take for example the other Admistrator account. Here are the Privacy settings:
And here is what you should see on it's About page
Neither viewers nor members should have access to another members email address or their Privacy settings or Account Details. If you can see the email address associated with that Administrative account please specify exactly where you see it and share it here.
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Mark,
Thank You for sharing your expertise, I'm not internet saavy so some of your ideas I had no inkling of.
I'm new here, most of my experience is on firearm websites.
WTB ads are a scammer magnet. They're so bad I quit posting them a couple of years ago. At one point not all, but several of the WTB ads I posted got a response from one, sometimes more than one scammer.
Fake internet stores; A surprise to me was (a couple of years ago) I was looking to buy a Marlin Model 1894 in 357 Magnum. A google search turned up a store (supposedly in Alaska) that had what I was looking for. It was a new gun, in fact they had several Marlins. Red flags; 1.) the prices were too low, about what Marlin was charging before Remington bought them. 2.) Marlins in that model were not that plentiful. 3.) the Marlins advertised were out of production - how did they get so many of them(?) So I looked at payment methods... no credit cards, the only payments accepted were methods that you were unable to recover your funds due to fraud. Their web store was impressive. It looked like any other of the major storefronts (like Midway, Natchez, etc.). Looked to my IT naive eye like it took an incredible amount of work to build it.
Fake feedback; I saw this on Gunbroker. A guy selling something I was interested in, he had something like 11 or 12 positive feedback reviews. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I looked up his reviews and they were from the same 3 users. I checked their reviews, and he was posting positive reviews for his reviewers. So they were all the same person opening multiple Gunbroker accounts under different email & user names. Just a footnote, I contacted gunbroker, attached the ad and told them of this, crickets. Contacted them the next day, the next day, nothing from them and the ad was still up. The item sold, no way to contact the buyer - I gave up. They (Gunbroker) may have gotten better since then(?), I base this on contacting them recently about a non fraud issue and they responded within a day.
Username copycats; On another site I waste my life at, scammers were taking a known (by this I mean a frequent posters) username and adding one letter, digit or symbol at the end of it. The name looked familiar and people bought the item that the scammer had posted.
Hacked passwords; or that is at least what the 'real' user figured what happened, apparently the 'real' guy had used the same password on several forums. His account on another site was hacked and the scammer was able to log in to his account on the forum I was on and advertised some stuff. The 'Real' user saw the ad and posted to everyone that it was not him that posted the item, that he did not have any such thing for sale and not to send any money.
My method; I feel safer buying from a forum, because if the site has reviews I can look at those. I can see how long the user has been a member, most scammers are found out in short order and booted off of the site. If the seller is not known to me I will look up their posts to see if they look legitimate or not==> eg. often a 'real' member will have posted something, or even pictures of the item he is now selling, on the other hand a scammer often only post short cryptic answers that indicate they do not have any experience with or knowledge of the subject just to get their post count up, or only posts in the classifieds for instance.
Jerry
Thank You for sharing your expertise, I'm not internet saavy so some of your ideas I had no inkling of.
I'm new here, most of my experience is on firearm websites.
WTB ads are a scammer magnet. They're so bad I quit posting them a couple of years ago. At one point not all, but several of the WTB ads I posted got a response from one, sometimes more than one scammer.
Fake internet stores; A surprise to me was (a couple of years ago) I was looking to buy a Marlin Model 1894 in 357 Magnum. A google search turned up a store (supposedly in Alaska) that had what I was looking for. It was a new gun, in fact they had several Marlins. Red flags; 1.) the prices were too low, about what Marlin was charging before Remington bought them. 2.) Marlins in that model were not that plentiful. 3.) the Marlins advertised were out of production - how did they get so many of them(?) So I looked at payment methods... no credit cards, the only payments accepted were methods that you were unable to recover your funds due to fraud. Their web store was impressive. It looked like any other of the major storefronts (like Midway, Natchez, etc.). Looked to my IT naive eye like it took an incredible amount of work to build it.
Fake feedback; I saw this on Gunbroker. A guy selling something I was interested in, he had something like 11 or 12 positive feedback reviews. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I looked up his reviews and they were from the same 3 users. I checked their reviews, and he was posting positive reviews for his reviewers. So they were all the same person opening multiple Gunbroker accounts under different email & user names. Just a footnote, I contacted gunbroker, attached the ad and told them of this, crickets. Contacted them the next day, the next day, nothing from them and the ad was still up. The item sold, no way to contact the buyer - I gave up. They (Gunbroker) may have gotten better since then(?), I base this on contacting them recently about a non fraud issue and they responded within a day.
Username copycats; On another site I waste my life at, scammers were taking a known (by this I mean a frequent posters) username and adding one letter, digit or symbol at the end of it. The name looked familiar and people bought the item that the scammer had posted.
Hacked passwords; or that is at least what the 'real' user figured what happened, apparently the 'real' guy had used the same password on several forums. His account on another site was hacked and the scammer was able to log in to his account on the forum I was on and advertised some stuff. The 'Real' user saw the ad and posted to everyone that it was not him that posted the item, that he did not have any such thing for sale and not to send any money.
My method; I feel safer buying from a forum, because if the site has reviews I can look at those. I can see how long the user has been a member, most scammers are found out in short order and booted off of the site. If the seller is not known to me I will look up their posts to see if they look legitimate or not==> eg. often a 'real' member will have posted something, or even pictures of the item he is now selling, on the other hand a scammer often only post short cryptic answers that indicate they do not have any experience with or knowledge of the subject just to get their post count up, or only posts in the classifieds for instance.
Jerry
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#1 in my internet selling ............ SET YOUR TERMS & STICK TO THEM !!!!!
If someone argues, disagrees or wishes to change your terms is a Red Flag
Be confident enough to say NO Thank You and move along to another potential buyer.
If someone argues, disagrees or wishes to change your terms is a Red Flag
Be confident enough to say NO Thank You and move along to another potential buyer.
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When i sell a air gun,i put my e-mail address in the add under the pic. Scammers hake this. except on e-bay.
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WOW. So much info on scamming. I have sent stuff to Alaska, Florida and Comifornia. And everywhere in between. I have been so lucky. But I am careful. Thanks for the info.
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