Good morning everyone. If you don’t already know the person or you can’t verify it through someone else that you know on this form, don’t do it and absolutely do not do business without PayPal.
I almost fell victim to a scammer this morning.
I replied to an item that was listed here for sale. I checked the person’s interactions here on the site and left him a message with my contact information. This morning I was contacted by someone other than the real seller. In other words, someone is intercepting the correspondence between members.
I had already put an end to it and told the person to sell it to someone else. Then out of the blue, the real seller called me and we figured it all out between the two of us.
Don’t know who should be contacted concerning this, or even what to do to avoid it?

 

 

Good for posting this.
Additionally, that name has been making rounds on other sites:

https://www.google.com/search?q=jabz...t=gws-wiz-serp

 

And....another

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...0/#post1662153

 

that is actually part of the interaction between me and the impostor.

 

That email addy has been involved in scamming for some time...IP: 45.8.19.46

https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=partne...m%2Fsearch&ss=

 

 

How is this even possible? How does this person intercept a private message?

 

Primarily via website s/w vulnerabilities.

 

 

So his name is supposedly Scott but his son‘s name is Abraham and they have different last names.

 

I have no affiliation with IB. One of the Moderators/Administrators will evaluate/research this activity. These little PI$$ANTS are everywhere. Even the IP address I identified is likely from a randomized anonymous VPN server. I know the IP address is associated with an ISP located in NYC, but that's about all I care to be involved with. Eventually, later rather than sooner, certain ISPs are flagged, as well. The invasive programs scammers employ evaluate website vulnerabilities. They're tough to catch, there are several to many programs aimed at reducing this type activity; yet, public forums remain a highly susceptible commodity for these PI$$ANTS. Mostly...I'd suggest this for anyone reading this post....never communicate with anyone via this or any public website. Communicate solely via your own private e-mail s/w. Never share contact information on any post on any public forum. Sorry this happens.

 

This has happened before. They look for email addresses posted within our site from off site.

 

I'll (politely) suggest it is far, far more than a simple scan of email addresses, but allow me to bring up the diametrically opposed reasoning associated with this IB implementation several weeks ago. IB changed the login credential box by inserting "(not email)" into the login GUI box. Yet, IB (www.classicoldsmobile.com) allows a user to create a member name using their email address. This is insane.

 

Actually , I had a discussion with IB about that and they said that the "not email" statement is going to be removed and email addresses are allowed.

 

That's a step in a positive direction. Honestly, what is needed is either a clear statement indicating the member name a user creates CANNOT be in the form of an e-mail address and/or if a user submits a member name which "is" an e-mail address, it is rejected. However, it's IB's decision to allow an email address as a member name. To be honest, that is not good practice on ANY secure website anywhere. IOW, hey - let's allow a member to broadcast to the entire internet their email address - think about it.

 

I agree

 

In my honest opinion, this sort of thing should be seen in general discussion.
You’re only looking for site help if you’ve already gone through the problem. I introduced this problem in the general discussion section in hopes to stop this from happening to someone else.

 

It does not matter where it is as most people click on "New Posts" when they log in because it brings up all of the new posts since they were on last. In addition, no matter how many warnings or stickies are placed within the site and it's headers, there still will be some that don't read them and fall victim anyways. Note, why not just let everyone post in the General section and do away with all the sub-forums?