A shout out and thanks to member @areuuvee for calling this one to our attention. You may recall that I made an announcement almost 3 weeks ago about a scammer with the username Apollo, who was banned for trying to scam our members selling a CZ Shadow 2 Optics Ready at an amazing price. Well, finarfin was from the same scammer nest, and was dumb enough to use the exact same pictures Apollo used.
Fortunately member areuuvee caught it and reported it. finarfin has been banned from the forum, and a thorough search of his IP addresses turned up two more scammers who were going by the names Anthony James and James Peter, also associated with one of finarfin’s IP addresses, likely more sock puppet accounts. Both were banned, as they were easily found out by matching the text of their initial posts through a Google search to other forum posts years ago on other boards. It turns out that the text used in those initial posts were associated with scams perpetrated across multiple boards, mostly on various automotive forums. These scammers are not all that hard to figure out, folks –
all by yourselves.
If you see a deal that looks enticing, take the photos that were posted in the ad and run them through Google lens. If you find them posted elsewhere, especially if it was sometime ago, that is a serious red flag.
You can also go to the seller’s post list, and copy and paste the text from some of their posts into a Google search box in quotation marks. If the posts pop up verbatim on other boards years ago, you are likely dealing with a scumbag from a third world country trying to steal your hard earned money.
If there is any question at all, please report suspicious activity to our team; we play Whack a Mole with these toilet ticks on a regular basis. It feels good to catch them before they manage to rip anyone off, this time it was a win with 3 criminals banned, and so far, no reported losses.
DrGunner
RFC Administrator & Consigliere
Fortunately member areuuvee caught it and reported it. finarfin has been banned from the forum, and a thorough search of his IP addresses turned up two more scammers who were going by the names Anthony James and James Peter, also associated with one of finarfin’s IP addresses, likely more sock puppet accounts. Both were banned, as they were easily found out by matching the text of their initial posts through a Google search to other forum posts years ago on other boards. It turns out that the text used in those initial posts were associated with scams perpetrated across multiple boards, mostly on various automotive forums. These scammers are not all that hard to figure out, folks –
all by yourselves.
If you see a deal that looks enticing, take the photos that were posted in the ad and run them through Google lens. If you find them posted elsewhere, especially if it was sometime ago, that is a serious red flag.
You can also go to the seller’s post list, and copy and paste the text from some of their posts into a Google search box in quotation marks. If the posts pop up verbatim on other boards years ago, you are likely dealing with a scumbag from a third world country trying to steal your hard earned money.
If there is any question at all, please report suspicious activity to our team; we play Whack a Mole with these toilet ticks on a regular basis. It feels good to catch them before they manage to rip anyone off, this time it was a win with 3 criminals banned, and so far, no reported losses.
DrGunner
RFC Administrator & Consigliere
Thanks.
