Scam alert....right here at home!!

[Melody Ranch]

I got this Email this AM. Obviously from the Forum here, So, watch out 'cause "they" are watching us. The header referenced the classified ad here in the Forums.

How are you today?

we have so many item in our company they are in good condition i will
like
to know the type you want because we sale in ship price in our company
if
interested send your full name ,and your phone number include your
address
so that we can be asure that you are real if you want we can send you
some
pic as soon as you tell us the type of item you want from us thanks we
wait
your reply as soon as possible ok

Thanks
Mr Lawrence

[Becky B.]

You would think they would learn proper English & spelling if they're going to try to scam you! Duh!?

[overlander63]

If anyone gets one of these pm's, please forward it immediately to any moderator that is online at the time you get it. If you didn't know, moderators are listed in bold in the "who's online" list at the bottom of the portal page.

[azflycaster]

The person who sent the email was identified as a spammer earlier this morning and permanently banned from the forums. The moderator staff spends a great amount of time identifying and removing these people from the forums, but unfortunately some do sneak through. As Terry has stated above, please report any items that you receive to any moderator if this should happen.

[Phil/Edee]

Thanks again, Moderators!!! We forget all you do behind the scenes....

[Melody Ranch]

AT-A-BOY!

You Guys are great!

[crispyboy]

Thank you Melody Ranch for the report and thank you Moderators for the watchful eye!!

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by beckybillrae

You would think they would learn proper English & spelling if they're going to try to scam you! Duh!?

Glad this troll has been eliminated from our forum, but you know, we have a program that my wife bought for less than $50 that translates five different languages from any one to another. They are: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German.

She bought it because she is a teacher and has several students whose parents are Hispanic and speak next to no English. I have used it to send Spanish e-mails to a Puerto Rican friend as a friendly gesture even though he speaks fluent English and he said it is very accurate in its translation. You'd think these scammers would invest in something that would translate their message into English so it wouldn't be a dead give away that they weren't on the up-and-up.

[overlander63]

If you go to Altavista, and use their free babelfish translation program, it will get you a translation that is close to what we have been seeing from the scammers.
If I were a scammer, the first thing I would bu from the proceeds of my first successful scam would be a better translation program than the freebie stuff, it's a dead giveaway.

[azflycaster]

The latest trend we have seen where I work is Russian spam. They do not even try to translate it into English. No one knows what they are selling. We have had to upgrade our spam filters to capture Russian spam. The first night that the new filter was in place it captured 31,000 spam emails. That averages out to 62 spam emails per email client.

[Rog0525]

Originally Posted by overlander63

If anyone gets one of these pm's,….

Originally Posted by azflycaster

The person who sent the email….

Was this a PM or an email? I ask because I see that some members are posting their email address in their classified ads. Scammers harvest email addresses from Internet ads wherever they find them (eBay included), then use those addresses for scam attempts. They even sell the addresses to other scammers. I never post my personal email address on any public site. I use a free Yahoo email address which cannot, in theory, be traced to my real identity and which also lessens the threat of being sent a virus, since the message is filtered through Yahoo’s computer rather than coming directly from a scammer’s computer. I say “in theory” because there have been reports of hackers successfully defeating Yahoo’s security system.
Email attachments from anyone you don’t know should never be opened, even on Yahoo. Maybe one of our resident computer gurus could explain this better than me, but I only use my personal email address for correspondence with family, friends and other trusted parties.
It’s sad but the Internet is loaded with these scammer jerks who delight in trying to devise new ways to cheat honest people out of their hard earned money. I believe this forums website is more scam resistant than most due to the diligence of the admins and mods, but I have the “Receive Email from Other Members” option disabled in my User CP as a safety precaution. We just can’t be too cautious in trying to avoid being scammed.

[overlander63]

Rog, it was an email sent through the "contact seller" link in a classified ad here on the forums. The pm spam/scam was not directly involved this time around.
If you do get one via email, you can pm a moderator to give you their email (we don't want to post our email addresses here either, for the spambot reason), and forward it to them with full headers, so we can see where the email originated. Many times a spammer or scammer will forge an email address to make you think it's safe to open.

[love vintage]

My rules are...if they ask personal info...do not reply, tag as spam... ALWAYS!

[pdq1203]

Originally Posted by overlander63

If anyone gets one of these pm's, please forward it immediately to any moderator that is online at the time you get it. If you didn't know, moderators are listed in bold in the "who's online" list at the bottom of the portal page.

Terry - I had always wondered about the bolded names and its meaning... thanks!
peter

[soldiermedic]

I received an email this morning from this scammer, but not a PM.

Steve

[goransons]

I also recieved one this morning, (2:41 AM)

9 streetside wing window
Hello
How are you today?
we have so many item in our company they are in good condition i will like to know the type you want because we sale in ship price in our company if interested send your full name ,and your phone number include your address so that we can be asure that you are real if you want we can send you some pic as soon as you tell us the type of item you want from us thanks we wait your reply as soon as possible ok
Thanks
Mr Lawrence
http://www.airstreamclassifieds.com/showproduct.php?product=4978