Scammers! (username variants)

[Robin]

"This is something I am reproducing word for word. It may not be a problem here yet so this is just a heads up.
lease, please, PLEASE... pay close attention to usernames in the EE and/or PM concerning anything transaction related.

As I detailed in our Pest Control thread for Banned, Newly Registered nefarious types. There's a new tactic showing up. I'd followed up with pertnear (one of the good guys here) to advise him of what I'd found when someone tried to pirate his username and avatar when he registered by adding a PERIOD at the end of the username when registering.

Pertnear advised that he'd recently been involved in a transaction over on Cast Boolits Forum to sell an item. The buyer was contacted by the very same username I banned here today (Pertnear.) and that hoser tried to get the buyer to send HIM the money. The buyer noticed the low post count and smelled a rat.

The point is, this new tactic being used by SPAMMERS/SCAMMERS is to pirate a username by adding punctuation at the end of the username, pirating their avatar even. Please pay close attention to detail when conducting business with one another.

I've sent a heads-up further up our food chain with a request they do their level of thing with this one and to be aware of this new tactic.

Hopefully the new PITA steps we've added will assist us. I'm doing my best to check the list of new members daily and sniff up the ones that send red flags. That's how we nailed this one today. It was through his email address that flagged him as having a nefarious history on the Stop Forum Spam web site, and learning he's been using the same pirating tactic with a second username as well. That one hasn't shown up here.

Let's watch one anothers' backs folks. We have a great community of people here."

Robin

 

[Acer-m14]

and watch out for Cyrillic letters in the spelling

Important!!!! Spot the Difference?maybank2u.com is not the same as maybαnk2u.comcitibank.com is not the same as citibαnk.com(the first one is correct, the second one is from hackers)The "a" in the later url is a cyrillic alphabet. An average internet

teamst.st.gov.my

 

[HEX]

Just something I felt might be said about this particular methodology of scammers. While it's good advice in general to be aware of usernames, it's not something that's likely to happen on this site. I personally review and manually approve or deny every account that signs up here (other staff could, but it's generally my self-appointed job). Scammers can (but very rarely do) get through that process, but it's pretty dang unlikely that they'd get on the site with this slight variations in existing usernames thing in particular, because I'd obviously catch that. I don't think I've ever even seen it tried here actually; with the possible exeption of one I can remember that wasn't a scammer exactly, but rather a banned member trying to mess with another member.

This thread here discusses the type of scam you're most likley to encounter here (but I havent't even seen that in quite a long time now)
NYGF - Possible scammers in PMs: Very low risk alert, but be aware and let us know.

As I say there, it's quite rare a scammer gets thouugh the approval process to get on the site, but it is possible that they have no red flags at all and so occasionally do. The thing you want to watch for is people PM'ing you and offering good deals for which they want you to contact them somehow off of the site (generally via email). This specific thing of people imitating usernames of those you know though, sure.. you should always keep an eye out, but it's REALLY unlikely to ever be encountered here (at least while I'm so closely monitoring new accounts that require manual approval before they can do anything on the site).