***SCAMS ON EXPO*** BEWARE!!!

nyyankees588

Active member
Also FYI - the whole "I have a friend with ____ item" is a regularly used bit. I've had people try to use that specific bit on me on other forums. Sucks that it happened... I've typically relied on asking for photos of the actual product and usually scammers won't be able to send detailed photos of the product that you are actually trying to buy. Sounds like they've gotten smarter.
 

Ovrlnd Rd

Adventurer
They're also selling your info. I had one on here a couple of months back and he asked for my phone number. Now I'm getting spammed with a bunch of porn site garbage texts (and no I didn't get it from going to one of those sites) and as soon as I block one number 20 more start texting me. And it was all from "I've got a friend..."
 

lstamatis

Overland Traveler
Thanks guys. I do appreciate your comments and I've definitely learned my lesson. It was early in the morning and my brain didn't get any caffeine yet. I did ask for multiple photos which he provided. The pics were in the same room but different location. I wish there was more I could do to raise awareness to this. I would hate for others to lose their hard earned money as I have.
 

Christian P.

Expedition Leader
Staff member
Just fyi - not to put the last nail in the coffin...but the last registered I.P. address for this user was in Nigeria...the ones before were all over the place in the USA.

Truly sorry.
 

woody

New member
Just fyi - not to put the last nail in the coffin...but the last registered I.P. address for this user was in Nigeria...the ones before were all over the place in the USA.

Truly sorry.

I have been largely successful in blocking them on 'MUD in recent months. Email me and I can forward some of my settings. :)

Login Spaminator
Registration Spaminator (which BTW auto-blocks over 200 attempts daily)
Signup abuse detection and blocking (with some aggressive settings)

Requires daily reviews of the Spam Triggers log, manually checking any Registration Strings that include "Africa/Algiers"

New registrations frequently remain stuck in the Approval Que for a day or three to monitor their IP history. In EVERY case, one of their recent IP's is from Nigeria. There are also a number of consistencies in their registration emails and usernames.

I gave up on Stop Forum Spam - waste of time.

BTW: I've put a warning notice at the top of MUD Classifieds to an Announcement thread. Reset the "dismissal" notice every few months so members remember to read it again. Only shown to logged in/approved user accounts, one more hoop for the scammers to get thru before they can easily find it :)

Edit: I've been monitoring new users and their activity. A sizable number joined to contact a Vendor about a product. "Blocking" new registration PM permissions (super simple via Usergroup promotion settings) means those new members need to post 5 or 10 or 50 "junk" posts before they can contact a Vendor. IMO, not a great solution. Signal to noise ratio is already challenging enough.
 
Last edited:

lstamatis

Overland Traveler
I have been largely successful in blocking them on 'MUD in recent months. Email me and I can forward some of my settings. :)

Login Spaminator
Registration Spaminator (which BTW auto-blocks over 200 attempts daily)
Signup abuse detection and blocking (with some aggressive settings)

Requires daily reviews of the Spam Triggers log, manually checking any Registration Strings that include "Africa/Algiers"

New registrations frequently remain stuck in the Approval Que for a day or three to monitor their IP history. In EVERY case, one of their recent IP's is from Nigeria. There are also a number of consistencies in their registration emails and usernames.

I gave up on Stop Forum Spam - waste of time.

BTW: I've put a warning notice at the top of MUD Classifieds to an Announcement thread. Reset the "dismissal" notice every few months so members remember to read it again. Only shown to logged in/approved user accounts, one more hoop for the scammers to get thru before they can easily find it :)

Edit: I've been monitoring new users and their activity. A sizable number joined to contact a Vendor about a product. "Blocking" new registration PM permissions (super simple via Usergroup promotion settings) means those new members need to post 5 or 10 or 50 "junk" posts before they can contact a Vendor. IMO, not a great solution. Signal to noise ratio is already challenging enough.
Thanks for all you do Woody and thanks for taking the time to care.
 

Christian P.

Expedition Leader
Staff member
I have been largely successful in blocking them on 'MUD in recent months. Email me and I can forward some of my settings. :)

Login Spaminator
Registration Spaminator (which BTW auto-blocks over 200 attempts daily)
Signup abuse detection and blocking (with some aggressive settings)

Requires daily reviews of the Spam Triggers log, manually checking any Registration Strings that include "Africa/Algiers"

New registrations frequently remain stuck in the Approval Que for a day or three to monitor their IP history. In EVERY case, one of their recent IP's is from Nigeria. There are also a number of consistencies in their registration emails and usernames.

I gave up on Stop Forum Spam - waste of time.

BTW: I've put a warning notice at the top of MUD Classifieds to an Announcement thread. Reset the "dismissal" notice every few months so members remember to read it again. Only shown to logged in/approved user accounts, one more hoop for the scammers to get thru before they can easily find it :)

Edit: I've been monitoring new users and their activity. A sizable number joined to contact a Vendor about a product. "Blocking" new registration PM permissions (super simple via Usergroup promotion settings) means those new members need to post 5 or 10 or 50 "junk" posts before they can contact a Vendor. IMO, not a great solution. Signal to noise ratio is already challenging enough.


Woody - thanks for the info and glad to see you around! I'll look into all that next week.
 

sabjku

Observer
Always reccomend searching the username on google for other forums too. If you search mcalvin318 on google many other scams on other forums come up.

Sorry for you loss.

This right here. Exactly what I do. I've had a couple of run-ins with people on here attempting the same thing.

OP, sorry to hear about that. Your heart was in the right place, wanting to trust someone, but it's a shame that not everyone is trustworthy. Hopefully he'll get back to you and do the right thing.
 

utherjorge

Observer
On the other hand, I was able to score some weird auto parts from Mexico (I was able to get him/her to use PayPal, so that was good) and not only were they sent fast, he also sent some Mexican candy along, which I will certainly not eat

YMMV
 

woody

New member
Woody - thanks for the info and glad to see you around! I'll look into all that next week.
I also have an XF plugin in development that will track problem IP's/countries (admin selected) and create an Admin Report that can be reviewed. Part of that also includes "whitelisting" users who trigger the report but are "real". I'll keep you posted as that comes together, hoping to see it in the next few days and start testing.
 

eblau

Adventurer
I fell like Venmo/ Zelle has opened the floodgates for this type of fraud. Its only a matter of time before these pay services are forced to add some sort of protection for buyers. Its ridiculously easy to con someone with literally ZERO recourse for the victim.
 

Huntermac

New member
Hey Folks, I wanted to bring it to your attention that I was just scammed through this website. I had posted on someone's thread that I was interested in an ARB jack that was already sold and was contacted through DM by a member of the name of mcalvin318 stating that he had a friend that had one for sale for the same price ($600) including shipping. Really needing it for a trip coming up I agreed to send him $600 through Zelle after he sent me another picture of the jack at a different angle to which he complied. It felt safe and I have had other successful transactions through this website previously so I wasn't overly concerned. Well, I sent off the $600 and he didn't ship it yesterday as promised. He then contacted me today after countless emails to him and said that shipping was going to be expensive and demanded another $150 to cover shipping. I refused and asked for my money back and that's the end of the story. No more responses from him.

He goes by the name of Martin Calvin and had me send payment to the email address blazinbladesllc@yahoo.com. That said, I would not recommend buying products through the Classified section of this website unless it's an in-person deal. Very sad and $600 is a lot of money to me. Lesson learned.

-Leon
Did you get your money back?
 

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