The past week we have a scammer actively targeting users with open WTB threads. They are sending these users a PM, telling them to email a person who has it.
In response to this, we take over the account and login as the scammer and send all the users a message to notify them this is a scam. We have seen a range of responses where people identify this as suspicious and reject dealing off the forums, but we also have users excitedly replying and saying thanks for the tip.
Here are some examples of the messages being sent:
So what can we do about this? The first step is reporting these messages using the built in report feature so we can shut this down as fast as possible.
This report button is on every conversation / private message, along with posts. This is the best way to let the admins and moderators know about the problem.
The three scam accounts we had this week were quickly reported by several of our outstanding users, so thank you to them for letting us know.
We have a couple ideas how to try and prevent this; there are all kinds of restrictions and hoops we can create -- but scammers will jump through them. We need to educate users as best we can. The leading idea I have so far is to have the conversation threads show a warning message when a new / low reputation user messages you with anything sus, like an email address. Still some more to think about, but hopefully we can implement some kind of solution shortly that doesn't make using the site more difficult for legit users.
In response to this, we take over the account and login as the scammer and send all the users a message to notify them this is a scam. We have seen a range of responses where people identify this as suspicious and reject dealing off the forums, but we also have users excitedly replying and saying thanks for the tip.
Here are some examples of the messages being sent:
So what can we do about this? The first step is reporting these messages using the built in report feature so we can shut this down as fast as possible.
This report button is on every conversation / private message, along with posts. This is the best way to let the admins and moderators know about the problem.
The three scam accounts we had this week were quickly reported by several of our outstanding users, so thank you to them for letting us know.
We have a couple ideas how to try and prevent this; there are all kinds of restrictions and hoops we can create -- but scammers will jump through them. We need to educate users as best we can. The leading idea I have so far is to have the conversation threads show a warning message when a new / low reputation user messages you with anything sus, like an email address. Still some more to think about, but hopefully we can implement some kind of solution shortly that doesn't make using the site more difficult for legit users.
