Another attempted scam

I advertised in the "Wanted" section of this website for a 918 lathe and today received an e-mail from some character in Belarus offering me such a lathe. He sent a series of photos which I recognised as the same series accompanying such a lathe for sale on eBay. I have no reason to suspect the bona fide of the eBay seller, who has a good record and conclude that this is just another crude attempt at a scam with the infernal cheek to try it on on "our" site

Mick

hi mick

I had a similar email from Belarus offering me a mill I had advertised for months ago but I realised straight away it was a scam and deleted it

geoff

Just a thought.....would the scammer need to open an "account" to get access to the wanted ads or are they available to all comers?

Mick

Ditto, a lady from Belarus responded to my wanted offer - blocked ASAP.

No account needed I'm afraid. I'll post a sticky warning.

Neil

Yep, guess we have all been contacted. Belarus lady wanted to buy a 'For sale' item. Thought it a bit iffy.

Strangely enough she also had the exact size of copper tube I had placed a wanted ad on here for as well.

Phil

Neil,

... No account needed I'm afraid. I'll post a sticky warning...

I've just looked up a wanted ad. without logging in and no details are available - it says "log-in to see details". Once logged in to my account, then email is available along with any other contact info supplied by the advertiser.

CotswoldsPhil

Neil there is already a warning about scammers when a member goes to enter a for sale or wanted add.

Just to clarify what I think Neil was saying is that anyone can view the adds but you do need to register to be able to contect the seller/wanter, there is no moderation of people just joining its only when they first post to teh forum they get approved or not.

I probably spend about 3/4 hour per day total in two or three sessions sorting the ads out for the homeworkshop site.

One plus point on this site is that every ad has to be approved before it becomes public so you don't get to see tall the Bulgarian crap that gets posted but having said that it doesn't stop the direct replies which we never see or have any control over. It does help that I ban whole foreign ISP's

Lets face it who is going to deal with someone who sounds shady, will need ooddles of shipping costs.

They glean these pictures from the like of Ebay, if you are not certain ask for a picture taked from a certain angle, back, side etc. No way they can do this if they don't have the goods. Ask for a rule to be included in the picture,

Most of these scams are that transparent though that they stick out like a sore thumb