New trading scam - how best to warn folks?

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**Ketara**

Overread wrote:
Ketara wrote:
Snrub wrote:
Well that was a (un)pleasant jaunt down memory lane.
And a few hours of my life I'd probably rather have used in other pursuits.

Thanks for posting them, Malus.

As one of the people who had to deal with him (tracking down details, co-ordinating with Bartertown, etc), one of my fondest memories of that period was out-scamming Mandelbaum to get money back he'd initially scammed out of me.

The saddest thing as I recall is that Mandelbaum actually showed some skill with sculpting. If he'd gone legit chances are he'd have made more over the years than his badly put together scams generated.
Surprising how quiet he's been though, considering all the action in that thread I half expected to have heard of him starting up all over again under a whole host of new names and such.

Yeah, that was how he got me - his true scale terminators before anyone clocked it was him.

Mandelbaum suffered from some sort of severe psychiatric disorder, that much was clear. From the way he harassed Alpharius, to the way he reacted to being pinned down; he was clearly sociopathic but also not particularly bright. We pulled up stuff on his home life and his father was an equally petty criminal IIRC, so it may have been down to the upbringing. Which makes his missing the opportunity to go straight even sadder.

**techsoldaten**

Overread wrote:

Thing is its not too hard to envision.
Eg if the scammer goes after something popular and current they might advertise a really good price and thus get lots of replies. All they'd need is someone in the same region. Then the scammer can just have items delivered to "their place of work" which might be a work unit or somesuch that they've got access too.

Or there's always good old "I'm away at uni, so can you have it sent to my uni digs instead of my parents home, which is where my paypal is registered too" line.

Work or uni address, both very believable reasons for the paypal address not to match the address they want you to send things too. Wrap it up with some general conversation and such so it sounds sensible and its an easy way to con people.

You are right that a simple "I only send to paypal address" policy can avoid it, but a lot of people only trade now and then with most trades being, in general, positive experiences. So they might not become aware of scams, many won't even google "how to avoid scams" or such; they just make a listing, wait for a reply and trade.

You forgot this one: "I'm staying with my parents during lockdown."

That's a lot simpler to fall for, and probably the reason this is happening.