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I recieved a mesage from a Dakka user today......

C wrote:
hi, sorry for the random message, but i wanted to ask if you'd auctioned your army on miniaturebids.com, as an auction has just finished on there using your pictures of the army, but being put about by a jason benz. the auction url is as follows: https://miniaturebids.com/auctions/games-workshop/apocolypse-sized-tyranid-army-speed-auction/?bid_posted=1
if you knew about it, then i apologise for wasting your time, but having seen it, i thought it best to point out to you, in case it is someone using your pictures to try and scam people

This was indeed a scam! I have no intention of selling this army and have no idea who Jason Benz is! Is the name familiar to any of you, can you shed any light on this?
I've contacted the site and seller and made a note on the auction.
Looks like the buyer hasn't paid yet so that's good news and MB seem to have the matter inhand.
MB wrote:
Hi,
Thanks for you email.
We are already aware of the issue. The buyer has not paid for the item and is aware it is fake.
We are working on a new process to try and stop these auctions being created.
Many thanks for your email on the matter, we appreciate you taking the time to contact us.
Regards
Gavin

I'd like to warn Dakka and the community in general and say thanks to C for the warning.
Now i'm not quite sure what 'new process' MB can implement to stop this but hopefully it works.
Is it getting to the point that everyone should be watermarking/copyrighting every image they ever place on the internet?

So basicaly, this was a close call with the only damage being done was disapointment of the buyer who thought he just won £2,000+ worth of models for £180 and perhaps a slight blot on the reputation of that army/myself?.

Anyway, thanks for reading and be careful out there.

Gah this is disappointing to see. Try and get the word out about this...

Yes, bumping to spread the word with the somewhat off-topic point that you have a lovely army there, by the way

Thanks guys.

 Bull0 wrote:
off-topic point that you have a lovely army there, by the way

Cheers, here's some newer/better pics of it and some more additions.... http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/555458.page
I wonder if the 'auction' could have broken the £200 mark if the fraudster had used those.

I guess its a salutatory reminder that, in the words of the old song, the fundamental things apply, especially when trading online. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. A healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism are vital when trading - question everything and do your research.

I hope miniature bids get a grip on it - its nice to see something coming up to challenge the ebay hegemony and offer a tempting alternative to buy and sell miniatures but it needs to be safe. Paypal adds some protection, make sure you complete it by thinking carefully before hitting that bid button.

Might be worth keeping an eye on your army. Something similar happened to someone I know, a scroat was selling it with a view of stealing it after it had sold on ebay

 jimbolina25 wrote:
Might be worth keeping an eye on your army. Something similar happened to someone I know, a scroat was selling it with a view of stealing it after it had sold on ebay

A friend had exactly the same situation.

Only rather than an army it was his almost new BMW M3!

How dreadful! What a good thing you found the scam and put a stop to it.

Perhaps we ought to start watermarking all our original pictures.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
How dreadful! What a good thing you found the scam and put a stop to it.

Perhaps we ought to start watermarking all our original pictures.

Its a good idea. We have similar attempts in the Swap Shop with people trying to pass other's armies off as their own.

Hi all,

Yes, it saddens me to say we had this issue on our lovely new auction site. It made me sick to the stomach to know someone has used the site in this way and someone else almost fell prey to them. I can say it was not the only auction created that we caught to be fake.

We now have the new process in place to deal with these.

Before I go on to explain the new process, one thisn we do with some auctions that look 'to good to be true' is to use the image URL with google's search for image feature to find other images similar to it. We do this on ANY auction an admin feels may be a bit iffy and if you find the image on line elsewhere, a quick post to ask if it's them selling it clears things up. Unfortunately, the one this thread is about was raised whilst we were asleep (I need some sleep now and then) and was a 'flash auction' as it was set to run for about 6 hours I believe.

So, if you see an auction and think it's too good to be true, just using Google's Image search function can shed some light on it.

So, what have we done to combat this? Basically, we have now introduced two user account types. Unverified and Verified.

When you create your account, it is unverified. Whilst unverified you are unable to create auctions but you can bid on them.

Once you verify your account you are free to create auctions at your whim for free as before. How do you become verified? You can find the full details here: https://miniaturebids.com/account-types/

But in a nut shell, once registered, you send us a PayPal payment of 0.01 via paypal. You need to do this from the PayPal account you added to your MB account. When you send this, you need to ensure you DO NOT mark it as 'Shipping not required' and you include you MB username in the comments.

We will then compare the PayPal email address and shipping address from the payment to the corresponding values in the account you specified. If they all match, we will set your account as verified. If they don't, we will let you know.

We will then refund the payment back to you.

Before anyone asks, when you create your account, you need to specify you PayPal address. Once created, you can not change the PayPal address without contacting an admin. In doing so, your account becomes unverified again.

By doing this, we can ensure the MB account has a real PayPal account assigned to it. This means we can make sure potential buyers will be covered by PayPal's protection AS LONG as the buyer follows PayPals guidelines. It also means to use the site for fraud, you need to use a verified PayPal account which means there is much more solid evidence to pass to the authorities.

Watermarking images is a great idea though, always better to be safe than sorry. No matter what we do, someone will try and pull a fast one. I've been caught by a fake seller on eBay (not gaming related funny enough) but was protected by PayPal so was OK.

We hope this doesn't put anyone off using MiniatureBids.com.

Oh, as a side note.... You can now bring your hard earned eBay rating over to your MB account. We will add it to your account as an 'external feedback' score to sit alongside your MB feedback.

Thanks
Gavin