Surrounded by LTT Scammers???

[WallacEngineering]

So about 2 weeks ago I created a Want To Buy thread in the classifieds where I was trying to get a non-mining priced decent GPU, regardless of type or size or whatever.

 

A dude contacted me and offered me an XFX R9 390X for $200 shipped (yay!) The dude seemed super chill but started to become flakey as over a week passed and he for some reason could not ship the package (first claimed busy, then frozen paypal account), more details here: 

 

So someone saw this new post, and contacted me, trying to explain that I may have jumped to a conclusion too quickly, and that the dude may not have been trying to screw me over. But the thing is, why was his account banned?

 

I went to his profile, no recent posts were ban-worthy. But then, the dude messaging me about what happened was just banned a few hours ago and then someone else contacted me about the post and got banned 5 minutes ago.

 

None of these people have infractions on their accounts nor any sort of ban-worthy posting. WTF is going on here??? Why are people getting banned when they are just asking me what happened? Nobody even asked for the dude's name!

[Dujith]

You are being watched i guess   Tbh pm a mod or admin about this.

 

And remember: It is not paranoia if they are actually after you  

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

25 minutes ago, WallacEngineering said:

no recent posts were ban-worthy.

Because anything that is ban-worthy gets removed and users outside of staff members cannot see them.

[WallacEngineering]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Because anything that is ban-worthy gets removed and users outside of staff members cannot see them.

Oh thanks for clarifying. Do you think I should be a little freaked out right now? I most certainly am lol

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, WallacEngineering said:

Oh thanks for clarifying. Do you think I should be a little freaked out right now? I most certainly am lol

I wouldn't worry about it. It's not anything to do with you personally.

[WallacEngineering]

18 minutes ago, Dujith said:

You are being watched i guess   Tbh pm a mod or admin about this.

 

And remember: It is not paranoia is they are actually after you  

 

Well IDK why it would help, theyve already been banned and nobody else has contacted me as of now so... Solved itself? Im just like confused as to why it even happened... Its just too freaking weird...

[vanished]

4 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Because anything that is ban-worthy gets removed and users outside of staff members cannot see them.

Yes, this is the case, and I'm not sure why but many people seem not to realize this.  Basically, if you were able to see ban-worthy posts, then we've failed lol

 

4 hours ago, WallacEngineering said:

Well IDK why it would help, theyve already been banned and nobody else has contacted me as of now so... Solved itself? Im just like confused as to why it even happened... Its just too freaking weird...

As for what happened, I can't even begin to answer that since I don't know what posting you're talking about or who it was that contacted you, but I'll give some generic information in hopes that also helps.

 

We take every reasonable measure to ensure people can transact safely on LinusTechTips.com.  To start, all transactions on the forum must be done through the classifieds section, and are thus subject to the rules posted there.  If someone attempts not to follow those rules, their post (or PM) should be reported and will be removed (or in the case of a PM, addressed accordingly).  Also, (and hopefully this is obvious), do not do business with someone who you notice to be breaking those rules, as you put yourself at massively increased risk.

 

Users may be banned for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to the following reasons most relevant here:

• Excessive violation of the Community Standards
• Making a new account after they have been banned on a previous one

As mentioned, it will often not be obvious to normal users why an account is banned since they cannot see any of the work we do behind the scenes, or the posts which would result in a ban, since if it's bad enough for that, it's bad enough to remove.  In fact, again as already mentioned, if you do have a good idea as to why, either a) your guess is very wrong (I have seen this before), or b) we have failed in keeping this content out of view.

 

If a user you were doing a transaction with is banned (for any reason), there should be two possible results:

1. You have not yet progressed far enough down the path for anything to matter
2. You have progressed far enough that you have exchanged the necessary information for a sale to take place (shipping addresses, paypal, etc.) and thus should have off-forum contact information for each other already, and thus can complete the transaction despite the ban

For this reason, whether or not you are dealing with a scammer is quite unrelated to their ban status.  To clarify: if they are not a scammer, even if they are banned you should be able to complete your sale with each other regardless, and if they are a scammer, something would/will go wrong anyway, even if they stayed on the forum.

 

Additionally, I will say that in the history of the site, we have had extremely few cases of scams.  Remember, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between lots of people, and the same one lots of times.

 

We take news of scams seriously and, given sufficient evidence and the cooperation of the other party, will do what we can to investigate and assist.  If you believe you have grounds to do so, file a police report with the appropriate authorities, and they will take it from there.  Besides assisting police if they were to approach us with a warrant or other applicable request for information, there isn't much we can do outside of making our best effort to remove scammers from the site.

 

Finally, just a reminder that LinusTechTips.com, LMG, and all other associated parties take no legal responsibility for any trades, purchases, sales, or other transactions initiated, discussed, or completed on this forum.

[AshleyAshes]

But you say that the seller has PayPal issues, that means you paid with PayPal, so you should be able to file a problem with PayPal and they will return your funds.  So you should get your money back without issue since you wisely paid using a system with consumer protections built in.

[WallacEngineering]

@AshleyAshes

 

Yes, the money has been returned and all is well at this point. Im still bummed though cuz an R9 390X would have been stellar for this system

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, WallacEngineering said:

@AshleyAshes

 

Yes, the money has been returned and all is well at this point. Im still bummed though cuz an R9 390X would have been stellar for this system

You've done better than some other people here then.  Recently a few others did deals where they foolishly paid in Amazon gift codes.  You can imagine how well THAT went.

[WallacEngineering]

15 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

You've done better than some other people here then.  Recently a few others did deals where they foolishly paid in Amazon gift codes.  You can imagine how well THAT went.

Oooh ouch yea that sucks...

[Ginger_]

57 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

You've done better than some other people here then.  Recently a few others did deals where they foolishly paid in Amazon gift codes.  You can imagine how well THAT went.

I remember reading that, he only paid $25 so not a huge loss, but still had no idea he was walking into a scam

 

@WallacEngineering

 

Didnt you comment on my 1060 for sale that you can still find cards like that cheap, well, if it seems too good to be true...

 

Good thing you did everything correctly through PayPal though.

[Holy Grail]

10 hours ago, Ginger_ said:

I remember reading that, he only paid $25 so not a huge loss, but still had no idea he was walking into a scam

 

@WallacEngineering

 

Didnt you comment on my 1060 for sale that you can still find cards like that cheap, well, if it seems too good to be true...

 

Good thing you did everything correctly through PayPal though.

On his selling post he said the seller refunded the money I really don’t see why a scammer would refund money, doesn’t seem like a scam wouldn’t they just send the money to their bank or something 

[Froody129]

37 minutes ago, Holy Grail said:

On his selling post he said the seller refunded the money I really don’t see why a scammer would refund money, doesn’t seem like a scam wouldn’t they just send the money to their bank or something 

PayPal will force a refund 

[Holy Grail]

42 minutes ago, Froody129 said:

PayPal will force a refund 

He said the money was refunded and he never said he made a case. So if he never made a case asking for a refund PayPal won’t refund money just randomly out of the blue. The seller had to refund the money. he said this week timespan. a PayPal refund takes 10 days to process from the day the request is made to payout. 

 

I really do do not see how it is a scam. The only way money could of been refunded and refunded instantly is if the seller pressed the refund button.  

 

 

But just to add so you know I’m not dumb, yes I know even if a account has zero in it and PayPal forces a refund the account will go into negative and then be in debt with PayPal. But that is not that case with this if yo I read over what was said in his WTB a gpu thread.

 

[WallacEngineering]

11 hours ago, Holy Grail said:

On his selling post he said the seller refunded the money I really don’t see why a scammer would refund money, doesn’t seem like a scam wouldn’t they just send the money to their bank or something 

I believe he refunded the money upon realizing that he wasn't going to get away with it.

[Holy Grail]

3 hours ago, WallacEngineering said:

I believe he refunded the money upon realizing that he wasn't going to get away with it.

How would he not? You do know how PayPal works right? You can easily get scammed but you will still get the money back. It will be PayPal that ends up losing money because they will pay you with their own funds. He/she can easily just send the money out of his PayPal into another PayPal or to a bank or turn it into bitcoin or gift cards or anything. PayPal has a good legal team so if they want they can just find out who they are and sue the scammer for the money. Or how do you think he would of not gotten away with it? It’s really easy to scam with how PayPal is set up because you can add no tracking number but shipped and it changes the funds from 21 day hold to a 7 days hold. 

[WallacEngineering]

55 minutes ago, Holy Grail said:

How would he not? You do know how PayPal works right? You can easily get scammed but you will still get the money back. It will be PayPal that ends up losing money because they will pay you with their own funds. He/she can easily just send the money out of his PayPal into another PayPal or to a bank or turn it into bitcoin or gift cards or anything. PayPal has a good legal team so if they want they can just find out who they are and sue the scammer for the money. Or how do you think he would of not gotten away with it? It’s really easy to scam with how PayPal is set up because you can add no tracking number but shipped and it changes the funds from 21 day hold to a 7 days hold. 

Yrue that, ya I guess they are scamming PayPal and not me when you think about it

[AshleyAshes]

54 minutes ago, Holy Grail said:

How would he not?

Actually, if your scammer was dumb and using their own personal PayPal account, tied to their real world bank account and other stuff, pissing off PayPal would be a pretty bad idea.  They'll rip that money right out of your bank account and leave you with to deal NSF fee if your account couldn't even cover it.  Your scenario requires the scammer to have a fully ready burner PayPal account and a solid plan to eventually turn that money into something actually useful.  The scammer in question however does not seem to be partiuclarly sophisticated.  Quickly franky, offering a refund would be the smartest move cause it would leave no mark in the eyes of PayPal.

 

[Holy Grail]

Just now, AshleyAshes said:

Actually, if your scammer was dumb and using their own personal PayPal account, tied to their real world bank account and other stuff, pissing off PayPal would be a pretty bad idea.  They'll rip that money right out of your bank account and leave you with to deal NSF fee if your account couldn't even cover it.  Your scenario requires the scammer to have a fully ready burner PayPal account and a solid plan to eventually turn that money into something actually useful.  The scammer in question however does not seem to be partiuclarly sophisticated.  Quickly franky, offering a refund would be the smartest move cause it would leave no mark in the eyes of PayPal.

 

I doubt they would but people will make fake accounts or scam identys too and make bank accounts in others peoples names transfer money and use that account to turn the money into bitcoin and then sell the bitcoin and put the cash in their account. There are so many ways people do it. But then their are the dumb ones who will use personal accounts or maybe a friends or parents or siblings that cna Easley be traced back 

[Trik'Stari]

On 3/19/2018 at 12:54 PM, Ryan_Vickers said:

Yes, this is the case, and I'm not sure why but many people seem not to realize this.  Basically, if you were able to see ban-worthy posts, then we've failed lol

 

As for what happened, I can't even begin to answer that since I don't know what posting you're talking about or who it was that contacted you, but I'll give some generic information in hopes that also helps.

 

We take every reasonable measure to ensure people can transact safely on LinusTechTips.com.  To start, all transactions on the forum must be done through the classifieds section, and are thus subject to the rules posted there.  If someone attempts not to follow those rules, their post (or PM) should be reported and will be removed (or in the case of a PM, addressed accordingly).  Also, (and hopefully this is obvious), do not do business with someone who you notice to be breaking those rules, as you put yourself at massively increased risk.

 

Users may be banned for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to the following reasons most relevant here:

• Excessive violation of the Community Standards
• Making a new account after they have been banned on a previous one

As mentioned, it will often not be obvious to normal users why an account is banned since they cannot see any of the work we do behind the scenes, or the posts which would result in a ban, since if it's bad enough for that, it's bad enough to remove.  In fact, again as already mentioned, if you do have a good idea as to why, either a) your guess is very wrong (I have seen this before), or b) we have failed in keeping this content out of view.

 

If a user you were doing a transaction with is banned (for any reason), there should be two possible results:

1. You have not yet progressed far enough down the path for anything to matter
2. You have progressed far enough that you have exchanged the necessary information for a sale to take place (shipping addresses, paypal, etc.) and thus should have off-forum contact information for each other already, and thus can complete the transaction despite the ban

For this reason, whether or not you are dealing with a scammer is quite unrelated to their ban status.  To clarify: if they are not a scammer, even if they are banned you should be able to complete your sale with each other regardless, and if they are a scammer, something would/will go wrong anyway, even if they stayed on the forum.

 

Additionally, I will say that in the history of the site, we have had extremely few cases of scams.  Remember, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between lots of people, and the same one lots of times.

 

We take news of scams seriously and, given sufficient evidence and the cooperation of the other party, will do what we can to investigate and assist.  If you believe you have grounds to do so, file a police report with the appropriate authorities, and they will take it from there.  Besides assisting police if they were to approach us with a warrant or other applicable request for information, there isn't much we can do outside of making our best effort to remove scammers from the site.

 

Finally, just a reminder that LinusTechTips.com, LMG, and all other associated parties take no legal responsibility for any trades, purchases, sales, or other transactions initiated, discussed, or completed on this forum.

Just out of curiosity, would giving out legitimate product keys to a piece of software (Via PM's) be considered ban-worthy?

 

If a mod or admin wants to answer but needs more details feel free to PM me.

[vanished]

11 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Just out of curiosity, would giving out legitimate product keys to a piece of software (Via PM's) be considered ban-worthy?

 

If a mod or admin wants to answer but needs more details feel free to PM me.

If they're yours to give and the ToS of the product allow transferring them, then that's fine, otherwise that would come under the piracy rule

[ExplosiveSloths]

Pay-pal takes 21 days to clear a payment if the person is a new to the site and often shut down accounts without telling the person/ask for more information about the sale or ID.

 

Edit : I can't spell information today, nice.

 

 

[WallacEngineering]

1 hour ago, ExplosiveSloths said:

Pay-pal takes 21 days to clear a payment if the person is a new to the site and often shut down accounts without telling the person/ask for more information about the sale or ID.

 

Edit : I can't spell information today, nice.

 

 

Well he said he was an experienced eBay seller, so I doubt it, besides the issue is resolved, just scored this MSI Gaming Twin Frozr GTX 980 4GB for $225 shipped from eBay. Basically brand new, the seller used it for just 2 months for VR only gaming. Already got it overclocked stable 1430MHz at a safe 1.202V. This is it on my desk after arrival. Now playing games at 1440p on a mixture of High and Ultra settings and averaging around 75-90 FPS is most games. Only issue is VRAM limit when I use too many Ultra settings lol. Also the cooling is straight baller. Even with the OC it never hit more than 72C after 2 hours of stress testing and is WAY quieter than my old EVGA FTW Blower GTX 670 2GB

 

PUBG 1440p HIGH Preset With Ultra Textures

 

 

Hmmmm I guess overboost is pushing me beyond 1.2V, I hope that isn't too bad for the card...