A member contacted me about an obvious scammer. The guy gave the member an email address of someone who has the pistol this member is looking for. Searching on the address shows scammer activity.

This asshole registered here just today and I'll tell you why he did that- so he could get the member's email address from his profile.

Here's the new, now former member of the forum:

robert900, rrink900@gmail.com, gives his name (which I'm sure is real) as Robert Rink. IP address of 68.134.68.20, which traces to Abingdon, MD, northwest of Baltimore. pool-68-134-68-20.bltmmd.fios.verizon.net

This thief provided the forum member with an email address to contact. That address is jeremyarriaga487@gmail.com and if you do a web search on that address, you'll find multiple scam attempts.


Guys, never follow through with someone who contacts you about an item you're looking for, but tells you someone else has it. Big red flag.

Be cautious, be suspicious. Ask questions, and if you have any concerns, contact me and we'll check it out. Thank you.

Just got an email from him too. He found an old WTB add of mine and tried to say his friend was selling the item. I searched the email address he provided and came up with multiple results calling him a scammer. Responded to him to F off.

Thanks for the heads-up fellas.

This is why we tell you to refrain from openly displaying your email address in posts. Put your email address in the 'Display Email' field of your profile. Only members who are logged into the forum can access your profile.

In this instance, because the member had his email address in his profile, the scammer had to register in order to see it. If you put your email address in your post, anyone can see it. Don't do this, and don't post your phone number. If you want to provide your phone number to forum members, put it in your profile.

He emailed me this evening too about my WTB ad.

I ignored him.

If he persisted I planned to forward the emails to you, para.

I despise these lowlife...

Thanks for looking out for us. These lowlifes need to be outed every chance we get. Image if they worked that hard at a real job.

Thanks for following up, Para. Some forums I've been on just say "Well, we can't do much. Just be careful."

Thanks for putting this douchebag under the spot light and banning his sorry ass.

And I would not SPAM the ever-loving fuck out of those two email addresses. Don't do that. That would be wrong. Well, not wrong, but...well give me some time and I'll think of a reason you shouldn't do that.

Now perhaps it's bit clearer to some of you why for years I disallowed all web-based email addresses- including gmail- for the purpose of registration. It was really quiet around here until I opened the floodgates, but now, we have to deal with these cockroaches.

I know you are not looking for accolades. But thanks none the less for looking out for your forum members. It means a lot. Sincerely.

Merry Christmas Para.

Appreciate your oversight.

Thank you Para and crew!

Excellent.....great work. Have a great Christmas!!

I think it will be a good idea to limit the amount of time WTB ads stay up, in order to minimize this kind of thing.

I need to clean up Classifieds, prune it back to the last 5 or 6 months, maybe even 3 or 4 months. There's no reason to have years-old ads on the board.

Thank you Sir.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I think it will be a good idea to limit the amount of time WTB ads stay up, in order to minimize this kind of thing.

I need to clean up Classifieds, prune it back to the last 5 or 6 months, maybe even 3 or 4 months. There's no reason to have years-old ads on the board.

Probably a good idea, 'tho my WTB add he played off of was only from 12/05. Maybe going back to restricting web-based emails for new people trying to register? I dunno. Like cockroaches, it seems like these parasites always find a way in....

quote:

Originally posted by TexasRaider:
Maybe going back to restricting web-based emails for new people trying to register?

That would drop our registrations to near zero per week. Used to be, most people who registered here had an email address from an ISP. These days, most people guard those email addresses more closely and want to use web-based stuff like gmail and hotmail. Used to be, in the early days of this forum, members were posting from a PC or laptop. These days, tablets and smartphones are well into the mix. People like their gmail.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0050164?r=3860050164

Notice how my concern at the time was spammers- people who register just to hawk their stuff. The way it's worked out the past two years, I catch better than 99% of those types at registration. The real problem has turned out to be stuff like this- registering merely to gain access to member profiles so they can contact members directly. Fortunately, most of you guys see this stuff coming from a mile away.

Great work being proactive to limit the opportunities for stuff like this.

Making people register to see members info isn't 100% foolproof, as this shows, but it puts us way ahead of many other sites that make info too easy for scammers & spammers or even market their contact lists.

Got an Email from him yesterday about a gun I was looking for in the classified section.

Thank you Para.

But I am confused about why they went this route. Why register as Robert Rink and then recommend a member contact Jeremy Arriaga instead of just using the Rink address to scam?