Scammers using the BMW MOA Flea Market

[Omega Man]

It's a good Idea to skip the surveys at the end of cash register receipts. The one at the end of one of the large home improvement stores can get you an extra 250 e-mails a day. Gary

[BEEMERGS74]

I posted a WTB for a Hein Gericke Paris Dakar Liner and looked who responded.

GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

Hello,

This is Harry Ponitar from the United Kingdom.You placed a wanted Ad
over the internet and i have for sale in good and excellent condition.

You can ring me on +447024012862 and
+447024082587

Thanks
Harry
Great Charlotte Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, L1 1HU

[Yarddog]

These guys are getting good, they scrape sites like Facebook for friend lists for connected e-mails, and hijack accounts there as well to send these things out using the in-house messaging system. Best bet is to never use Western Union or MoneyGram, virtually every scam relies on the anonymity and worldwide access those services offer. Also, if you are not running a good antivirus program you could be the next victim. I personally like the newest Norton 360 but it is not cheap. Your ISP may offer a free one (Comcast offers McAfee free to customers) and if not, try AGV Free or Free Avast, both are excellent so long as you set them to auto-update.

As for Apple users, the days of being free from the scourge of viruses are ending quickly Fortunately, you too have excellent, free options.

Good reason NOT to subscribe to Facebook...it's a great way to find out many things about someone if you've got a curiosity or reason to do so...

[88bmwjeff]

Good reason NOT to subscribe to Facebook...it's a great way to find out many things about someone if you've got a curiosity or reason to do so...

Or, create a separate email account just for places like Facebook

[dbrick]

Ted,

Thanks for mentioning Sophos.

[Yarddog]

Or, create a separate email account just for places like Facebook

The problem with Facebook is that there's just too much personal information on the web on YOU that people don't need to know about... a professional investigator, or a professional crook, can tell a whole lot about you and your lifestyle that can be used against you...it's not opening a portal to the Net that's the problem...it's opening the portal to your personal life that's the problem!

For me, I'm in contact via email, etc, with the people who matter to me...I couldn't give a rip about someone trying to get in contact with me that I'm not already in contact with now... That's just me, tho

[bmw_rider]

Paypal is NOT 100% secure either. The one and only (so far) time that I have been defrauded was via my paypal account. Don't leave funds on deposit in those accounts. Account was hacked, funds withdrawn, and threatening email arrived saying was going to take from all bank accounts, investments, etc unless more funds sent. Needless to say, notified Paypal, and other institutions, changed passwords all around (one forgets how many of these accounts there are), etc.
Paypal did refund the funds, took about 3 weeks.. ....luckily it wasn't a large sum.

Be careful out there....the internet is still the wild west!

[Omega Man]

A trip to the post office reveled to me that there is some problem with the Postal money orders-not the real ones-the ones people are making on their copy machines. Just something else to watch out for. Gary

[Robsara]

So Ted, what I really want to know about all this is,


Did you get your bulb kit????

[kantuckid]

[QUOTE=Omega Man;632096]A trip to the post office reveled to me that there is some problem with the Postal money orders-not the real ones-the ones people are making on their copy machines. Just something else to watch out for. Gary[/QUOTE

I read that there are lots of "REAL " postal money orders out there coming from thefts in USPS offices. On another note, I just got an email from a "Scott Logan" in UK that went into junk Hotmail, saying he had some airhead tools for sale in response to my WTB ad in Flea Mkt.. Beware!

[statdawg]

For me, I'm in contact via email, etc, with the people who matter to me...I couldn't give a rip about someone trying to get in contact with me that I'm not already in contact with now... That's just me, tho

I feel the same way. This summer my younger cousins were trying to get me to join Facebook so we would be in better contact; I can see their pictures and know what their children are doing..... blah blah blah. So I asked why not just copy and paste your information and send it to my email ? I still did not join nor recieved any family updates from them. So in keeping with the holiday spirit I made a form letter and sent them a Christmas Card. As far as I am concerned I'll just wait to get updated at the next funeral or wedding.

[knary]

Of those hit by spam, how many of you had your contact information in your ad's text?

e.g. "Want to buy K75 rocket engine. Please contact me at scotty@k75superbike.com."

If someone wasn't logged in, the first X characters of the description were shown as a teaser. To see contact and user information, you have to be logged in. But if your contact info was in the first lines of your ad's text, it would have been displayed. I have made some changes that hide any email addresses, and most phone numbers (barring peculiar formatting).

I'm very hopeful that this will be the end of these spam issues. This seems the far more likely source of the problem than an orchestrated hijacking of a member's login changed via a hacked email account.

It hadn't occurred to me that people would put their email addresses in the descriptions when there were form fields for entering that information.

[TED]

They are getting in I think by joining the MOA. Either that or they force-guessed a password and are logging in late at night here in the US (lunch in Lagos) so the member whose account is being borrowed has no idea that this has been happening for weeks, perhaps months, perhaps years. Remember when someone gained illegal access to several accounts by simply using a c. 1993 haxxors trick, using the login name from the member list as the password? That was what, 5 or so years ago? We dug through the logs and identified him, wasn't hard. I think the site was then modded so that the login could not be the password?

[bmw_rider]

I concur with TED - the issue I have called out a couple times in the last 3 weeks is NON-members placing ad's. That isn't supposed to be happening. There needs to be authentication taking place before the ad is up on the site that it came from a MEMBER.

[oldhway]

I concur with TED - the issue I have called out a couple times in the last 3 weeks is NON-members placing ad's. That isn't supposed to be happening. There needs to be authentication taking place before the ad is up on the site that it came from a MEMBER.

You have to be a member (or have a members login) to post an ad but not necessarily to respond to an ad.

People are trying to find out what is going on and fix it but as in any buying or selling over the web, look out for anything that looks remotely hinky and if you have a problem, try to let someone know.