PSA…. Internet transactions

[kbraker]

A week or so ago I posted a want ad looking for some strings that are readily available. Got a DM saying that someone had them avail and to email them. Made contact and did a transaction off forum. I think I was taken advantage of . Point is check into who you do business with, for I did not… it’s all on me. Moral of the story is think before you act and use due diligence. Not everyone is on the up and up.

[RJVB]

Sorry to hear that! It's becoming more and more crucial to be very paranoid these days. A month or so back a member on another forum I'm on got scammed thinking he was buying a nice (and expensive) amp from another member. Someone who had been on the forum for a few years and who had enough posts that seemed valid reactions to lull suspicions.

IIRC those posts did look like they were made by someone who was trying to but didn't really fit in, n retrospect, and were (thus) probably made with the sole purpose of establishing a presence and trust level.

It's happened on other forums too. On here the fact you have to be a paying member in order to post ads presumably gives some protection - but if you only need to pay the fee for the time you want to keep your ad(s) up that protection could be rather thin if the potential gain is large enough.

[imwjl]

For stores/sellers there are sites that rate sellers but that's still crowd sourced data. Scamadvisor rates some sellers but there is no guarantee. For example I needed to get some used tech gear recently but has an amount of trust from hundreds rating the seller well. The all important factor though was using safe payments. The seller accepted major payment cards and ApplePay.

It's only partial trust, but using Venmo, Zelle and PayPal are options.

One cannot even trust a lot of merchants they know give honest attention to PCI DSS compliance. A merchant at Levels 1 and 2 cannot just fake or lie for their attestation.

It is not a guarantee to get your goods but ApplePay and Google are at least a schema that does not give your actual payment card.

It is really often when I see small merchants allow staff to use their payment terminals as general Internet use terminals and many do not have their payment channels where I know they are end to end encrypted.

Buyers can be their own worst enemy too. We have posts here where the willful ignorance is displayed for matters such as MFA/2FA.

[jpd]

think before you act and use due diligence. Not everyone is on the up and up.

Ain't it the truth!

[Dogma]

Originally Posted by RJVB

... On here the fact you have to be a paying member in order to post ads presumably gives some protection - but if you only need to pay the fee for the time you want to keep your ad(s) up that protection could be rather thin if the potential gain is large enough.

Yes, but didn't we just have a situation where someone's account was hacked and the (seller?) appeared to be a known member but wasn't? So, even that can be suspect.