Post your suggestions - Signs of a potential scam/What to look for

[impactadmin]

Members,

While domain scams are present and puts anyone at risk, I have started to put together a document that would help provide some tips and suggestions on what to look for when making a transaction in general. Members need to be able to see some of the obvious signs of a potenal domain scam and the not so obivous signs which many members on this forum know about.

I ask for you to post some of your ideas and suggestions on how to protect yourself and things to look for in the buyer or seller when conducting a transaction.

Thank you

[MediaHound]

Some other best practices are listed here:
http://www.dnforum.com/bestpractices.php

[Johnn]

1. Never talk to the other party via Instant Messaging. If possible, trying to get a phone number and give them a call.
2. Check the whois information for any suspicious ownership changes.
3. Never rush to push the name to the buyer who you do not know. You can ask for a 48 to 72 hours waiting period before pushing the name. I have done this many times and never had any problems.
4. Be extremely cautious and do not assume anything. Member may have forum account, paypal account or email hacked. Always check for recent activities and observe abnormal behavior or patterns.
5. Use escrow if you can and remember nothing escrow can do in the event that the name is stolen.
6. Alert Staff and Admins for any suspicious activities.
7. When you see something is too good to be true, it probably is.
8. If it is small amount and pay by paypal, you can check the buyer by pretending to send them a payment to see if he/she is verified and how many transctions thay have.

[impactadmin]

Good suggestions so far:

8. Take any emails you get and search them within Google to see what listings may come up for that specific email.

9. Check itrader ratings. In most cases it is a good indication of repuation here. Also look at the members the transactions were completed with. You can contact some of those members via pm asking if the transaction went smoothly.

10. Check members other posts within the forum.

[Acro]

Never trust your own grandma unless she uses escrow

[rebirth]

I believe all hijackers have one thing in common: quick sale.

They have to sell the domains as quckly as possible to escape with the money. So if the seller rush you to send the payment, take a step back. I'm not saying to end the deal though, just watch the seller's doing for a couple of days. If the seller is trying to quick sell the domain to others within that days, help warn the potential buyer quietly.

I hope that's a good suggestion.

I just registered a domain to fight these hijackers. I plan to make this personal. I've committed to make a living from domaining, so I won't let these hijackers walk easy. I will make this as the latest blog in domain and website hijacking.

Guys, I need your help. Acro, I need your help too.

Mods, can I put a link to this thread on my blog?

Thanks.

[stock_post]

I just put my domain xxxxxx

insted I just need watch the forums and start posting the comperhensive report of the scam threads.

I will not sell that domain for now.

I will turn that domain into a wordpress blog.
-- Is that allowed if I quote your posts from the threads? or is that illegal?

[Johnn]

Gentlemen,

Please remove all the links and post them in the advertise section When the site is complete.

[fab]

Never trust your own grandma unless she uses escrow

Well!

[DNP]

8. If it is small amount and pay by paypal, you can check the buyer by pretending to send them a payment to see if he/she is verified and how many transctions thay have.

Right, see my brief "How to do it" explanation below:

- Login to your PayPal account
- Send Money
- Try to send $0.01 to the seller’s email address
- It will lead you to the “review your payment” page
- Click on the link under the seller’s email account. Looks like that: [Non-U.S. Verified Premier Member (280)]
- You will see the following table

Seller Reputation: (280) Verified Buyers
Account Status: Verified
Account Type: TR Premier
Account Creation Date: Sep. 18, 2004
PayPal Member For: 3 year 10 months 29 days

I usually never deal with sellers with Unverified accounts, those with reputation = 0 or close to that and those who have their accounts for less then 3 months or so.

- Google seller’s/buyers email account and forum nickname to check if you will find something about the seller.
- Ask to send you a test verification email from the email used in Paypal
- Ask the buyer/seller if he has any accounts on other domain/business forums; check for his iTrader and reputation there
- Analyze seller’s/buyers posts on DNF and other boards
- If he is an active member somewhere else then DNF – send a PM there and ask to reply to it
- Find any other domain names owned by the same individual and try to phone the # from WHOIS

How to avoid chargebacks on PayPal, do smooth transactions and not getting scammed ...

Sellers know how bad is a chargeback. There are a few usefull hints to minimize the chance of being scammed by that method while you use paypal on your tibia trades:

1- Wait no less than 2 days after receiving the payment before sending virtual items. The more days you wait the safer you can feel. If someone want it fast tell him to wait or else you should cancel the payment.
2- Never accept unverified accounts while trading with virtual items that you can't recover in case of chargeback. Return his money or ask him to get verified status. This might take around 1 week and this waiting is good for you as said in point 1
3- Avoid to do big trades directly with an unknown person that never traded with you before. If you receive a big payment from an unknown person you should return his money inmediately and do not send him anything.
4- Never do trades with anyone in the black list. If you receive a payment from one you should return him his money inmediately and do not send him anything.

Anyways you still can get scammed because paypal overprotect the customers and they know how to abuse on it. You can also get chargebacks after some months. We all know that this is a scam (except paypal), and if it happens to you at the end then please at least help the rest to avoid being scammed by posting his name/paypal email in this thread.

This is the list of known paypal accounts that scam on tibia trades through chargeback.

Any report is enough to add them. The name of the user(s) who say that he is a scammer is stored for internal use, but not displayed.

Ok, here it goes. Avoid trading with them - the black list:

http://www.blackdtools.com/blacklist.php