Have You Came Across Any Impostors?

About a few days ago, I started selling my very first product on Sythe. I was hoping that I wasn't going to encounter any scammers in the process. Sadly, I was scammed by the very first person who was interested in the product. I was trying to sell my $20 Microsoft Points Card for 45M and I ended up getting scammed by an individual who was posing as someone else. Despite all that has happened, I learned a valuable lesson when exchanging goods over Sythe. From that point on, I started being extra cautious of who I trade with via. Skype and I always tripled-checked the contact information and number of vouches.

Why did I create this thread?
- To show you some tricks on how to avoid impostors
- For people to share information on impostors they came across when they were trading.
- I didn't want legitimate newcomers (like myself) to fall for impostors the moment they begin trading.

How can you distinguish an impostor?

1. Whether or Not they Replied to your Thread
When someone is interested in your product, they will most likely reply to the thread you posted promoting that product. If the customer contacts you through a medium (i.e MSN or Skype) but did not reply to your thread, there's a chance that he's going to link you to another user's vouching thread. Scammers will mostly use the number of vouches a user has to their advantage to gain your trust into trading them first. In other words, scammers are "stealing" user's identity on Sythe and cleverly implement similar traits on Skype IDs or MSN Accounts to make you think that it's them. That being said, these scammers don't have access to the user's actual Sythe account. To test on whether or not the individual your negotiating with isn't an impostor, tell him/her to reply to your thread. If the individual is unable to reply to your thread, that's because he isn't the user he claims to be that has over 100+ vouches. Excuses scammers will mostly say is "I can't post after 30 seconds" or "My internet is screwing up".

2. Send a Private Message on Sythe to the User that Scammers Claim to Be
A second method you can use to determine an impostor is the simple private message approach. After the impostor links you to a user's vouching thread - contact the user from that thread and private message him to determine if the individual your negotiating with is actually who he claims to be. When doing this, make sure to tell the individual your chatting with that you are sending a private message to him. If there is no answer within 5 minutes or if the individual formulate excuses to why he can't reply you back, chances are he is a scammer trying to be someone else to gain your trust. Ignoring, blocking and reporting the impostor is strongly recommended.

3. Comparing Contact Information
When you look at a user's thread, you'll most likely find contact information that comes along with it. Use that contact information to your advantage and see if the Skype ID or MSN they provide matches those of the individual you are talking to. If both information do not match, then you can safely conclude that the individual you are talking to is an impostor. However, individuals cleverly disguise their names to almost match another person's contact information. In other words, they create names/usernames with minor differences that are hard to spot at first. Here are some examples of what scammers tend to write when trying to pose as someone else.

Ex. 1
Original Contact Information: Skype: ArcusVirtualServices
Disguised Contact Information: Skype: ArcusVrtualServices
[Notice that the "i" was missing in Virtual, but at first it was probably hard to spot that]

Ex. 2
Original Contact Information: Skype: Bond007
Disguised Contact Information: Skype: BondOO7
[Notice that the "0" zeros were changed to "O"s - In certain chats, it's hard to distinguish between the letter O and the number 0. This problem also occurs with the "I' and the "l". The difference between an uppercase "I" and a lowercase "l".

Ex. 3
Original Contact Information: Skype: Bean
Disguised Contact Information: Skype: Bean.
[Notice the "." after Bean. Certain chats enable you to put points and signs next to their usernames. Scammers use hard to see symbols and signs to their advantage.]

Anyways, I hope this helped a lot of people out on how to go about trading on Sythe. Then again, I'm still a newcomer and I probably still have so much to learn!

If there are any mods or admins that don't like this thread, feel free to delete it. I only made this thread for beginner merchants who are cautious about the possible scammers that lurk on Sythe and how they can avoid them.

 

What exactly are you trying to accomplish here ?

 

I just thought I'd give new members such as myself a heads up and alert them about the scammers that show up on the site. That's all. If you feel that this is unnecessary or if the thread needs to be removed, that fine with me. I say it at the bottom of my last thread I believe.

 

I'll just archive this then. You've done a great job but it's really just too much for it to be effective.