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16,386 Posts
I just finished banning what appeared to be a con artist. He has posted 3 times, all items for sale. The last one was a Lamello tool that looked like it might be like a Domino. He wanted payment in Pounds which prompted me to do some checking. The I. P. address he was using traced to Lagos, Nigeria. I went back through his other posts and found that each one had a different I.P. location. His first post traced to London and the 2nd traced to Switzerland while claiming to be from Michigan. If you are interested in any item on the Classifieds and you aren't familiar with the seller and he isn't providing many or any personal details then you should use caution.
There are things that can be done which will help verify whether the seller is not a con artist. One thing that Mike Henderson does is to ask them to write their user name on a piece of paper and take a picture of it next to the item for sale. This verifies that the person actually has the item in their possession.
You can also check to see if their I P address matches where they say they are from. Below everyone's user name are 5 icons. The 5th one is an icon of a computer screen. If you click on it the I P address and the host service I P number appear. You can find free I P lookup sites with a web search and copy and paste the I P into the lookup service and it will show you where the person is posting from. If that doesn't match where they or their bio says they are from then it's best to not do business with them. If you are in a situation like this then use the Report This Post function so that I and the other Moderators can have a look.
There are things that can be done which will help verify whether the seller is not a con artist. One thing that Mike Henderson does is to ask them to write their user name on a piece of paper and take a picture of it next to the item for sale. This verifies that the person actually has the item in their possession.
You can also check to see if their I P address matches where they say they are from. Below everyone's user name are 5 icons. The 5th one is an icon of a computer screen. If you click on it the I P address and the host service I P number appear. You can find free I P lookup sites with a web search and copy and paste the I P into the lookup service and it will show you where the person is posting from. If that doesn't match where they or their bio says they are from then it's best to not do business with them. If you are in a situation like this then use the Report This Post function so that I and the other Moderators can have a look.