1. Whenever someone claiming to be someone from LYN sms/msn/ym you that he has something that you wanted to buy, always ask the person to PM you via the nick he claimed to be in LYN. (This is to avoid scam where usually a conman try to impersonate as a high rank / trusted forummer to convince you, IF he gives you lotsa nonsense excuse that he cant PM you via his nick, 99% most likely he's conman. Common sense, if he really wanted to deal with you, it won't take him long to send you a short PM for verification when he can browse around the Trade Zone before bumping into your WTB thread and proceed to msn \ ym \ sms you)
2. Check his Successful Trade List, do PM those who've dealt with him to get some feedbacks. (This will give you some idea of his dealing way before actually dealing with him cause sometimes there are rotten deals where the victim chose to keep quiet rather than reporting the seller due to personal reason e.g. busy, too small matter)
***Feedbacks can be false sometimes, you might not know whether the previous claimed-to-be-buyer of his is actually a duplicate account of himself to give false feedback. I caught lot of conman giving false feedbacks to their sales thread / indirect bump their threads via their duplicate account to gain confidence from potential victims.
3. Get as much info as possible of the seller and do google his details to check in case whether those details are related to con case. (I.C, Contact Number, Banking Details, Full Name, MSN \ YM address )
***Most of the time you'll get a Full Name and Banking Details. Try to get their I.C saying that you need that to bank in money to them. Get their MSN \ YM saying that it's for the Bank to send email notification of successful transfer.
4. Perform a search on his details in the Official Black List & Minor Offenders List's thread here (In case there are not listed in google)
5. Do not buy in rush, doing so will only put yourself in danger. Always be skeptical and check around even if you really in need of that particular thing. Conman will always rush you so with some lame excuses (e.g. urgent sale, else he gonna sell to others) so that you don't have much time to bump into thread like this to hit some sense into you and you ended up bank in to them blindly.
6. Do a "Find member's topics" search on the seller, I noticed quite a number of conmen like to create a few threads selling popular items in one day to increase the chance of conning you guys. If you noticed that all his threads are selling items at too-good-to-be-true price, watch out! Don't be greedy. it'll bring you more harm than good. Usually conman will try to sell their stuff at very cheap price BUT cant COD or COD places are far away e.g. sabah / sarawak. Nevertheless , there are still some conmen who sold their items at market rate to avoid suspicion.
7. If possible, try not to deal via 'Bank In - Postage' with new-joiners. One of the common conman's pattern is posting lots of new sales threads right after they join in to try their luck. If you are in doubt, just sleep over the deal, rather than having sleepless night later on.
8. PM one of the Trade Enforcer / Mods should you feel that the seller is a potential conman. Do provide us the full story and tell us the reason you suspect him to assist our investigation.
9. After you've discussed with the Mods / Trade Enforcers, create a thread in Trade Zone Dispute Corner, provide all the details you have of the seller to alert others. Your fast action might save others from being conned. Help to make LYN a better place to trade.
10. and of course, THE BEST WAY to minimize the risk of being conned is JUST COD.
11. If you need an item badly and unable to COD with the seller at the place or time the seller requested, you might wanna GET HELP FROM TRUSTED / RELIABLE SENIOR MEMBERS who are from that area to help you to COD and then only post or COD with you. Some of them might charge you some reasonable fees to cover their expenses / time / transportation to COD for you, don't be stingy and consider that small "fee" as insurance for you item. It's always better to have someone trustworthy to COD for you rather than risking your hard earned money for the sake of saving that small "fee".
For those who are interested to read more about real life con cases, click the links given below
* Conman trying to impersonate another forummer- Handphone seller's case and E-Gold seller's case and Impersonate as forum VIP member
* Conman joined, build his reputation with duplicate account before organizing a big bulk to scam others - Shahrilwan's case and Kawasaki_kips's
* Too cheap to be true deals - here
p/s: will update more from time to time. Lastly, Happy Dealing in LYN'z Trade Zone
Regards
VK
Updates:
13/1/2008 - Added tips 11.