Beware of cyber cheats
KUALA LUMPUR: Police yesterday advised internet users to beware of cyber cheats who sell goods online, to avoid being victims of increasingly rampant fraud activities. According to the police’s Facebook site, police are continuously monitoring crimes of this nature and advised users not to be too trusting when dealing with such people. Police said to prevent being duped by cyber cheats, internet users must be sure of the sellers’ identities including their addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other vital information prior to any transaction. “The public should check with the bank whether or not the account number given matches the name of the seller ... and if the user has corresponded with the seller through email, the e-mails should be saved, together with the full e-mail header. “Should a buyer be cheated, they must print all forms of communication with the seller such as wall posts, private messages, e-mail, short message service (SMS) and phone conversations among others. “Buyers should also drag the duration of communication with seller, and those with information on cyber cheats should email it to mcc@rmp.gov.my for further investigation and action by the police,” he said. A news report yesterday revealed techniques used by cyber cheats to lure users into buying goods online, causing them to lose between RM200,000 and RM300,000 monthly. Among the complaints reported to the National Consumer Complaints Centre were 80 cases involving fraud, unnecessary delays (96), lack of seller information (128), attempts to confuse the buyer (91), poor service (75) and exchange of goods and refunds (84).
Bernama



Some tips for those who chose to purchase online
1. Whenever someone claiming to be a forumer 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 whereby a conman will impersonate as a high rank / trusted forummer to convince you, IF he showers you with lots of excuses that he cant PM you via his nick, most likely he's a conman. Common sense, if he's sincere to deal with you, it won't take him long to send you a short PM for verification considering he could afford to have the time to browse LYN's Trade Zone before bumping into your WTB thread and contact 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)
***Feedback can be false at times, you might not know whether the previous claimed-to-be-buyer of that seller is actually a duplicate account of the seller to give false feedback. I caught plenty of conman giving false feedback 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

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 always sound pushy (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 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 cheers.gif

Regards
-VK-