Recently many conners have been using the 3rd party con trick to cheat people.

How it is done :

People involved :
- Paypal/egold seller (referred to as PP/EG)
- Conman (referred to as CM)
- Some buyer (referred to as BY)
- Some seller (referred to as SL)

Case 1

1) BY wants to buy something, say, a graphic card from SL. BY states in SL's thread that BY is interested.
2) CM saw that BY is interested, CM pretends to be SL by adding BY into msn/ym and say he has the item. CM ask BY to bank in xxx amount of money and will send the item
3) BY agrees, not knowing that CM is NOT THE REAL SL.
4) CM does not give BY his real bank account, but gives PP/EG's bank account instead
5) BY banks into PP/EG account xxx amount of money
6) CM contacts PP/EG say that xxx amount of money has been banked into his account, and request for paypal/egold money to be transfered to CM account
7) BY waits and gets nothing. BY then contacts SY, whom SY knows nothing. Then BY assumes PP/EG is the conman because of PP/EG's bank account, but PP/EG knows nothing either.
8) CM runs scot free
There is possibility to trace the CM, by getting PP/EG to trace the amount and time of transfer based on BY's information, but needs Paypal intervention to track the CM (assuming paypal was sent into another paypal acct).

Case 2

1) CM opens a selling thread selling an item
2) BY interested, CM ask for bank in
3) CM gives BY, PP/EG's bank account
4) BY banks into PP/EG account unknowingly
5) CM request from PP/EG for paypal/egold transfer to CM's account
or
5) CM request from PP/EG to bank into 3rd party seller account
6) 3rd party seller sends item to CM
This method is very very hard to trace as it involves 3rd party seller which could be from overseas.

Possible Solution :

In these 2 cases, usually the Paypal and Egold sellers are the receiving end of the problem because their bank account were given to the BY (victims). Thus it is very important for the Paypal and Egold sellers to protect themselves.

This is a suggested solution

For transaction via cash deposit
1) Get the buyer to take a picture of the cash deposit slip
2) On the cash deposit slip, get the buyer to write "For paypal/egold purchase. Account : xxx" and sign with buyer's name
3) Make sure on the deposit slip, the amount of money, the paypal/egold seller's account, and the above is visible
4) Check with your account to confirm the money is in, then transfer the money to the written account : xxx
Via this method, PP/EG will not sell PP/EG after receiving BY's bank in because BY will not use the above method. If BY realised is con, trace you, you can bank in back the money back to BY.
Possible ways of overcoming : CM takes BY's picture of slip, prints it, writes over it, then takes a picture and send to PP/EG. PP/EG must be sharp to detect.

For transaction via online bank transfer
1) For every transaction, get the buyer to write in the comment field "For paypal/egold purchase. Account : xxx"
2) Once the transaction is done, print screen the Transaction Success page
3) Make sure the print screen includes the taskbar and time below, and that all revelant information can be seen clearly.
4) Immediately open PAINT, paste, and save as jpeg. If the print screen picture is photoshopped, you can check its EXIF data and it'll state that it is editted by photoshop
This method is still very easy to overcome, so cash deposit was is still recommended. I still have yet to come up with a foolproof way for online transaction, but at least doing the above will deter certain conmen, especially those who arent too digital editting savvy .

If there are other suggestions of both con cases and possible solutions, do comment here.

All these might sound very hard to follow, but by doing so, paypal/egold sellers could protect themselves and prevent lots of headache in the future. Imagine your name and account being reported to the police because of con work done by somebody else. Most victims will be too traumatised to understand the complexity of the con, and would just want to blame the account holder, which is the paypal and egold sellers.

post this in the trade resource section and get it pinned up by mods...

=.=" This has posted so many times before and the mod even pinned up their own. Do read before post.

the mod's pinned up post is a passive reminder
i was hoping that this thread could get the paypal/egold sellers to take active precautions to prevent the problem, because even tho they might not lose any money, they could get into alot of trouble because eventually they will take the brunt of the firing from the victims, even tho they are not the conners

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/384684

i wrote this quite some time ago. the problem with this con trick is that it'll be successful as long as there are gullible buyers out there and the conman is moderately cunning. its a popular trick since beginning of lelong.com.my days.

Thread moved from "Trade Zone Helpdesk & Dispute Resolution Corner"

correct, but i believe a more effective solution to curb the problem isnt public awareness, rather some prevention measures be implemented on the paypal/egold seller side. there are less paypal/egold sellers, so its easier if we stem the problem from them.

think it this way

1 paypal seller, 100 paypal buyers
a conman has 100 people to cheat

if we just get the paypal seller to cooperate in preventing the con from happening, that would be much more effective than trying to spread awareness to that 100 people

im not saying that we should stress on awareness, but if we want to be efficient, we have to get the paypal/egold sellers to cooperate

now, the problem here is how to get the paypal/egold seller to be interested in taking part in this prevention
in this con, the paypal seller does not lose anything as they are the 3rd party in the whole scam.
the only thing that might affect them is that the victims will think the paypal/egold sellers are the conmen

so i suggest a system where by paypal/egold sellers build their reputation based on their efforts of curbing this problem. award merit points/positive feedbacks for every con thwarted, etc. something like that. and in return, they get better reputation and more ppl will deal with them.

we can always link this thread to every [WTS] e-currency threads at GS.

but the problem remains. if a seller is willing to educate themselves on online fraud, 3rd party scams and ID hijacks, that seller is probably a careful person who won't fall into this trick.

this con trick usually works on the careless and the gullible. the same people who will never bother with this thread or any safety measures proposed.

which in the end, 80% of the sellers will not even bother to learn
they just fall for the same trick over and over again
and in the process, poor innocent paypal sellers gets the brunt of the fire
i say get the damn paypal sellers to give a damn, then they will cover their butts and at the same time, save alot of potential con victims alot of trouble