more trolls

[nork]

I am on a few different fora and at this time of year there are many trolls at work. One of a few such trolls is Brymo (Brymo@comcast.net). This guy has been caught trying to pass off anothers good heatware refs as his own. YOu can go to the "for sale" section of the anandtech forum for more info and there are a couple more of these types mentioned there as well. Here is the webpage if you want more info:

http://forums.anandtech.com/categories.cfm?catid=45

I am doing this because I hate to see people get cheated. These fora are for honest people who want to trade goods at "friendly prices", nor for people who want to steal from our members!! Dont pay or ship first to someone you dont know and someone with no refs. Check refs out thoroughly, especially check out
email addies to make sure the refs are for the same person!!

[Droppyale]

thanks for the heads up...

[John Prophet]

yeah, dude pm'ed people with MY heatware, lol....his AT username was "heebyjeeby"

His name is "john Persons" or something like that...so he tried to use my good heatware name.

Makes me mad, and I havent resorted to violence in a long time...over 2 weeks now, but dude is trying to make me slip up, lol. He's only 1 state over also, grrrr.

Of course everyone here knows my name and heatware is the same name so.....

JP

[nork]

To John Prophet
Actually, i was pointing out about 3 different troll situations, yours being one of them, but there are two more on the same page over at anandtech.

I am sorry to see you have been victimized. But, at least people know you and know you arent like that anyway.

If I were a troll I would do a better job of it. I am not gonna point out how as someone will do it, but there are ways to do this and not get caught, im glad these idiots havent found out!!!

We need to get more por-active about these people. I was over at anandtech where they caught this one guy, brymo, red-handed so to speak. Then someone was gonna post his name and address and other info. Another guy tells him not to! Why the heck not post this stuff? This guy doesnt care about stealing from people, why the heck should we care about posting his private info!!!! The person who caught this "brymo" was even hesitant to give the guy a negative heatware ref! Again, why not? This may stop another person from getting ripped off!

We need to get more pro-active with these people!!!

nork,
Please add his info to our trolls list too. And thanks for the heads up. You too JP. Thanks.
Hopefully there will be some updating and more current info for the list. I also want to make a troll list just for trolls. One that is easy to read with no replies. Something like they have at PCA used for reference.
We will have the conversations in another thread.

[nork]

To Surreal

I think I already did that but I will check. I like your idea, hope you get time to do it!!

[John Prophet]

Well I dont feel too "victimized" lol....luckily the dude was sort of dumb and gave himself away by the way he went about things...he would offer people $400 for stuff they had listed for $350ish as long as they would ship first etc, lol. And he only had like 16 posts......he would pm'em the heatware name instead of just posting it up in broad daylight.

Anyway, a dude emailed me asking if I was the guy buying a asus board and a this and a that....I was like "dude, Im broke, couldnt be me!" lol.

If we all used common sense a lil more like that guy who emailed me, it'd be harder to get scammed. Like, I hate to say it, but buying from someone with no heatware and less than 10 posts......? huh? why dont I just take a match to my money if I am gonna be THAT stupid, lol.

I like that parable in the bible where the dude had locked the door and the peeps were late and tried to get in and the dude wouldnt open it and he said through the door "I dont know you or where your from"...lol.
JP

[MDS]

If you ever see my heat addy and it isn't by my SN here or any of the 5-6 BB I visit please email me using the heatware email. I think it is always the best bet to know for sure. I have had someone in the past make a heatware almost identical to mine but with a number behind it, they don't have any rating since they made it.

[KarenMarie]

Always get a physical address and phone number to ANYone that you are sending money to, even if it is PayPal payment. It is nigh on impossible to recoupe with only a few Pm's and a hotmail type address to go on. If anyone is reluctant to give this information, it should send up red flags.

Always send an email to the heatware email address and wait for a reply before sending money to anyone. I have seen ppl with email addresses in their profiles that are obsolete but contacted them thru the heatware address. Also, sending a verification email is a great way to find out who's heatware it really is.

I am not saying this is foolproof against getting 'took' but it sure helps and would make a troll think twice. But in the end, if someone is he!! bent on scamming, he will find a way. Unfortuantely.

[nork]

KarenMarie, you are fairly new and certainly you have a good idea of what is going on and how to protect yourself, and thats good.
To me, the worst part of the troll business is the fact that if simply followed the rules of trading we could eliminate maybe a good 80% of these troll instances, if not more like 90% or even more.

Most of the time a trader gets trolled when they:

Ship first or pay first
Dont run a thorough check on the other party
Don't check for valid emails and where these emails are coming from or going to.
Don't bother to do anything, they just make the deal and hope or expect it to go well
Are tired and dont check things out like they know they should
Simply trust the other person blindly
Simply trust the other person as they seem to be ok judged by email or thread conversations.

I'm not sure that strengthening the rules would help. I honestly and strongly believe that we have to take more responsibility in these matters and there will be a LOT LESS people getting trolled. This goes for me to. I have never been trolled but I could always do a better job of checking out the newbies or people with few or no refs. I have turned a few deals down when a newbie wouldnt ship first. I have caught their rude comments too but I dont want to get trolled, simple as that.

About the only rule-strenthening I can see is that if the mods would put a rule in that specifically states that both parties are responsible for making sure the other party is legit, that both parties have to give each other all necessary info as needed, such as proper emails and proper names, ship addys and home phone numbers, as needed, and give each other the time (24 hrs) to check each others info.

Before someone decides to post here saying that each case can be different, so how can you spell out what info is needed, let me state that we are all adults or at least, minimally, young adults here, and we shouldnt have a hard time figuring what is reasonable in a certain situation. Strengthening those type of rules a bit can certainly help in the case of a dispute. For instance, if a person gets trolled but it is found that they checked nothing out on the other end of the deal, then perhaps the mods or members shouldnt need to put as much effort into trying to help them out after the fact! So maybe our trading rules could be upgraded to reflect the issue of a person not taking the steps necessary to protect themselves! As i already stated, I honestly believe that a very large percentage of these problems wouldnt happen if we did our homework on the other party! That goes for all of us.