This situation started about 48 hours ago. Creating a thread about the issue to spread awareness and due to a conversation on skype with sl8a.
Yesterday I was trying to trade with someone I believed (at the time, anyway) was YugiohPro, not so sure now. At any rate, I haven't received any money after transferring my own $500 (despite the person claiming they would send zelle shortly) and I've been ghosted on Skype by that person for the past 18 hours or so.
Here's a quick summary of what happened.
Two days ago, I talked to someone on Skype claiming to be YugiohPro about a transfer, agreeing to transfer $1k in 2 $500 increments, my PS (sn: Duncelanas) for zelle with me sending first. I was ok with this, as that person asked me to send to PS account YugiohPro, which is publicly known as the real YugiohPro's ps acct.
I sent $500 to Yugiohpro at 5:00 am 6/24 (GMT+8). They claim the transfer doesn't go through for about 2 hours, but remain in contact on Skype over this time. Then they send me the $500 back on PS (from the Yugiohpro account) at about 7:00 am, and a minute or two later messaged me on skype explaining that they had some problem with zelle and would get back to me after they'd fixed it.
At this point, I was mildly unhappy with the situation, but we've all dealt with bank bs, and this person had returned my $500 on PS in a transfer from the YugiohPro account. As far as I was concerned, this was sufficient confirmation that I was dealing with the real YugiohPro.
The next day, Yugiohpro told me they'd sorted the zelle problem and we could try again. This time, though, they asked me to transfer to the stars account sl8a, mentioning that sl8a is a 2p2 member and long-time friend. Assuming this is to prevent the transfer problem we had yesterday, I do a quick search on sl8a and find multiple threads of sl8a selling action in the past, some posts in the hsnl xfer thread, and even some community members willing to hardvouch for sl8a in some of his package posts. Sl8a mentions multiple times in the posts that his stars sn is sl8a, so I feel (again, at the time) it's more or less confirmed that it's the same person.
So I send $500 to the sl8a account while talking to the supposed "yugiohpro" on Skype. "Yugiohpro" confirms receipt of xfer by sl8a (who they say they're talking to at the time on Skype) and soon after tell me they're sending zelle shortly. Then they either go invisible or block me on Skype, and haven't replied to my messages in the past 12+ hours. My money hasn't been either sent on zelle or returned on PS.
Transaction screenshot attached, middle transaction is $325 to a friend for a separate matter involving APT Ho Chi Minh buyin next week. Shown are also both transactions with YugiohPro as well as the $500 sent to Sl8a:
Here is a copy of my chat with "YugiohPro":
https://pastebin.com/00DmppUT
Today, I PMed both YugiohPro and sl8a on 2p2. Sl8a responded to me, confirmed that they'd also done a trade which was "YugiohPro's" PS for Sl8a's BTC. Sl8a also provided a skype log of Yugiohpro asking for another $500 transaction, but it doesn't seem that transaction was finished. Sl8a further said that they had received my $500 on PS and that my money had not been touched, then requested I make this 2p2 thread. I have not yet received a response from YugiohPro.
At this time, I basically believe as follows: YugiohPro has either started scamming members of the community (unlikely, let's hope), or a scammer has access to YugiohPro's PS account and is using it to steal from the community. Said scammer is also impersonating YugiohPro on skype. Sl8a seems like a third party here (although I don't understand why "YugiohPro" would request I send directly to sl8a), has avoided being the victim of a scam, and should send back my $500. I was likely the victim of a middleman scam, but the money is sitting in sl8a's account and hasn't been transferred to the scammer.
At this time, everyone should be careful dealing with anyone claiming to be YugiohPro, even if they are dealing directly with the YugiohPro pokerstars account.
Thanks for your time.
Duncelanas
Last edited by Duncelanas; 06-25-2019 at 10:47 AM.