On a postive note, I had a amazing transaction with PSUStudent. After I had neglected to be irresponsible with a cavalier transaction with randy h, he was gracious enough to take me under his wing and go above and beyond a normal transaction.

He first got me in touch with the live chat, showed me how i should meet the player @ at heads up table to verify funds until the trascaction is complete, and was anise enough to show me how i was scammed. He also returned my PM's faster then i could type him my questions. no doubt he is honest and classy and I cannot thank him enough.

Cheers!

Does anyone know if you can trade between Merge Skins? I have Poker Nordica so was wondering if I could send to someone on Lock or Carbon, thanks.

Confirmed.

I did help him out with uncovering the scam. When I got back to him on whether he still wanted RPM like he mentioned he did yesterday, he said he had already done a transaction with someone and he hadn't received funds yet and had been 3 hours.

This was during peak times and in my experience, it shouldn't have taken that long. I asked him who he did it with and he said user randy h.

Obviously a quick search of his history shows he has no prior trades in this thread and had logged off etc. I informed streffert he may have been scammed and should contact RPM live chat support to see if he has any transfers pending. He thought the chat was down but I showed him how to get to the RPM chat which was online. After chatting with support, he was informed by them that he had no incoming transfers pending and the scam was confirmed.

After that, he wanted to add $100 so we did our trade. I sent him some tips on how to avoid getting scammed, the precautions.

Also showed him how he can get unknowns to sit at a table with atleast the funds for which the trade is being done and have them type his username. This way you can also get an idea on what SNs the other person has access to.

I sat at a headsup table so he can get an idea on the process and to show proof of funds.


Overall, streffert was patient and fast in responding to PMs. Would trade again. Thanks for the kind reference.

Sorry to bother, but what do you mean by having them type your username...just wanna make sure I know all the tricks to safeguard myself since I trade quite frequently.

Thanks!

IDK I just do it so that way you have proof that they are who they say they are and they are sitting there exactly for you.

Having them type something like, "Hey PSUStudent (your 2p2 username), my 2p2 SN is McStraddle (their 2p2 username)" or something like that and take a screenshot of the chat.

Just one additional layer if in the future you want to link 2p2 and site accounts. Also, when making people do some of this, if someone is trying to scam, they might not do one of these things alerting you that they were trying to scam.

Someone can chime in if they think there is an alternative way to do the sitting on table/chat but this is what I've gathered so far and this is obviously for unknowns to whom you're somehow planning to send first, which you shouldn't do in first place but it's still just another layer of protection for the various reasons I mentioned above.

Hey I like that idea man. I rarely send first now since I have so many trades under my belt, but I like this verification process on top of all the other things one should do before sending first. I would never have a problem doing this for someone else if asked to, so yea it would def scare of some scammers. The safer the better.

Yeah alot of the times, the scammers wouldn't really have the funds in their accounts in the first place. For example, the transction streffert tried to do yesterday was $100 moneypak for $120 RPM. Now if he had asked randy h to sit with atleast $120 to show he had the funds in account that he was planning on sending, I doubt randy would be able to cus lets face it most scammers are broke.

Obviously some might not be and even if they have the funds, you can atleast get their screenname and proof of their 2p2 sn through what they type in chat. streffert did the transaction with getting just a random email address and through having them sit, you have some info. on the accounts they have access to and you can pass on that info. to the poker site support team as well as get them banned on here.

And so, the scammers at this point might make an excuse to bail out of the transaction and if suspicious then alert one of the mods to look into it.

As you said, if you have nothing to hide, then you should gladly be willing to go through this step which shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Yea I definitely have done the verifying funds by sitting at the table thing. If everyone did this before they traded there would be a lot less problems. On top of that I really like the chat thing just to add some layer of protection even if in the end it may not help as much, but it can deter some scammers.

The more tips the better

Chat is mainly confirmation that you guys are there through some 2p2 connection and getting screenshot of that. And yes by then they might bail but if they don't, its just another way to prove some person's scam and get them banned from 2p2 and hopefully retrieve funds from site before they get banned from there too.

Eric Fields, the law doesn't care about Quickpay Terms. Theft is still theft. Fraud is still fraud. A few bucks is nothing compared to jail time and a lifelong record making it hard to get a job anywhere. Enjoy!

I can't wait for that scumbag to get caught. Hope you guys are making some leg way on the case. Good Luck to you guys.

I left the cyber department a message twice and they never call back. I dunno what else to do, no other police dept will talk to me and that one doesn't answer their phone...even during business hours I just get voicemail.

This sounds a bit out there, but I think someone posted they found his mothers name. What if you guys gave her a call and explain the situation and see what she has to say about all of this. I was not following as to how old this Eric Fields may be, but I'd have to assume he is in his late teens or 20s. It may be worth a shot, even if it doesn't lead to anything it will cause problems for him.

Scammers tend not to like it when you out them to their friends and family imo.

Follow up on my scam, I contacted GreenDot. They have started an investigation as well as froze his card which he transferred my minis onto. They said they will get back to me next week. Thanks again to Rainbow Warrior also for giving pointers on how to deal with GD.

Glad GD is looking into it for you, have heard they are pretty good about that if it's caught soon enough.

Rainbow Warrior and PSU are both pretty solid on here and help out a ton, very nice of PSU to walk you through some things, and show you how things happened as well.

Not to tute my own horn, but posters should always read the first page of the official P2P transfers thread and the attached posts from posters on here on how to safeguard their money better in the OP.

Also feel free to read my 10 point tidbit on page 1 of this thread, it's Mike Haven 5 Star approved.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...5&postcount=13

why do you say be careful with chase? I am new to this trading w randoms. How are you giving poker $ for chase/BoA/WF? Do you just give the person your name and acct # to go to the bank and deposit?

why the hell are there ppl thinking they can buy cake $ for 50%?
I got some mates who recieved big withdrawals(5 digits+) the last few days/weeks, which should prove that the situation isnt that bad, so dont be dumb and sell your cake$ for such a lol-price

Sorry. I should have said be careful with Chase QuickPay. And I say that because I got scammed, along with 3-4 others, by the same person last week. If you're going to use Chase QuickPay you should wait for the money to actually go into your account and clear. It's always going to be better to do a Wells Fargo/BofA transfer or a normal bank deposit with cash though. Those will never be able to be reversed, especially the cash deposits. The GreenDot MoneyPak's work great too and are basically the same as cash also. So if you're gonna use Chase QuickPay just be careful.

To answer your question...for bank transfers no you don't give the person your acct # to go to the bank. For a BofA transfer you have to give them your account # and they send it online. For Wells Fargo it's the same thing I believe but I'm not positive. For Chase QuickPay they just need your e-mail address..and nothing else. But, if they're gonna do a deposit in the bank they will need your account number. This is different from the online transfers though.

Pretty sure I just said the same paragraph twice lol.

This kind of post just makes you a target. Just sayin'...

Also, don't trade with randoms.

Here is a place to discuss trading and ask any questions etc. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...g-itt-1079166/
Yes. This is one way, and mostly how I do it. Some can be done online. I would not do this with people who are not reputable though.

Another thing you could do is get a separate account just for this (if you plan on doing it a lot) and have the bank make it a deposit only account. So if the person ever tries to withdrawal or charge something to the account it will be declined and you won't even be charged an overdraft fee.

Good idea. It should be noted that a person is not supposed to be able to do anything but deposit, and that deposit can only be cash. Rules are that you need ID for any cash-back transactions. You are also not giving a person a routing number so they can't make echeck type transactions.

However, with people being people, and tellers being people, and people making mistakes, something could happen. I just wish people would stop relying on the system or what could, possibly, happen and start using sense and stop trading with people they don't know, can't trust, are not reputable, etc. I've always said, if you are worried about things like this and concerned that you can be scammed at all, then you should not trade with anyone who evokes those feeling out of you.

Moderators:

I realize part of the point of having this thread was to keep the trading thread cleaner, with less clutter and mostly just posts requesting trades.

Having felt compelled to respond to a self admitted "new trader" who didn't know much and was making himself a target, I realized also there is no good way to advise him when he is in that thread and not here. I imagine he'll be infracted and post removed anyway, as he requested paypal and obviously has not read the rules, but this brought up another concern.

I think the non-trading/advising posts that were being made in the p2p thread at least made new traders aware to the fact that there was scamming going on etc. If it's just a thread with trade requests only, it will almost give it the appearance that it's calm and standard and that everyone trades and there are no issues.

The main problem is, and I think everyone has done everything they can do to address this, that people do not read the first post/rules/tips. It happens everyday and even though there is a page with rules, that makes you click accept, a title with READ THE RULES in caps and bold, people still waltz into the thread with no clue of what's going on.

I really think the only way to address that problem is by making the p2p thread a place you have to be approved in order to post in, similar to the marketplace. It's either that, or we just accept that there will always be those people and accept that they will be scammed and you can't always help someone if they don't want to help themselves.

Also, kudos to chiefsfan17 for monitoring the thread and loo3king out for others.

I don't mean to dominate this thread with a bunch of posts guy. Would love to hear Mike, RW, D.S., etc's ideas and thoughts.

^^ That's a solid list too. Maybe have MH to add, sitting on table to verify funds/get poker site screenname and say something chat, to that list.

good points nofx

The purpose of this thread isn't to move all conversation and reports of scammers here.
In many cases posters wanted more chat and discussion over trading issues and this is the place.

often there were questions that got deleted because they weren't trade offers.

Regular users of the transfer thread will get used to reading this one as well.

References to scams and to this thread will have to be made regularly in the other thread.

I see what you mean though - posts like streffert's (#164) could be in the p2p thread as a reference and a reminder of the scammers out there.

Are you volunteering to screen all of the applicants for approval and stand by your decisions when one goes wrong?
I'm a little busy and MH and Markus have lives.

I haven't updated the 2011 scam list in a while - needs to be done and posted there as well.

Dan