Seasonal Reminder - Pernicious Scams

[Cyclofiend Jim]

Hey all - 

As we are enjoying the longer days of summer and renewed enthusiasm with riding, I just wanted to remind everyone of the possibility of nefarious intent during transactions. I just removed a couple of individuals who were peppering responses to a few of your "want to buy/trade" posts. These got caught in the moderation queue, but many times these emails go directly to your inbox - in other words, outside of any moderation on this list. 

As a reminder:
There have been some instances of non-group members emailing members who have posted "wanting to buy" or "want to trade" listings. These emails often have very good descriptions and contain very believable photos.

They have largely been scam attempts. Other group members have recognized images that were theirs or belonged to riding partners. These are believable attempts and through the excitement of saving a few bucks or getting a model which is currently unavailable, it would be very easy to fall for the scam. And we do not fall for scams because we are stupid. We fall for scams because we are human. 

This is reason I have tightened the bottleneck for new members posting "For Sale" items. If you haven't been an active member in any discussion, and your first post is a "For Sale" listing, it will not be passed through. (I changed the group description to reflect that. And if you are a new member who wants to post some items for sale, I'm happy to be convinced that you are completely legit. Reach out and let's talk).

At this point, I am advising anyone who is approached via email to:
- Search the other person's email in the group archives, to see if they have a track record of posting. If they have no posts, it's likely a scam.

- Search their email in the group member section, to see if they are actually a member. If they are not a member, it's likely a scam. 

If you do choose to proceed with any transaction, you do so at entirely your risk. Due diligence and paying with a protected method are always good practice. 

And, yes, I do realize that there are a number of folks who have lurked on this list for a number of years and may not have ever posted. So, the above method is not foolproof. The vast majority of folks in this group are solid citizens who act in good faith. I don't want to lose site of that. 

Thanks for your contributions to this group. 

Jim / List Admin

[Brent Knepper]

bumping this as a reinforcement to be cautious when making WTB posts. I'd like to share some tactics used by a scammer email to this WTB post I made a while back. tldr: do not agree to send money to anyone on the internet who is unwilling to use a protected payment method, regardless of why

methods used to appear like a typical google groups, bike-y user:

-believable "old guy" email: in this case, psclut...@gmail.com

-2 different photos of the part, including photo with a piece of paper with the date, the "selller's" name, and email address

-mildly rambling, "thread drift" style writing that's prevalent here, with a normal "Name, Location" sign off at the bottom, in this case "Dylan, Oxnard, CA"

to Jim's point above: no post history, no email match in the member list or archives. I reverse image-searched the photos provided but did not find a match, however with AI "photo" generation these days that may be an additional factor. scammer was only willing to use Zelle, which has no buyer protection option, giving a rambly reason why they no longer use paypal.

luckily in my case, there was enough weirdness with punctuation and repetitive phrases, and the "verification" paper's handwriting looks like it was written with a finger on a track pad:

be safe out there everyone!

Brent, authentically in NY, but who's to say?