I'm going to post this now and again as a reminder to all members. Over the weekend (11/10/24), I had a member reach out to let me know they had been taken advantage of by an online scammer.
Their story followed the most common recent vector: A group member posts a WTB or ISO or "Looking for..." post They are contacted directly via email by someone who has exactly that item, wants to sell it to them at a fair/realistic price, includes photos or other visual assets, etc. The photos are not theirs. The item doesn't exist. The potential buyer loses their money. In these 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. The "seller" is not a list member. That means that some other "sleeper" account is harvesting your email address and then using it to contact you. If someone is not a list member, they cannot see your contact info and would not be able to contact you directly. If you are approached after creating a WTB/ISO post - 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. Please feel free to append this reminder to anyone's WTB/ISO post. - Jim / list admin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/d8c52d0c-da4e-4661-91f2-edb5e1207877n%40googlegroups.com.
