I’ve been thinking about this more, since this encounter. I have seen at least a half dozen other attempts by scammers on MM and started to think back on this experience and others I’ve seen.
There are usually, but always, tell tail things I’ve noticed these scammers do, that when seen, our senses need to kick in.
1. You post that your looking to purchase something of considerable cost.
2. A member responds that he has what you want.
3. In this case, I got a message on my PM. (To an avoid scrutiny by the rest of the membership, I suppose.) from that point on he wanted to email.
4. He used a regular name on the email. He sent pictures. I asked him were he was from. He gave a Midwest State. He knew I was from Utah, too far to drive for a face to face transaction.
5. He had a few (10 total) post from 2023. Most were just Congrats sent to suggestful hunters. 2 or 3 rather lengthy posts about his hunts, questions asked and answer give by MM members but never answered. (His reason , I suspect was to establish a common relationship and therefore trust.)
6. I’m dyslexic so I almost aways screw up my posts by leaving words out, parts of words out, getting two words reversed etc. That’s not what I’ve seen on these scammers posts, it’s more like broken English, and it gives a sense of an odd English writing style. This guy’s was quite subtle but when I read it, actually looking for that style, it was there, but it was subtle. I had to read it a couple of times to pick it up.
7. The price offered was too cheap, for what the pictures represented. It was too good to be true. Had he offered it for a third more I may gone with it. The price is what made me suspicious initially, from there it grew stronger as I started looking further into the offer.
8. I checked his MM posts. I looked at his account to see how many posts he had made, only 10, I looked for any pictures he had posted, there were zero. His posts, were kind of odd. In one he said he was from Idaho, in his email to me he said he was in Illinois . Mmmmm.
9. I took another look at the pictures he email me. He said the rifle was a safe queen but the picture showed it in the original box with the bubble wrap under it.
10. He used a normal name on his email, not Kain467. I Googled the name, only one came up, and the profile give didn’t fit my impression of this guy. Also, it wasn’t from anyone in Illinois.
11. That made me think, I wonder if he got those pictures off Google. So……. I Google the description he sent me. BAM, as soon as I hit search, up came International Guns website and there were the pictures. All Kain467 had done was cope and paste and rotate one image 90 degrees, counterclock wise. It was an exact match. I then say it was offered from a place called Jake’s Guns, from 2018. The guy said he bought it new, a one year ago.
I think the honest old and reliable adage “if it looks to good to be true, it most likely is”.
For what it’s worth.