{"id":40038,"date":"2019-10-07T06:34:50","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T10:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=40038"},"modified":"2019-10-07T06:34:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T10:34:50","slug":"more-advice-on-avoiding-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/more-advice-on-avoiding-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"More advice on avoiding scams"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In response to Paolo’s recent post regarding Internet scams, SWLing Post<\/em> contributor, 13dka replies:<\/p>\n

Sellers should be aware too: the same scammers have various schemes to scam sellers as well, and these fake ads play a role in those too, IIRC one popular variant is that the scammers try to buy your item, and offer the same thing on another platform in a different country, then they give their buyer your bank data to let them pay for your item, which gives them the advantage that they don\u2019t even need a bank account to scam you. At the end the scammers have your item, the other buyer reverses the payment because he didn\u2019t get anything.<\/p>\n

Anyway, of course the same type of scams can be found with any article on the various \u201cclassifieds\u201d platforms, also including eBay and Amazon\u2019s \u201cMarketplace\u201d \u2013 RVs, cars, cellphones, computers, anything rare, collectible and\/or vintage, pricey and sometimes even more common and cheaper things.<\/p>\n

I noticed a serious wave of fake ads for guitars and other music gear on the German \u201ceBay Kleinanzeigen\u201d platform this year. One day I noticed several offers for vintage Gibson guitars usually sold in the $6,000-$10,000 range, each offered around 2,000, of course with pictures and article descriptions stolen from ended eBay auctions and US shops. It wasn\u2019t only the price that wasn\u2019t right, the descriptions being obviously translated from English was quite a dead giveaway. A few days later I found new offers like this and this went on and on, making me curious how many of those might be published every day.<\/p>\n

To understand this properly, you need to consider that these \u201cclassifieds\u201d are usually searched for local offers people can pick up personally, particularly with musical instruments that people often want to see, touch and try before buying. If I found that many fake offers just in my state, how many of those might show up in the entire country? In short, the amount of fake ads I found on a random sample basis (its impossible to survey the entire thing) was devastating. Even worse, I found that this extended to much less obvious, relatively low-priced current production instruments, also offered at prices that were only \u201cattractive\u201d or \u201cvery fair\u201d and not obviously alarming.<\/p>\n

A common denominator with all of these scams is indeed the stolen pictures from ended auctions and shops, and original article descriptions translated. You need a bit of \u201cGoogle-Fu\u201d to retrieve the origins of those and it takes a bit of common sense to distinguish fake offers and offers where the seller was just too lazy to take pics,. However, digging as deep as I could I found out that this musical instrument scamming goes on for at least 12 years now and there are so obvious similarities in the communication between sellers and buyers and shipping addresses that I think it\u2019s the same scammers doing this successfully for that long time. The authorities are apparently over challenged and powerless due to the international character of the scam. Mind you, I checked only this one area of expertise I have and the result was alarming. The dark figure of scam attempts and actually scammed people might be incredibly high if I extrapolate this to all kinds of items.<\/p>\n

If you want to stay on the safe side, just don\u2019t try to buy stuff you can\u2019t pick up yourself (or where the seller tries to avoid this by claiming he\u2019s currently in some other country), don\u2019t fall for surprisingly low prices offered by Amazon Marketplace dealers outside of your own country (like the brand new Icom 7300s offered for 599\u20ac a while ago), on everything eBay\/Kijiji\/Gumtree\/whatever try to check the seller\u2019s reputation thoroughly so you don\u2019t fall for 100% reputation scores gained from selling used baby clothing before the account was hacked and used to sell pricy things. If you have the faintest feeling of doubt, just let the deal pass. If you haven\u2019t thoroughly read up on eBay scams et al, keep buying your stuff at local stores.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thank you for sharing! All very sound advice. As for performing a little “Google-Fu” to find the source of an image, check out this tutorial on Google reverse image searches<\/a>. Read the entire article as it describes doing this from tablets, phones and PCs. In addition to asking the seller to photograph something specific and unique on the item (like asking them to tune it to a specific frequency or to write their callsign on a card and include it with the item) I also perform a reverse image search anytime I’m purchasing from someone I don’t know.<\/p>\n

\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In response to Paolo’s recent post regarding Internet scams, SWLing Post contributor, 13dka replies: Sellers should be aware too: the same scammers have various schemes to scam sellers as well, and these fake ads play a role in those too, IIRC one popular variant is that the scammers try to buy your item, and offer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[627,3],"tags":[6935,8047,6212,8046],"class_list":["post-40038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","category-news","tag-13dka","tag-avoiding-scams","tag-ebay-scams","tag-scams"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-apM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39954,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/guest-post-paolos-tips-for-avoiding-internet-scams\/","url_meta":{"origin":40038,"position":0},"title":"Guest Post: Paolo’s Tips For Avoiding Internet Scams","author":"Thomas","date":"October 3, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paolo Viappiani (SWL I1-11437), who shares the following guest post: Some Tips For Avoiding Internet Scams by Paolo Viappiani \u2013 SWL I1-11437 pviappiani@tin.it Recently, I have been amazed by the growing number of frauds that foul up the radio market on the Internet (I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Guest Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Guest Posts","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/guest-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Panasonic-RF-8000-1024x714.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Panasonic-RF-8000-1024x714.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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"Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/2021-02-13_190437-AEG-Photo-on-desk.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/2021-02-13_190437-AEG-Photo-on-desk.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/2021-02-13_190437-AEG-Photo-on-desk.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/2021-02-13_190437-AEG-Photo-on-desk.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/2021-02-13_190437-AEG-Photo-on-desk.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/2021-02-13_190437-AEG-Photo-on-desk.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":46469,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/paolo-warns-of-persistent-classifieds-scams-targeting-radio-collectors-and-advises-how-you-can-be-scam-savvy\/","url_meta":{"origin":40038,"position":2},"title":"Paolo warns of persistent classifieds scams targeting radio collectors and advises how you can be scam savvy!","author":"Thomas","date":"November 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paolo Viappiani (SWL I1-11437), who shares the following guest post: A recent resurgence of Internet scams involving quality radios by Paolo Viappiani (SWL I1-11437) After my previous post on this subject, I found on the Internet other very dangerous fraud attempts concerning high-quality radios\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-15-at-07.16.22.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-15-at-07.16.22.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-15-at-07.16.22.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screen-Shot-2020-11-15-at-07.16.22.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":26088,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/buyer-beware-dan-shows-us-how-to-spot-a-scam-on-ebay\/","url_meta":{"origin":40038,"position":3},"title":"Buyer Beware: Dan shows us how to spot a scam on eBay","author":"Thomas","date":"May 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who writes: This is an example of a classic scam -- and these are usually seen involving Watkins-Johnson 8711\/A receivers. The seller puts a photo of what appears to be a good condition WJ up, with additional photos. But often these photos\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Guest Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Guest Posts","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/guest-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WatkinsJohnson-1024x312.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WatkinsJohnson-1024x312.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/WatkinsJohnson-1024x312.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":27725,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/dan-warns-of-more-fraudulent-ebay-items\/","url_meta":{"origin":40038,"position":4},"title":"Dan warns of more fraudulent eBay items","author":"Thomas","date":"August 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who writes: There's been a new flurry of these posts on eBay, always the WJ 8711A. These items have prohibited listing practices, and should be ignored -- definitely not something to bid on. I have reported these on numerous occasions to Ebay,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ham Radio"","block_context":{"text":"Ham Radio","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/ham-radio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Fullscreen-capture-8252017-94929-PM.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Fullscreen-capture-8252017-94929-PM.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Fullscreen-capture-8252017-94929-PM.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Fullscreen-capture-8252017-94929-PM.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":64185,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/radio-romania-international-listeners-day-2025-how-to-participate\/","url_meta":{"origin":40038,"position":5},"title":"Radio Romania International: Listeners\u2019 Day 2025 \u2013 How to Participate","author":"Thomas","date":"October 8, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor David Iurescia for sharing this tip: Radio Romania International has announced that Listeners\u2019 Day 2025 will take place on November 2 (the first Sunday after RRI\u2019s anniversary). This year\u2019s theme focuses on digital safety \u2014 from phishing scams to AI-driven fraud and disinformation \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Radio-Romania-International-tiganesti-antene-us.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Radio-Romania-International-tiganesti-antene-us.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Radio-Romania-International-tiganesti-antene-us.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}