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IMPORTANT: Jan 4 2025: Scammer here posting/offering fraudulent stuff for sale!

josh

josh

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Yesterday, two accounts here on the forum were hacked and used to post fraudulent for-sale postings AND to respond to some users who had posted Wanted equipment.

The accounts @iansilv and @tnedator were used. To be clear, the actual owners of those accounts are legitimate, longtime, and valued members here who were innocent victims of this scam. None of this is their fault.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY: If you have had any interactions over the past 48 hours with those two accounts, do NOT send any money for equipment you have "agreed" to buy.

One member here has already lost thousands of dollars to this scam, and we're sickened by the use of this longtime safe, small community here for this type of scam.

More details in a minute, but wanted to get this urgent warning up prominently on the site as fast as possible.
 
What we're doing about this:
  • The two hacked accounts were shut down as soon as saw what was happening. Email address on those accounts were deleted, passwords changed, and anyone logged in was forced into a log-out status.
  • I broke longstanding personal rule about accessing anyone's Private Messages here, and logged in as the hacked account @iansilv to find names of anyone who had discussed or started transactions with the scammer. (In 19 years running the forum, I'd never changed someone's account info and then logged in as them to view their private messages.)
    • There were at least 8 transactions being discussed or were underway between the scammer and forum members here.
    • Those members were notified immediately by PM here as well as by email to stop all transactions with the individual.
  • I've captured IP addresses from our server used by the scammer for all recent logins, and are ready to provide to authorities working with the one member here who did lose money. Unlikely to be identifiable on its own, as this was a very sophisticated individual, but possibly helpful in conjunction with other records at financial institutions and payment processors that were involved here.
  • In addition, after learning how this was done, we've now stopped any email address changes for accounts here, as this was the first step used by the scammer. After getting in to these two accounts, they changed the email address and password so they controlled the accounts. As of now, no one can change their email accounts automatically ... requests are held until approved by me or Jim after verifying with the person that the request is legiitmate.
More changes and discussions underway urgently now, including the possibility of shutting down the Marketplace areas of the forum. While very popular here, the forum was always meant to be primarily a discussion forum, not a site for sales of anything. Having this area has been beneficial to users, but also has clearly made us a target for scammers. More on this soon, but at this point, all new for-sale posts are getting extra scrutiny where possible.
 
What YOU can do to help:
  • SECURE your accounts here:
    • never use a password here that you've used elsewhere. There have been so many data breaches worldwide and hackers know how to use automated tools to try those email/password combinations on sites like this. If they get a hit, they take over the account, change the password and email addresses, and then they can post as the original owner here, and the scam begins.
    • Change your password here. We haven't yet taken the action of FORCING all passwords to be changed, but I urge everyone to change the passwords they use on this forum to something new and strong.
    • Use a password manager. I like 1Password, but there are other good password managers.
What to be aware of:
  • Verify the identity of anyone with whom you're considering doing a transaction here. A legitimate seller who is really from our community here should have no problem in you asking for full contact info. Speak by voice, ask questions. You can ask Jim @cinelife or me if we know them, and at the very least, we can make sure that they are not a brand new account here or one that has requested recent email address changes.
  • Get serial numbers of any equipment BEFORE a transaction. Jim @cinelife can help, or you can reach out to Kaleidescape, to verify the equipment is legitimate. I don't know if they'll identify the owner of the equipment to you, but ask where it was last in service and see if it matches what the seller says and where the seller is located, and at least make sure it's never been reported as stolen.
  • Get recent pictures of the equipment, ideally with time/date information like from the sellers phone in the picture.
    • Tell the seller you want the photo to have all geo information attached, as it will by default if it's from an iphone or android phone, or most digital cameras.
    • Verify location, time, and date info the seller provides. you matches EXIF data on the photo (you can google how to do that, it's easy.)
    • Do a reverse-image search on Google on the pictures to make sure they haven't come from another posting or for-sale listing somewhere.
  • ONLY use legitimate payment services from legitimate financial providersyou know of and trust.
    • Avoid using cryptocurrency, even if (especially if) seller insists/suggests. Note, I'm a proponent of cryptocurrencies in general and not an alarmist on the topic... but crypto transactions can almost never be reversed and can be difficult to track down. There's a reason scammers will often try to use cryptocurrencies.
    • Use Paypal with purchase protection, or Venmo, or Zelle, or other legitimate services in your country that provide buyer protection.
    • Very last resort - Use your bank's wire transfer process if absolutely needed... but be aware that while the bank may be able to be helpful in seeing where the money went, you should consider a bank wire transfer as irreversible. Scammers can withdraw that received money from the receiving account very fast and then your bank has very little recourse to help you..

And... if a price listed seems too good to be true, it's probably a scam!
 
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First, I'm glad no one purchased from the FAKE "Iansilv" based on my comment indicating Iansilv can be trusted. The Member that was scammed had actually sent the money before I posted, but my post did make him feel better about the purchase, which was later determined to be a scammer that hacked Ian's account. I know the real Ian can absolutely be trusted, but unfortunately at that point we did not know his account had been hacked.

Josh explains it very well above, so I won't add anything else other than to contact myself or Josh if you are in doubt about any listing and we will look into it.

Jim
 
I had messaged one of the accounts about one of their posts after literally last night discussing with my wife options we were considering and one of the posts being exactly like one of those options... so I appreciate the forum admins quick handling of the situation.

I'd suggest too that it would be worthwhile when sending large sums of money to individuals to consider using an escrow service, such as escrow.com - while seller protections are great from payment providers, it all depends on the ability of the payment provider to recover the money. In escrow you place the funds into a secure account, then the seller would ship the item(s), and once received and verified you then can release those funds to the seller. In the case of fraud you will have never received the product and never released the funds.

Even better, if you require an escrow service to be used typically the malicious actors will refuse because they know they won't get the money... saving you the time and trouble in some of those situations.
 
pmgarman said:
I had messaged one of the accounts about one of their posts after literally last night discussing with my wife options we were considering and one of the posts being exactly like one of those options... so I appreciate the forum admins quick handling of the situation.

I'd suggest too that it would be worthwhile when sending large sums of money to individuals to consider using an escrow service, such as escrow.com - while seller protections are great from payment providers, it all depends on the ability of the payment provider to recover the money. In escrow you place the funds into a secure account, then the seller would ship the item(s), and once received and verified you then can release those funds to the seller. In the case of fraud you will have never received the product and never released the funds.

Even better, if you require an escrow service to be used typically the malicious actors will refuse because they know they won't get the money... saving you the time and trouble in some of those situations.
Click to expand...
GREAT advice, about using escrow services, especially for a large transaction.
 
You can activate a passkey under the forum's account security settings. This will prevent anyone from being able to hack your password.

Unrelated to this forum, it is always best practice to use a hardware key such as Yubi or an authenticator application to log into any financial institution. Most brokerage firms have this option while banks are woefully behind in security.
 
A month ago I had a new member on this forum message me on this forum that he wanted to buy my Terra Server 88TB. But he wanted to wire the $$ to my bank account and refused to use Paypal saying he had issues with Paypal. To me, his wanting the bank account info was a ref flag and I told him I would not use wires to my bank account or give out my bank account into, and he still refused Paypal. Haven't heard from him again and don't expect to. I gave Cinelife this info last month as I suspect this person to be a scammer. I just checked and this person has no activity at all on this forum in terms of posting. So BEWARE!

And I just signed up for the Passkey. Thanks so much.
 
rdasari said:
Thanks
Just signed up for the passkey
Click to expand...
well done. I've done the same a while ago... Passkeys make signing in both easier and more secure. Highly recommend it for everyone.
 
Steve Bruzonsky said:
A month ago I had a new member on this forum message me on this forum that he wanted to buy my Terra Server 88TB. But he wanted to wire the $$ to my bank account and refused to use Paypal saying he had issues with Paypal. To me, his wanting the bank account info was a ref flag and I told him I would not use wires to my bank account or give out my bank account into, and he still refused Paypal. Haven't heard from him again and don't expect to. I gave Cinelife this info last month as I suspect this person to be a scammer. I just checked and this person has no activity at all on this forum in terms of posting. So BEWARE!

And I just signed up for the Passkey. Thanks so much.
Click to expand...
Just to comment on this (and just to stress that the individual you refer to wasn't me, although I have reached out to others indicating an interest in their listings, highlighting that I can only pay by bank wire), but there can be many valid reasons why someone would be averse, or even unable, to use PayPal.

It is of course entirely the prerogative of the individual selling the product to decide whether or not to accept any mode of payment, but you can rest assured that the risk is far more heavily weighted towards the sender of the money than the receiver when it comes to bank wires.
 
Gerald.d said:
Just to comment on this (and just to stress that the individual you refer to wasn't me, although I have reached out to others indicating an interest in their listings, highlighting that I can only pay by bank wire), but there can be many valid reasons why someone would be averse, or even unable, to use PayPal.

It is of course entirely the prerogative of the individual selling the product to decide whether or not to accept any mode of payment, but you can rest assured that the risk is far more heavily weighted towards the sender of the money than the receiver when it comes to bank wires.
Click to expand...
You are completely wrong. Many of us have had personal information stolen and on the dark web. When you combine other personal information such as date of birth with a bank account number checks might be written and cashed on the bank. You may be honest, but there were simply no way for the seller to tell in advance! Especially in this particular case where the for member is brand new with no posts, and still no posts over a month later!
 
Steve Bruzonsky said:
You are completely wrong. Many of us have had personal information stolen and on the dark web. When you combine other personal information such as date of birth with a bank account number checks might be written and cashed on the bank. You may be honest, but there were simply no way for the seller to tell in advance! Especially in this particular case where the for member is brand new with no posts, and still no posts over a month later!
Click to expand...
Nope.

I'm not wrong on the fact that there are many reasons why someone would not want to transact through PayPal; and neither I am wrong that an individual wiring money to a bank account is at far more risk of fraud than an individual who provides their account details in order to receive funds for goods and/or services to be supplied.

Naturally should you and the "many" other individuals and/or companies that you allude to in your statement truly believe that you're at significant risk by providing bank details in order that someone can wire you or they money in order to pay for goods and services, as I said, that's entirely your prerogative.

Fortunately for consumers such as myself, there are an abundance of individuals and companies who are more than happy to take our money via a bank wire.
 
I think the posts above raise relevant but different points and so it's not a matter of which is right or wrong, they are both experiences to note as if an when we purchase on line. I would say that I personally will never use Paypal as a payment method, receipt or send, due to previous experience/exposure to the company. That's my decision and if that means I can't purchase something then I am happy with that.
 
First, I want it known, that I know all of the above Members, they are all great people, and completely reliable, and they are all correct when you look at it from their perspective. It's fine to decide the payment method you are willing to use as the buyer, and the payment method you are willing to accept as the seller. These days there is always some degree of risk involved in buying/selling online, all we can do is use the process we are most comfortable with to hopefully mitigate that risk. What occured here recently involves a deeper level of fraud, and the purpose of this thread was to discuss it, and provide some guidance to potential buyers and sellers using this Forum.

Jim
 
Hi everyone,

Unfortunately, I was the victim who fell for this scam, and I want to share my experience so others can avoid making the same mistake here.

Due to Ian’s old profile activity, I trusted him. Being based in the UK, finding used or affordable Kaleidescape Terra servers is incredibly challenging. I’ve loved this ecosystem for a long time and had been saving up for a server. When the scammer, using Ian’s hacked account, offered me a used 22TB Terra server for $4,900 (with a 4-year warranty and shipping included), it seemed like a deal I couldn’t pass up.

We agreed to make payment via USDT, and I sent the amount to the TRC20 address he provided.

After making the payment, I waited for shipping details, but he kept delaying, which was my first red flag. Unfortunately, by the time I realized something was wrong, it was already too late. I briefly felt reassured when I saw Jim’s message under the scammer’s post, but the delays continued.

As I grew more suspicious, I checked the images the scammer had sent. I noticed the file names were unusually long, as though they were downloaded from the internet. When I searched the file names, I discovered the images were taken from another forum back in July 2023. This was odd because the scammer claimed the unit had a warranty until December 2028, which wouldn’t align with a unit purchased in December 2023.

At this point, I knew I’d been scammed. I quickly reached out to Jim @cinelife , and in the meantime, @josh blocked the another scammer’s account which was also hacked. Josh also urgently messaged me, warning me not to send any money, but the damage was already done. I informed him that I had already made the payment.

Josh and Jim quickly invited me to a conference call to discuss the situation. I was in complete shock that this had happened to me—especially since Ian’s profile dated back to 2007, which had made it seem trustworthy. On the call, Jim and Josh were incredibly supportive. They really felt my pain. They empathized with what I was going through and provided clues and advice to help track the scammer. They both are amazing people.

The last few days have been a nightmare. I felt so stupid and angry at myself for falling for this scam, especially with my technical background. But I refused to give up. Even though the chances of recovering anything were slim, I knew I had to try.

Fortunately, the scammer made a critical mistake: the TRC20 address he provided was linked to a centralized exchange—Binance. This made it possible to track the funds. I quickly reported the incident to Binance Security Support, providing a detailed explanation and all the evidence I had. I also involved a blockchain investigation agency that works closely with law enforcement.

Fast forward to today—just a few hours ago, I received a message from Binance’s Security Fund Recovery team. They had recovered my funds and credited them back to my account. This outcome is extremely rare in the crypto world, as scammers typically use mixers to obscure transactions. Luckily for me, this scammer was slightly naive and sent the funds directly to his CEX account.

I can’t thank Binance and the other agencies enough for their efforts in recovering my funds. This ordeal was heartbreaking, but I’m grateful I was able to dodge the bullet.

I sincerely hope no one else in our small, beautiful Kaleidescape owners’ community has to go through what I experienced. We all need to stay vigilant and avoid making the mistakes I made.

Lastly, I want to give a huge shoutout to @josh . He is an incredible person. When I was at my lowest, he truly felt my pain. His text messages and moral support meant the world to me. Stay blessed, bro—I’ll always remember your kindness.
 
DrTechBull said:
Yes bro I can’t express in words how happy and relieved I am right now.
Click to expand...
I hope you can find a legitimate deal on a server somewhere like you thought you had.
Please don't lose your trust in this site. I've been here a long time, and this is the first time I've heard of this happening.
Jim and Josh are great people who are always looking out for us.
Take care,
Chris
 
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