Scam Alert - "feraripeter1"

[Nathan]

Please excuse me if this is not the place to post this, but I loathe scammers and need to warm you honest board uses...There is a board member among us - "feraripeter1" who joined in October 2023. I posted a parts wanted query, and feraripeter1 responded - " Alves James has the parts you need"... and included Alve's email address. I took the bait and went down the path of buying parts. There was plenty of email back and forth with promises on photos and shipping info. Kind of a broken record. Once the payment was made through PayPal all communication stopped. The payee asked that payment be made as "friends and family" - red flag 1. The parts price was too low - red flag 2. Refusal to send photos - red flag 3.

Call me stupid, but I tend to error on the side of honesty, since I run a honest business and know that is the only way to succeed. If we all aired on the side of distrust and evil ways, we would live in a shit world.

Note to self and all of you. I tried to stop payment through my bank and they dropped the ball, however paypal is a third party institution and as such banks can't file claims against them.

Have a Happy (honest) New Year.
1985 535i Euro Conversion. Black on black.

[Shawn D.]

Did you report this person? As in use the "report" button?

[Nathan]

No - I have no idea how to do that??

[John in VA]

No - I have no idea how to do that??

The exclamation point ! to the top right of your post, near your name, etc.

That is a common scam scenario - sorry it happened to you here. It's wrecking our hobby.

[Justin_FL]

That sucks and all forums have been targeted the past couple years by this common off-site redirection scam via email. I've had a warning appear for quite some time on this forum but maybe it only shows up for desktop users vs mobile theme.

I've deleted the user but they will simply come back.

[Nathan]

Thank you for enlightening me. I guess you have to be a thief to understand how one works.

[Etip]

I got a response to my WTB post for a strut bar the other day. Guy said "Pull-A-Part would be a good option,contact him via wayatlas@ yahoo.com .
He has a Strut bar for M5 he wants to part with."

Maybe it's legit, but random outreach for other people, that they tell you to email just screams scam to me.

[Justin_FL]

Is this a different user? Or the same one?

Yes, that is absolutely a scam.

[ratfink6923]

I got taken on a different message board (thirdgen.org) by the same guy. I found this post via a search for wayatlas@yahoo.com got me through zelle, so Im also SOL

I hate people

[kodachrome]

I was caught by this too! Linked off site to one "Alves James", he had photos of a MTech Steering and overall seemed just legit enough to take a chance sending money. Just too much on my mind at the time to really vet it properly.

Had me send money to a Janet Byrd (his "son's" PayPal account) over Paypal. I even emailed this other email address to confirm but the eventual reply to it was too late. He also knew the name of the actual PayPal account.

He also continued to email me post the "deal" being done so it and I didnt think the price was crazy low, just the "free" shipping to New Zealand was a bit dodgy..


Oh well.