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Beware: New (at least to me) scam being run on Audiogon members

First, let me say that Audiogon's swift response to my having notified them of the scam was exceptional. They immediately took down the scammer's account. The problem is that it could easily be repeated by this individual or anyone else at any time.

Yesterday, at the suggestion of a friend, I posted a WANTED post on USAudioMart for a very hard to find but relativity inexpensive item that I have unsuccessfully sought on Audiogon for almost a year. Within hours of posting there the scammer set up a new account on Audiogon and contacted me (I have the same user name on both sites) to offer me that very item. This person was knowledgeable enough to offer me the separate power supply by model number as well as the item I was seeking, which is scary in itself. The communication was very well spoken so there was nothing suspicious on its face. The time stamp on their communication incidentally indicated they were in the UK time zone, a fact Audiogon verified to me.

When I contacted Audiogon they were very pleased to be informed of this as they then discovered that the new "member" scammer had contacted 7 other Audiogon members with similar proposals. I want to point out that Audiogon responded to me in minutes of my reaching out to them through the normal website contact system. In this day and age of endless phone center number pressing to end up nowhere and automated email responses with "we'll get back to you within 72 hours" I found this to be very gratifying and commendable on Audiogon's part. 

I never see anyone comment on something else that I feel is worth mention that is separate but interesting to note in light of how this went down, so I will do so here. I have no idea how or why Greenville, SC was chosen or ended up being Audiogon's business location but, as someone who has spent a good deal of time there, I can honestly say that I know of no better location (I'm sure there are others as well) to find exceptional potential employees to hire. No regional bias. I live in AZ.

Thanks for listening.

Tony


skywachr
skywachr OP
125 posts
 
"@OP,
How did you know that it was a scam?
B"

His response on Agon to my WANTED posting on the other forum was within hours of my post there which was immediately suspicious to me. I then looked him up on Agon and his membership was only hours old.

The most bothersome thing is that he is one of us, so to speak. He knew to offer me the optional upgraded power supply by specific model name for the phono stage I was looking for.

He had also set up an additional account here which has also been taken down.
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,717 posts
 
All this does not mean there was a scam.  When I started out here, I didn’t open an account until I saw something I wanted.  Perhaps the person recognized your user name on Audio Mart from lurking here and decided to make an account so he could make an honest sale.  
skywachr OP
125 posts
 
"stereo53,189 posts10-30-2019 6:59pmAll this does not mean there was a scam. When I started out here, I didn’t open an account until I saw something I wanted. Perhaps the person recognized your user name on Audio Mart from lurking here and decided to make an account so he could make an honest sale. "

My first question is why he would not have responded to my WANTED post on USAudioMart instead of seeking me out on Agon. The fact that he had reached out to and offered items to 7 other Agon members about their posts seeking things on other forums, as reported to me by Agon, seems to speak for itself.

As also mentioned he set up an additional account within a short time frame to carry on his work further. As far as recognition of my username from posting, I am still under 50 posts total on this forum so not a household brand name yet.
jtcf's avatar
jtcf
1,620 posts
 
Good job Agon!
alymere
20 posts
 
I agree with Stereo5. What exactly was the scam? In my opinion, there is no scam until: a buyer bought something that wasn’t delivered as represented (buyer is scammed) or if a buyer reports that an item was damaged in shipping when it really wasn’t (seller being scammed). Both of those things are: 1) terrible, 2) not unheard of, and 3) previously discussed on Audiogon. Like Stereo5 I watched the ads and monitored the forums for months before I created an account and bought something last summer. Since then I have happily bought and sold several things without incident – and this is my first forum post because I think I finally have something useful to add.

 

So I ask again, what exactly was the scam? If we give the person the benefit of the doubt then it sounds like an honest use of a variety of information sources. Who knows? I don’t check USaudiomart very often compared to Audiogon so maybe the person thought he or she would get a quicker response from Skywachr and others if he used Audiogon. An analogous situation occurs when you go shopping on Amazon, then go read the news on some other site and you get a pop-up ad for the item you were just shopping for on Amazon! Or even worse, you get a popup ad for the same item on sale at Walmart for a lower price (this weekend only!) and you never even visited the Walmart site. Same thing as what happened here to Skywachr. Is it wrong? I don’t know. Is it creepy? Definitely. Is it a scam? I don’t think so in this age of widely accessible information.


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