Having high-speed internet access comes with some risk, e-mail address are sold as mailing-lists and we get inundated with spam on a daily basis. Recently though, scam-spam is on the increase, they follow the trend of the Nigerian scam notifying you of the millions of dollars they have acquired and of your percentage if they can deposit the funds into your account, after the info is shared funds are usually removed out of your account. The new scams notify you of your lotto (or some other) winnings and request info for either fedex or some other courier. The identifying mark of these scammers is their poor english and for some obscure reason, their use of the word "dear". I cannot imagine being notified by some state agency of my winning the lotto using the word "dear". Recently I posted an add on this website for the need of beachwheels or cat-trax and have since then received several e-mails in very poor english notifying me that they have 'the above stated item' and that they will ship it to me after I have sent them payment. Firstly, I am insulted that they question my intelligence thinking that I am just going to hand over to them my hard earned dollars without verification and secondly, I am mortified to hear that there are still individuals falling for these scams. I just received one recently from yahoo.com.hk. hk being Hong Kong, do these people really think I'm going to pay for shipping of beachwheels out of Hong Kong, that would double the price. Reading the posts on the forums here at thebeachcats.com I realize that cat sailors are a breed of highly intelligent people but please notify those that we know of these malicious scams, all that is needed is to click on the reply button on your e-mail provider and if the reply e-mail address is from one of the free providers like yahoo or g-mail it's a dead givaway, it's a scam.


--
TurboHobo
H14T
H16
P18
G-Cat 5.0
P16
--

I think you should take your email out of your signature, that is not helping things. Scammers can farm websites for email addresses.

A better appraoch for sharing your contact info would be a format like:

name at centurytel dot net

There are a couple of scambaiter websites were people turn the cards on the Nigerians. They are very funny to read, I wasted several hours on this webpage:

http://www.419eater.com/

Yeah ya gotta watch it, but it can be fun... I had some fun with one a couple yrs. ago. Long story, won't go there !

--
~ Vietnam Vet 69-71~ 17 Hobie w/big jib, ~18 Hobie mag,~DN Ice sailor,
and other toys.......
~~ I live in NY state on the north shore of Oneida lake in
Bernhards Bay. ~~~~~~
--

Hey Kenny
Great website that http://www.419eater.com, spent hours there laughing at the unbelievable stupidity, someone has a lot of time on their hands to bait scammers like that. Good one. Took your advice.






--
TurboHobo
H14T
H16
P18
G-Cat 5.0
P16
--

turbohobo

Having high-speed internet access comes with some risk, e-mail address are sold as mailing-lists and we get inundated with spam on a daily basis. Recently though, scam-spam is on the increase,

Here at TheBeachcats.com I do everything I can to make it hard for the scammers to use the site. If you run a classified ad your email is not exposed, buyers need to register on the site and then use the contact seller form to send you an email.

The emails sent out by the "contact seller" form contain instructions on reporting scammers. When someone reports one by forwarding me the contact email, I ban that username from the site. It means that the scammer has to has to register again using a new email address before they can contact anyone else. So the faster these are reported to me the less sellers can be contacted.

Most of the scammers quickly move on to other easier websites when they realize what is going on.

One problem is that some sellers will include their email address in the item description, despite the specific warnings I have in the ad form.

--
Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN

How To Create Your Signature

How To Create Your Own Cool Avatar

How To Display Pictures In The Forums.
--