Warning to Sellers: Information to avoid placing in your ads

[Bobby D. Hunter]

I have recently seen reports about sellers on the SGF getting contacted by scammers by telephone, as well as by email. This happens when the seller lists his phone number, or types out his email address, in the ad. Normally the SGF software protects your confidential contact information from non-members by requiring a person to be logged into the SGF before they can see or use an Email or PM button link to contact you. But, there is nothing we can do to protect you from scammers or harvester bots that scour the forums looking for phone numbers or email addresses typed in plain text in your ad.

I urge you all to ask potential buyers to reply by PM, or Email, using the buttons that they can only access if they are members and logged in. If any member contacts a seller and attempts to scam the seller, he should report it to the system Administrator immediately. Every Forum Email and PM that is sent out from logged in members has details about reporting suspicious messages.

If any of you on this section of the SGF have received email scam messages regarding items posted for sale, and you did not list your email address in plain sight in the ad, please contact me via my forum email link and I will arrange for you to Forward that email scam to me as an attachment, to preserve the incoming headers. Also provide me with a link to your ad.

This information is only for members of the SGF. I am not here to assist non-members.