Thought I would chime in and add to this excellent post with something similar that happened to me today. This scammer emailed me with an email address that appeared to be that of MinerJones. I had bid on one of MinerJones’ items on the forum, and the email requested that I either verify my wallet address or leave Bitcoin in escrow before the auction ended. As a new member, the request didn’t surprise me because I know that guys on the forum are very wary of newbies (understandably so). Thinking that the request from MinerJones was reasonable, I gave him only the receive address of my wallet. I then received an email from him where he offered to remove the listing and sell me the item for an agreed price. I found this suspicious, but agreed to an amount.
Here’s where it gets interesting. I told him that I was going to pm him on the board in order to confirm that the person emailing me is the same person selling the item on the board (the REAL MinerJones). So I PM’d MinerJones. I then received an email from the scammer that showed my pm to MinerJones!!! This made it seem as if he’s the real guy. After all, how else would he get that PM? Unconvinced, I said “please respond via pm on the board.” I then received a PM FROM MY OWN ACCOUNT to me! I guess that he couldn’t fake a pm from MinerJones, but was able to PM me from my own account. On the pm was the message I’d sent MinerJones and a message from the scammer saying “ok, I’ve replied twice now😊.” Once I realized that the pm came from my own account, my suspicions were confirmed. Unfortunately, it makes me think that maybe my account has been hacked. But fortunately, disaster was averted and the scammers didn’t get a cent. Later, a wonderful board member (Bitbuddy60) called me and connected me to the discord and the real MinerJones. I hope that this unpleasant experience will help others. Now I’m just pissed off that the entire interaction happened while that .25 Lealana sold. I would have bid on it if I weren’t busy dealing with this shit! Anyway, I look forward to dealing with you guys, and I’m really happy to be on this board.