Tell me guys. How do you find all these alts ? Do you hunt them or do you just come on one from time to time (this mean everyday for some people
) ?
Well, in the case of Sarahiko - it was because of Altcoin4life - but in general I have a look in the Currencey Exchange
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=53.0 and read the ones wanting to trade PayPal for BitCoins.
Spelling mistakes aside,
Broken English as rude as that may sound is a flag, as is wording back to front ie
I am selling PayPal as though it is a coin or a commodity.
You get the occasional
I have (25$ Paypal) I want (25$ BitCoin) where someone spells out what they want, so I tend to leave them aside.
Having zero replies six or twelve hours later - but has been read 50 times is a give away, no one wants to touch them but doesn't want to say anything..
Can you see where the flag is here --> Selling 0.05BTC for 14GBP UKBT or Paypal - there isn't a pound symbol £ or Euro €, Yen ¥; or on occasion Rupee ₹ Baht, Rouble etc, - The Rouble most will use the old code RUR instead of the (since 2013) RUB code when they use the term in their trade.
Knowing that just now £300 sterling equals ~ $400 USD which is about one BitCoin is handy as sometimes you'll get some one wanting multiples of £300, ie £300 £600 £900 £1500
While it's true in Europe some/most will write
50.50 € , people in the UK don't write
75.75 £ (let alone in the USA
44.44 $ )
Newbies wanting to trade as their first post (or posting multiple trade wants across multiple trading threads)
Newbies who register, then log off the same minute and don't come back.
Newbies who want to buy BitCoin in the hundreds of dollars.
Newbies who post something like "I wil only trade with a trusted user with fifty trust - and you can go first because I have been scammed here already" - they have about ten activity over a week and no clear signs of trade.
Newbies who claim to have had multiple trades with others either here or elsewhere and neither side posts trust for the trade.
I've come across a couple of newbies who start multiple user accounts then start giving wither one user multiple trusts, or they each give each other glowing
Paid him ok, or
We traded coins all good or some other short note - if one user is getting all the praise, the others have all stated
what a trusting guy he is.
Anyone not wanting to go first and then with a snap of their fingers I don't need Escrow.
Urgency.
I need to sell this PayPal urgency!Skype - Skype and ICQ especially - they either want to eye ball you (to see if you are using a differant name to catch them with) or to use the chat service so it's not here where, as a Newbie, they can't post PM's due to the five minutes between posts rule.
If a user with any where up to 100 activity starts posting in the currency section, (the regualer names you get to recognise) have a look back over their previous posts, copious amounts of gambling and or loan requests is a dead give-away of a gambling addiction
As is joining Twitter campaigns. Have they used multiple Twitter accounts? Especially if they used the same wallet but different twitter names, they are milking the campaigns for multiple payments.
This is a handy tool:
http://www.bctalkaccountpricer.info/?token=Put a user number in ie
http://www.bctalkaccountpricer.info/?token=131361 and you can see what wallets they have used in the past.
open a new window to the home page here and enter a wallet or twitter name and the search engine will yield every instance of their use, most scammers even now are using the sme wallet for all their Alts, so finding users A, B and H all posting the same wallet (especially if it's for loan requests or twitter (or similar campaigns)) is a good way to spot a scammer.
archive.is is a new tool that I've found recently, I've had where a scammer has posted a new trade - I've quoted the message and stated they are a scammer because of ... only to have them change the OP to
(no longer needed) or
please move to bin or similar.
copying the link to the thread post to
archive.is creates a snap shot of the thread at that very moment, so when a scammer posts a Skype name then later removes it leaving only your
quote of the Skype address is a way to cross verify. (Always quote and archive.is )
Am nearly out of time just now, but will post some more about spotting scammers a little later.