Warning: I don't use telegram! The Pharmacist impersonator is active there

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I just got a PM from a Jr. Member asking whether I was the one who contacted him on PayPal looking to do a deal, so I'm assuming this has something to do with the recent scam accusation thread against me.

So please, if any of you get contacted outside of bitcointalk by anyone with my bitcointalk username, it isn't me.  I don't use telegram or other social media, and the only way I've ever done trades is on the forum.  If you get a PM from me, that's another matter because I have PM'ed members I've dealt with before when I'm looking to trade.

Don't know if this is the right section for a thread like this, so if it's not perhaps a mod will move it to the right place (or let me know so I can do it).  Thanks, and be careful with impersonators.  I'm certainly not the first member who's name has been appropriated in order to pull off a scam, and I'm sure I won't be the last.

[DireWolfM14]

I'm certainly not the first member who's name has been appropriated in order to pull off a scam, and I'm sure I won't be the last.

No, you're not, but thank you for the heads-up.  The worst is when this kind of thing happens to a trusted member who's no longer active, because it makes it harder for the targeted victims to confirm.  This happened a few months ago to monbux, and I have reason to believe it was Elmanches attempting the scam.

The trouble is that a lot of people using Telegram don't confirm the identity of the individual they're communicating with.  I like Telegram, I find it to be a useful tool, but it can easily be abused.

[PrimeNumber7]

I would suggest that you add a note to your profile alerting anyone looking that you don’t use telegram. This way if you can’t respond to a PM quickly, any potential victims can see a note saying that you don’t use telegram.

[The Cryptovator]

I am a victim like you, few days back scammers target my telegram user name. Here is my thread regarding impersonating. Scammer already succeeds to scam many companies by getting Signature campaign funds. But unfortunately, they reach me after scammed, they do not bother to send me PM before sending the fund, even they hadn't used the BTC address linked with my profile. Blaming us would help them return the scammed amount. It's surprising that victims even do not bother to read the profile where I wrote a note about the impersonator. There is no way to prevent it, scammers will fund a new way. So, everyone should take care of his fund, we can't take any responsibility of deal outside the forum.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I would suggest that you add a note to your profile alerting anyone looking that you don’t use telegram. This way if you can’t respond to a PM quickly, any potential victims can see a note saying that you don’t use telegram.

That was a good idea, and I made a note to that effect in the "website" part of my profile.  Hopefully whoever this jackass is who's trying to scam people in my name will just give up and go away, though.

It's surprising that victims even do not bother to read the profile where I wrote a note about the impersonator. There is no way to prevent it, scammers will fund a new way. So, everyone should take care of his fund, we can't take any responsibility of deal outside the forum.

I agree, there are too many people who don't do even the most cursory due diligence when it comes to trading with someone who's supposed to be a trusted member (and even members who have no trust reputation). 

[suchmoon]

This sounds like a dangerously slippery slope - trying to deny that you're using some scammy platform. Does your denial regarding telegram mean that you might conduct business on some other platform? Does this mean that those who don't create a thread in Reputation or don't add a note to their profile might conduct business on telegram?

It should be the default assumption that doing business outside of the forum with someone claiming (but not proving) to be a reputable Bitcointalk member is about as stupid as claiming a win in a lottery you never bought a ticket for. I have decreasingly little sympathy for people still falling for that shit and can't help but think this is best left for Darwin to sort out. We have enough scams on Bitcointalk itself to worry about other platforms, particularly ones like telegram that are pretty much designed for scamming.

[bill gator]

The imposter is likely very encouraged by their successful scam on that other member. As the old saying goes "Don't feed the strays."

I'm not sure how much good this thread will do, as anyone likely to fall victim to this type of scam won't be reading this thread before it happens.

I can understand how you'd feel a sense of responsibility to try and let everyone know, but anyone that has experience trading around here should know the protocol.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This sounds like a dangerously slippery slope - trying to deny that you're using some scammy platform. Does your denial regarding telegram mean that you might conduct business on some other platform? Does this mean that those who don't create a thread in Reputation or don't add a note to their profile might conduct business on telegram?

Maaaaan....I don't know.  Yes, people ought to be more suspicious about these things and use a bit more common sense, but the way I see it, it can't hurt to put that note in my profile along with this thread that I can point to at some point in the future if I need to. 

My main message in this thread is that I only do deals by contacting people through forum PMs unless there's an exchange of e-mails, which I did with one member a while back.  I don't contact people outside of the forum using any kind of instant messaging service (that's what telegram is, correct?) or via social media or by any other means. 

Pretty much the only time you'll know that I'm looking to buy or sell bitcoin is when I create a thread in Currency Exchange or if I PM a member with whom I've done business with previously.  There are only a handful of those.

I can understand how you'd feel a sense of responsibility to try and let everyone know, but anyone that has experience trading around here should know the protocol.

I agree, but after I got that PM from the Jr. Member I felt like I had to put up a warning since that scammer is apparently still active and still trying to impersonate me.

[bill gator]

I felt like I had to put up a warning since that scammer is apparently still active and still trying to impersonate me.

The way I see it, there is nothing wrong with trying to put more warnings out there to educate members who might have been victims. If this thread stops even one person from being impersonator scammed, then it's done the job well. Even if it doesn't thwart one of the victims of your impersonator, it might cast enough doubt in someone's mind down the line to prevent this kind of thing.

I don't know if a "Watch out for impersonators" sticky in Currency Exchange would be appropriate until it becomes a bigger problem, but by then there would probably be better remedies.

There aren't many prominent threads that directly address this issue, the closest would be something like this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133931.0 , which isn't in Currency Exchange and is easily glossed over.

[actmyname]

The way I see it, there is nothing wrong with trying to put more warnings out there to educate members who might have been victims.

Just advocate for the requesting of a signed message before any transaction.

Verify who you talk to, and then conduct business. If people don't want to use Bitcoin for its intended purpose while performing a Bitcoin-based deal, then they aren't using the tools they're provided to the fullest extent. This is a one-fits-all solution instead of constantly looking for who is on/not on whatever platform.

[DireWolfM14]

Just advocate for the requesting of a signed message before any transaction.

This is a good suggestion, but unfortunately it tends to fall on deaf (newbie) ears.  When I was offering escrow services I don't know how many times people asked me to share my escrow address in Telegram.  It made me cringe, and I'd have to go on this long rant how they should never trust an address posted on Telegram, only trust addresses posted on the forum, and signed with a PGP key, yada yada yada.  Some would get it, but many wouldn't.

Every escrow address I generated was signed with my PGP key and posted in my escrow thread or sent via PM, but if I had to guess how many of those signatures were actually checked, I'd speculate it was a small fraction.

[actmyname]

Every escrow address I generated was then signed with my PGP key, but if I had to guess how many of those signatures were actually checked, I would recon it was a small fraction.

Opt out. Provide a decoy false signature and then a correct signature when they catch you on it.

If they make the mistake of trusting an invalid signature, you don't transact with them for that particular deal.

[DireWolfM14]

If they make the mistake of trusting an invalid signature, you don't transact with them for that particular deal.

Lol, maybe I should start offering escrow services again.  Not to actually offer escrow services, but to trick newbies into learning about encryption.  If only I had the time...

[Foxpup]

It should be the default assumption that doing business outside of the forum with someone claiming (but not proving) to be a reputable Bitcointalk member is about as stupid as claiming a win in a lottery you never bought a ticket for.

Unfortunately, what should be the case and what is the case are often two very different things.

I have decreasingly little sympathy for people still falling for that shit and can't help but think this is best left for Darwin to sort out.

That might be the case if the victims didn't try to blame the innocent users who were impersonated. Certainly I don't want to ever have to deal with that, hence the warning in my signature.

[robelneo]

This can happen to anyone or trusted members here, you do not have anything to do with it and you are drag into this mess, until now OP did not change the title of OP it should be Pharmacist Impostor scammed me, it's his fault for not doing the right research on who he is dealing with, if a group of people hates you, they will conspire to ruin your name so they can have your name drag in the scam section.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I remembered that I created this thread a while back and felt like I need to bump it, because as of two days ago I created a telegram account.  However, my username isn't anything anyone would recognize as being me.

Why am I bumping this thread with what seems like a silly, very minor announcement?  Because if it should so happen that I engage in a discussion on bitcointalk and make any sort of statement about telegram-related stuff, there might be someone out there that I've offended in some way who'd remember that I denied ever using telegram.  So that's that.

And while I'm on the subject, now that I've given the service a shot I have to say that it sucks ass.  I only created an account for a single purpose, and once the project or my interest in it evaporates I'm dumping telegram in a New York minute. 

[Welsh]

I remembered that I created this thread a while back and felt like I need to bump it, because as of two days ago I created a telegram account.  However, my username isn't anything anyone would recognize as being me.

Why am I bumping this thread with what seems like a silly, very minor announcement?  Because if it should so happen that I engage in a discussion on bitcointalk and make any sort of statement about telegram-related stuff, there might be someone out there that I've offended in some way who'd remember that I denied ever using telegram.  So that's that.

And while I'm on the subject, now that I've given the service a shot I have to say that it sucks ass.  I only created an account for a single purpose, and once the project or my interest in it evaporates I'm dumping telegram in a New York minute.  

I'm sure a lot of appreciate the sentiment, and I imagine it's for your own peace of mind too. However, don't feel like you have to explain your every move, just because someone has impersonated you in the past. Most legitimate users will have separate identities to what they're on this forum, and they might occasionally refer to them or platforms they use from time to time, but it means nothing. You've built up a reputation on the forum, it would be rather mind boggling if you were to throw that away with a username that matches your identity on the forum for a couple of satoshi's.

I've tried Telegram before for following news on a custom ROM, otherwise I just decided to monitor it manually after how horrible the platform is. I'm not even talking about the amount of spam, and scamming that goes on there, I just find it completely disorganised, and by default pretty concerning with how it handles privacy settings For example, I believe it doesn't have end to end encryption by default for personal messages.

[DaveF]

I know you have the custom text for you avatar but doing something like I have may help too.
I can actually say that even if DarkStar_ / ChipMixer requested the text below the avatar be changed to something else to stay in the campaign I would have to think long and hard about it before doing it.

-Dave






<---I think this does help.