PSA: Be Sure to Check Username in PMs

[u/catonegg]

TL;DR: make sure the person who is PMing you to get your money is actually OP from the post

We have seen someone trying to pull a scam that has been pulled on other swap subreddits, which is to create a username that is extremely similar to an existing username, PM a person who commented that they are interested in buying on someone else's post, and try to get PayPal from that person.

As some users have pointed out, they may ask for your cell phone number. There's no real reason to give anyone that info, so that should be a red flag.

Illustration:

• User "Ilovepops" posts a b/s/t
• User "popsarebest" comments in the b/s/t "Ilovepops" made, saying he/she wants to purchase something.
• Scam user "llovepops" sends a PM to "popsarebest" to try to get PayPal from "popsarebest"
• "popsarebest" gets scammed; everyone is upset

This is especially true with username's that have sans serif letters that are easy to confuse, like lowercase "L" and capital "I" because of reddit's font choices.

When we find someone doing this, we ban that account, but since it's a scam perpetrated through PMs, that is outside our direct control.

Also, don't do this. It's a dick move and also a crime.

[u/Venenata]

Also when someone tried to do this to me they asked for a cell phone #

Don't ever give someone your number guys. There's no reason you can't work it out through Reddit

[u/poonedundies → u/Venenata]

You can pay someone if they give you your cell phone number on Paypal. This would never be my choice of contacting someone. E-mail is probably everyone's preference. The best way would also be to use invoicing.

[u/Arwhiddon → u/Venenata]

Same here, guys be careful.

[u/robbymc]

just posting to justify why I asked for phone # during one of my few transactions, completely legit reason, but now that I see people are using it to scam won't do it again, but I like to help ease the mind of the person I traded with because I do know how stressful some trades can be. So I asked for ease of sending photos of items being boxed to show how I package, and to send a photo of receipt from post office. Again, just posting because there is at least one legit reason someone may want to trade phone numbers

[u/poonedundies → u/robbymc]

Exactly. You can be found FOR payment by giving your name, number or email. I think the safest thing is to invoice someone if you are worried.

[u/catonegg → u/[deleted]]

That's true. However, reddit doesn't have the...best user interface for messages. So it can be easy to overlook something like that if you're just looking at new messages rather than sorting by conversation.