Do not trust user mcjohnscott

[Aquaman92]

This guy responded to a real-life friend of mines post about wanting to buy a TFL popeye.

My friend whose user name on here is "Cable guy" got a message from this user saying he has a popeye for a decent price to sell to him/me.

Cable Guy nicely gave me the guys contact information and I contacted mcjohnscott in hopes i could obtain the popeye boat he supposedly has for sale.

There was some back and fourth on a payment method, at first i tried to use cashapp to make a payment and at first and since I am a first time user on this app my bank noted it as suspiscious activity and cancelled the payment and refunded my account the money. I tried to resend it again via cashapp and it kept getting declined by my bank. ok.

So eventually we settled on paypal and me not being super familiar with it, was told to select friends and family as the payment type by mcjohnscott, and i foolishly did (which is not backed up by paypals buyer protection services)

So after i sent the money he later told me that this paypal account I sent the money to, is not actually his own account but a friends - and said "friend" is now "not returning any calls" and this "Friend" has now "run off with my money" and he cant get a hold of this "friend".

I am currently in the remediation process with my own bank (wells fargo) in hopes they can refund my money.

Now looking back over the whole situation i should have known from the start something was fishy. as you can see this mcjohnscott VERY recently made his profile here on the forums (8/17/2020) and i believe this is a 100% scammer.

DO NOT BUY FROM THIS USER!

[Panther6834]

I completely understand your "frustration", as I have also been caught up in a few scams over the past couple of years. No problem. When purchasing goods, and pain through PayPal, NEVER use "friends"...ALWAYS use "purchasing goods". The sad thing is, in all probability, that user has already created a new account on these forums, under a different name.


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

[1coopgt]

The new acct bit may be some thing Steve can check. Just needs to check the IP address of mcjohnscott against any new user names . Then ban the IP address. Vbulletin has the info saved in a database.

[Panther6834]

The new acct bit may be some thing Steve can check. Just needs to check the IP address of mcjohnscott against any new user names . Then ban the IP address. Vbulletin has the info saved in a database.

That works as long as the person is using the same computer, on the same modem with a dynamic IP, and without going through a VPN. Unfortunately, change any of those variables, and it's easy to change and/or mask, one's IP.

If, for example, the original username was created on a library computer (a common trick used by scammers & hackers), and the person creates a new username from a different library computer (or a computer at a different library), and creates it using an entirely new email address, then, unfortunately, discovering/blocking that user can be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Scammers/Hackers already know all these tricks, which is exactly why catching them has been so problematic for law enforcement. It's typically only when they make a 'mistake' (such as using computers at the same library a second time), that they get caught.

I'd prefer all these scammers get caught (and prosecuted)...but, knowing the improbability/impossibility of that, the best I can hope for, at least in this particular case, is that no one else gets caught up in this particular scammer's "web".


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place