Possible scammer

[Brad Smith]

Got a rambling PM from someone on this forum calling themselves "911registry" The language used sounded like Nigerian English. They responded to a message I posted under "FC wanted" with an offer of parts that made no sense.

[Joe Henslee]

I just got the same type message from same "member" responding to a WTB ad for FC wheels posted earlier. I believe I smell the same thing.

[Dave Woodmancy]

I got the same...guy must have quite an inventory

[Brad Smith]

I don't want to disrespect any Nigerian readers, so let me re-phrase that to "Scammer English" Fortunately, these bogus offers are fairly easy to recognize!

[ianashdown]

I just got one from a Tony Berry. Anyone know him? I have a feeling... It is almost exactly the same MO as Michael Newman in response to the same add a few months ago. We'll see how it progresses.

Ian

[Dave Woodmancy]

I just got one from a Tony Berry. Anyone know him? I have a feeling... It is almost exactly the same MO as Michael Newman in response to the same add a few months ago. We'll see how it progresses.

Ian

The user profile for "911registry" says his name is Michael, but today he's Tony Berry, and amazingly has parts for almost every project going on at ApexSpeed. I think we know where this one is headed.

[ianashdown]

I know where it's headed, but does he? I'm going to screw with him just for the fun of it!

Ian

[dc]

Account removed, IP banned. Sneaky bastage.

[sccadsr31]

LOL,
I called back the IRS number final notice that was going to sue me if I did not pay up. Told them I was also with the IRS, Internal Revenue Stream and we have noticed their contribution to the budget was not meeting target and if they did not get busy and file some of their law suites and start contributing we would be firing them all!

David

[Snakedriver]

He almost got me. I asked for a pic with a ruler in the shot...no pic.

If his account had been closed, its back.

He insisted on Money Gram...because his Pay Pal was not working. Hate when that happens.

Leo

[dc]

Ask for photos with his real name, phone number and today's date written on a card in the shot of the item he wants to sell you. If he really has the part, he won't have any issue with that request.


And don't ever wire anyone MoneyGrams or Western Union. EVER.

[dc]

Most of these scammers will not contact you through the forums, they will contact you through an e-mail address that you put in a post somewhere. Dead giveaway they aren't real forum members.

[2fast2stop]

I also received a PM from 911registry saying that he had a bunch of spares that he had lying around and was willing to part with them. He posted an Email address, <berryville121@gmail.com>, to contact him. Below is actual PM............



I am clearing out extra spares as well as a couple of abandoned projects waiting to be stripped. Let me know clearly what you are looking to purchase and a contact phone number. I'll check for available spares and get back to you Asap. E-mail me on berryville121@gmail.com

Many thanks again and regards,

Tony Berry
USA

[Bill Manofsky]

I just traded emails with "Tony Berry" most of the day. He originally contacted me via Apexspeed PM though he did not have an account that I could send a PM back to. He only gave me his email address as berryville121@gmail.com

He was selling me suspension parts for my Lola T342. He sent me photos too. Turns out they were the same photos off this auction site :

http://bringatrailer.com/listing/lola-t-342/

That is when I got suspicious.

He said he could not call me on the phone due to all the noise where he works. He did not want to use Paypal. Wanted me to send him the money via a "Money Gram" sent to him from either a Walmart or a CVS Pharmacy.

Here's the text from one of his emails:


Hi Bill,

Thanks for getting back. Yes, the engine is shot and we are also
taking parts from it to complete a Lola 342 project car for a customer
as a result other parts off it will be sold too to interested buyers.
By the way, I am located in Park Forest, IL 60466 and I can make do
with that price with shipping inclusive within the CONUS. Let me know
if we have a deal and a complete shipping address and I will provide
banking info for wire payment as I will be packing all of the required
parts ready for shipping.

P.S--> It's almost impossible to reach me by phone as I am quite busy
with plenty of work and shipments to attend to too and as a result I
would prefer we talk here to make a deal.

Many thanks again and regards,

Tony
USA


I don't think Tony Berry lives int eh USA........

[Bill Manofsky]

I also received a PM from 911registry saying that he had a bunch of spares that he had lying around and was willing to part with them. He posted an Email address, <berryville121@gmail.com>, to contact him. Below is actual PM............



I am clearing out extra spares as well as a couple of abandoned projects waiting to be stripped. Let me know clearly what you are looking to purchase and a contact phone number. I'll check for available spares and get back to you Asap. E-mail me on berryville121@gmail.com

Many thanks again and regards,

Tony Berry
USA

I got the exact same message in his first PM to me on APEXSPEED. His PM listed him as a guest...

"I am clearing out extra spares as well as a couple of abandoned
projects waiting to be stripped. Let me know clearly what you are
looking to purchase and a contact phone number. I'll check for
available spares and get back to you Asap. E-mail me on
berryville121@gmail.com

Many thanks again and regards,

Tony Berry
USA"

[Bill Manofsky]

I would suggest not buying anything from anyone you cannot initially talk to over the phone.

[Earley Motorsports]

https://www.whatismyip.com/how-to-tr...-mail-address/

Here is a website on how to trace the origin of an email. It has a bunch of different traces available for different accounts, gmail, yahoo, and so on. What you do is grab the properties of the email address, drop it into the tool and it comes up with the IP address along with the longitude and latitude. You can drop those in google and it will give you a very close proximity of where it was sent from.

[marshall9]

Offer to do a face to face transaction. That usually ends it, if it isn't real.

[chrisw52]

ask him for his nigerian address..

[Brad Smith]

The key is how these scammers phrase things. They don't make much sense because English isn't their first language and they have no idea how specific you need to be about formula car parts. If you have an ad looking for a specific part and someone responds with a rambling paragraph that doesn't even mention the part and talks about payment before you have even responded, then you are talking to a scammer.

[mmi16]

Amazing - it has only taken over a year to catch up to the IRS law suit scam

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/06/news...sts/index.html

[Bill Manofsky]

This is a case where APEXSPEED has really dropped the ball.

Apparently this scammer has been operating unabated on APEXSPEED for three years now and has taken money from several of the members.

See the following thread: http://www.apexspeed.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59671

I was almost taken by this scammer because no warnings are posted on the FS or WTB threads where this scammer operates. I am really pissed that this almost happened to me and I hold APEXSPEED partially responsible due to the lack of specific warnings. And when I tried to post warnings, APEXSPEED removed them......This will just enable the scammer to strike someone again.

Just removing the scammers account and banning his IP will not stop them from using another computer. The scammer came at me through a PM as a guest after I posted a need for suspension parts in a WTB thread. The fact that APEXSPEED has known about this scammer for three years now, yet the scammer was still able to get to me and others without any warnings from APEXSPEED is disturbing.

I also do not appreciate "you should know better" warning about not using Money Grams as the only warning we get.....Not using Money Grams is very obvious and was one of the first red flags that alerted me to a possible problem. Apparently it did not help another member who actually lost $1200 to this scammer..

The scammer operates in the FS and WTB threads so this is WHERE THE WARNINGS SHOULD BE POSTED....not here on "Help and Suggestions".

APEXSPEED is a very valuable resource for me and the formula car community. I would hope a better process to protect us from very convincing scammers like 911registry AKA Tony Berry would be put in place in the FS and WTB threads where he operates to shut him down once and for all because he will hit again.

Bill Manofsky

[dc]

Bill, I realize you are upset, but you need to listen to a few things about this.


One, if you think this is one person performing these scams, you are wrong. This is not one isolated issue, it's been happening on the internet since the before the days of newsgroup discussions.

Two, I don't know if you are aware of this, but ApexSpeed gets about 350,000 fake spam registration attempts per month—that's 4.2 million per year or approximately 25 million fake registration attacks since we started actively and aggressively blocking the fake accounts. We use a few different levels of software to keep these from making it through, as well as registration encrypting AND every single day I manually approve all new users by hand, and have since 2011.

A few "fake" accounts and scam artists to happen to slip through every once in a while, maybe one or two a year, but we usually catch them pretty quickly and remove/block these accounts.

We have gone to great lengths to protect our members, but there is only so much we can do.




Buying and selling on the internet anywhere is 100% BUYER BEWARE. Educate yourself, protect yourself and use all of the tools you have to keep from getting ripped off. ApexSpeed is NOT responsible for your transactions and dealings on the internet—here or anywhere else.

Your original post was consolidated into another post, as there was already a discussion on this topic. I realize you want to tell everyone about it, and that while you might not happen to visit other sub-forums of ApexSpeed often enough to see these warnings, we are not going to spam every sub-forum with sky-is-falling scammer threads.




Putting any blame on ApexSpeed for the bad people elsewhere in the world trying to take your money on the internet is ludicrous. Take responsibility for your own actions or don't buy and sell on ApexSpeed.






dc

[dc]

This is a case where APEXSPEED has really dropped the ball.

Apparently this scammer has been operating unabated on APEXSPEED for three years now and has taken money from several of the members.

For the record, "Tony Berry" using the account address berryville121@gmail.com under the 911registry username registered on October 1st, 2016 and was removed three days later. His IP pointed to NYC instead of Illinois, and that discrepancy is normally not a red flag for new registrations.

[Bill Manofsky]

wrong answer.....

From the other people who have posted about getting hit, there is a very specific scammer who has been operating with impunity in the FS and WTB threads in October.

I do care about the other scammers you get hit with, but this one specifically.

A very DIRECTED warning in the FS and WTB threads would be VERY appropriate, but none was given by APEXSPEED...and there was absolutely NO REASON AT ALL to remove my warnings to the other members. What would it have hurt to keep them up? What were you trying to do, help this guy out? ...it would not surprise me to hear that someone in the last week has also been hit by Tony Berry because my warnings were removed....

Now that I know about Tony Berry, I will continue to buy and sell on APEXSPEED.

Bill Manofsky

[Bill Manofsky]

For the record, "Tony Berry" using the account address berryville121@gmail.com under the 911registry username registered on October 1st, 2016 and was removed three days later. His IP pointed to NYC instead of Illinois, and that discrepancy is normally not a red flag for new registrations.

Apparently this scammer has bee using multiple identities since 2013:

http://www.apexspeed.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59671


When he popped up again at 911registry AKA Tony Berry, I tried to warn everyone he was back again int he FS threads.....but you took my warnings down.....

I don't want this to turn into a shouting match between us, but how is a member supposed to warn everyone else when you come in and take our warnings down and buy them in thread unrelated to the FS and WTB threads where the scammer operates?

Yeah, I get "buyer beware", but if APEXSPEED knows about this scammer, a little heads up in advance would help. Other members had already reported to APEXSPEED about him in Forum News, Help and Suggestions since the beginning of October. to which yo gave several replies, so it is not like you did not know he was back.

I almost lost $1500 to this clown.

Bill Manofsky

[Bill Manofsky]

For the record, "Tony Berry" using the account address berryville121@gmail.com under the 911registry username registered on October 1st, 2016 and was removed three days later. His IP pointed to NYC instead of Illinois, and that discrepancy is normally not a red flag for new registrations.

He came at me through a PM sent as a "guest" on Oct 2.

I strongly suggest you post a permanent scam alert at the top of each FS and WTB sections alerting people to how this scammer operates including their wanting to use Money Grams as a means to transfer money.

Bill Manofsky

[dc]

You really believe this is the same person?

I'm only going to say it once more—it's not.




These scammers come from all over the world—UK to China, Philippines, Taiwan, India, South Africa, Nigeria, Germany and Russia. Chase down any of the e-mails listed previously in those threads and you'll find automotive forums all over the internet with similar scams discussed.

These scam attempts happen in ALL forums everywhere, and are a similar pattern because the scam is still working this many years later. It's not one guy sitting in a coffee shop in Queens spending all of his time harassing ApexSpeed members.





How about this wonderful scam?

You list a car for sale on CraigsList or any of the other well used used auto classifieds. You get excited when someone responds to your ad with great enthusiasm about your well-loved car. After a few reasonable e-mails back and forth, you believe this person to be legit and serious and ready to buy. His next e-mail, however, asks you to give him peace of mind and run a car history report for him. He doesn't trust CarFax because so many things can slip through the cracks, he says, but he knows of one he trusts implicitly. Try his link, he says, it's even cheaper than CarFax.

Then you put in your payment info, run the history report and he decides he's not interested.

But wait, there's more!

What really happened was that the site you entered your CC info into is run somewhere in Russia, and has just stolen all of your personal info and identity, as well as your CC.

Brilliant scam, and tough to discover the theft, but it happens every day. And often.





Same guy? No, but they are all out there looking for new marks all the time.

[Bill Manofsky]

APEXSPEED is an incredible asset to the formula car community. I hope it stays that way. It has great member participation and interaction.

As a member, I was just trying to warn everyone else about a possible scammer. Whether it is the same person or not, they follow the same pattern.

All I was trying to do was help inform the other members in the brief window the scammer or scammers came back up on to APEXSPEED.

Bill Manofsky

[Bill Manofsky]

You really believe this is the same person?

I'm only going to say it once more—it's not.




These scammers come from all over the world—UK to China, Philippines, Taiwan, India, South Africa, Nigeria, Germany and Russia. Chase down any of the e-mails listed previously in those threads and you'll find automotive forums all over the internet with similar scams discussed.

These scam attempts happen in ALL forums everywhere, and are a similar pattern because the scam is still working this many years later. It's not one guy sitting in a coffee shop in Queens spending all of his time harassing ApexSpeed members.





How about this wonderful scam?

You list a car for sale on CraigsList or any of the other well used used auto classifieds. You get excited when someone responds to your ad with great enthusiasm about your well-loved car. After a few reasonable e-mails back and forth, you believe this person to be legit and serious and ready to buy. His next e-mail, however, asks you to give him peace of mind and run a car history report for him. He doesn't trust CarFax because so many things can slip through the cracks, he says, but he knows of one he trusts implicitly. Try his link, he says, it's even cheaper than CarFax.

Then you put in your payment info, run the history report and he decides he's not interested.

But wait, there's more!

What really happened was that the site you entered your CC info into is run somewhere in Russia, and has just stolen all of your personal info and identity, as well as your CC.

Brilliant scam, and tough to discover the theft, but it happens every day. And often.





Same guy? No, but they are all out there looking for new marks all the time.

Doug,

I suggest you permanently post this FRAUD ALERT at the top of every FS and WTB thread so that everyone in the APEXSPEED community can be informed of this issue:


Topic: ****FRAUD ALERT****

There have been one or more scammers trying to target APEXSPEED buyers and sellers since 2013.

Look for this pattern:

1. They will respond to your "For Sale" or "Wanted To Buy" thread via a PM. They may not have an APEXSPEED account and may be identified as just a "guest" on APEXSPEED.
2. They will want you to take the discussion off of APEXSPEED by contacting them via an email they include in their first message.
3. They have a enough of a basic understanding of formula car terminology to sound convincing.
4. If they are responding to a WTB thread, they may use photos of other people's cars and/or car parts that from auction sites like race-cars.com, racingjunk.com, bringatrailer, etc.
5. They may make an excuse as to why they cannot talk to you over the phone.
6. They will want you to send them money only via a Money Gram.



If you post this warning in the FS and WTB threads, you most likely will take care of 100% of the problem with these people.

Bill Manofsky

[Rick Brannon]

APEXSPEED is an incredible asset to the formula car community. I hope it stays that way. It has great member participation and interaction.

As a member, I was just trying to warn everyone else about a possible scammer. Whether it is the same person or not, they follow the same pattern.

Hi Bill while I commend what you are trying to do you are shooting at the wrong guy. As an IT professional specifically in the e commerce space we dealt with close to 100k bots a week on a site that generates more than 1Billion in revenue in 2015. There is no possibility this is one person at all that process is not cost effective for those b@@@ards. Excuse my French Doug! These people prey on the honest and this site is just as susceptible as any other and the due diligence must come from the users but realize this we must help to alert Doug to any threat we come across to help him protect us but don't shoot him for a great job on this site. I don't think you're anger is directed at the source of the problem but you're frustration is warranted.

[rickb99]

I think what William is asking is for Doug to post a separate warning on ALL 15 "classifieds" sections on Apexspeed. Then, the next thing he will want is a fresh posting in each section whenever a scam is detected. Sorry, but you'll never catch all the possibilities.

So, far this year, I've been scamed out of $730 on the Internet which is a HUGE amount of money for some one living on Social Security I don't have a "Doug" keeping an eye out for me. Gotta pay attention for my own well being.

[ianashdown]

Even after all the discussions and revelations on this site I received a reply from Tony Berry today! Here is the reply . .

Hi Ian,

Thanks for writing. Great! Here are photos of one of our recent
abandoned 1976 March 76B project car we are tearing out with a
complete running cosworth BDD 1600cc. Let me know what you think
though all of the parts listed are very much available.

Many thanks again and regards,

Tony

I think I'll play along for a while . .

Ian

[Rick Brannon]

Lol, I do this all the time with scammers who call my work phone claiming there's something wrong with my computer, my standard diatribe is "what took you guys so long I have 128 clusters down and had to switch the website from our green environment to the blue environment and here's what we're seeing with "Splunk" and we can see your MAC address also. They gasp and hangup the ones who understand the implications of what I'm saying mostly they argue with me and I also have fun with their room temperature IQ concerning large scale systems. As a group we should come up with a strategy against these pukes however it might inspire more vigorous attacks and Doug has his hands full now,forget that thought.

[Offcamber1]

Doug,

Thanks for your diligence. I can't figure out how to get race results on my smart phone. The thought of trying to eradicate thousands of BOT attacks a day in a server environment is overwhelming.

Kip

[Pi_guy]

Doug does a great job for a thankless unending task.


Been dealing with this stuff for years, started back when most e-mail addresses were edu university types. Had discussions with PHD's that thought some of this must be true. It seems a bit you want it to be true, in racing there the deal of a life time. You hope you catch it and sometimes you figure you got to gamble a bit.
The scammer plays and bets on this attitude, there are great deals but they come from people you know. The group of formula car parts and personal is so small that somebody going to know something or somebody about it. I find if I talk or exchange emails with somebody that does not know somebody I know or can not give me a known name in formula car racing, I run away from the deal of a lifetime.
It has been said before if the deal is to good wonder why.

Some hints I find to weed out nonsense.

English composition is sketchy
Out of the blue.
Pressing for quick transaction
Wanting to swap banking info before product selection
Attempting to purchase items or service you do not sell
Email being a public service not a registered private domain if representing as company
sending stock photos or it is just like this one but blue
Ask questions if something does not ring true or excuses for no answer.
& Why am I getting this good deal.

Generally I get them in the first filter living in NY has helped. Those that I responded to never followed up.

[Charles Warner]

Those that I responded to never followed up.

While your list of red flags is most important, this is the phrase that sets you up.

DO NOT RESPOND. It's not just a matter of them asking for info - when you respond you open up your system to them. They may be trying to infect your machine and use it as a robot. I know many think it's fun to string them along. That can be quite dangerous. They are not all stupid.

[Pi_guy]

While your list of red flags is most important, this is the phrase that sets you up.

DO NOT RESPOND. It's not just a matter of them asking for info - when you respond you open up your system to them. They may be trying to infect your machine and use it as a robot. I know many think it's fun to string them along. That can be quite dangerous. They are not all stupid.

Some times you do not know, had a few requests that seemed like idiots. But it turned out fine. Not everybody is educated the same. Getting an email request from a smartphone with auto correct while under pressure can lead to some ridiculous responses, should I not conduct business with the person if that happens?
It is how you respond asking questions on e-mail does not get your computer infected, maybe if you use outlook and internet explorer but I do not.
It is a bit of common sense with which ones to follow up on.
On my last web server I logged ip's of input requests that were spam, and any legitimate sounding requests get trashed because that matched a spam ip.
So there are tools and other methods to use.

[2fast2stop]

I was once again contacted by Tony Berry (911registry). Either this guy is clueless or he has some really big cojones. Message posted below............


Sorry for the late response but are you still interested?

--
I am clearing out extra spares as well as a couple of abandoned
projects waiting to be stripped. Let me know clearly what you are
looking to purchase and a contact phone number. I'll check for
available spares and get back to you Asap. E-mail me on
berryville121@gmail.com

Many thanks again and regards,

Tony Berry
USA

[ianashdown]

That is exactly the same message I received. Word for word. I've played along for a while, and most recently asked for current pictures of the March 76B parts he claims to have, not the 2+ year old pictures of the Ex Brambilla car from Race-Cars.com. He came back claiming these were current pictures!


My reply let him know that I was aware of this car and the pictures for well over two years.

I'm not expecting to hear back.

Ian