In the past we have had users attempt to scam E4 members through PMs, where they offer a card for sale and then try to take you off-platform and have you pay through unsecured means. Recently, it appears these scams are back, however they are taking a different form. Due to a Proboards data breach or lack of account security, scammers are now taking over old E4 accounts instead of making new accounts. Please exercise caution if you receive a PM from an inactive, old account seeking to sell a card. As always, with any sale or trade, be sure to do the following:
Make sure your trading partner has the card in question. Request timestamped photos or other direct proof of ownership. Reverse image search any pictures you are sent to make sure they are not stolen.
Only pay via secured services (eBay, PayPal goods & services) which offer you the ability to file a case and get a refund if you are scammed.
If a deal is too good to be true, it probably is.
If you’re ever concerned or have suspicions about a user on the site, message the mods and let us know, we can check them out.
Recently I was trying to buy a PSA 10 set of the Eevee Lottery Promos in PSA 10 Here. A newer guy on E4 from Italy contacted me. I asked @pfm since I was skeptical, if his IP was truly from Italy and he confirmed yes. This was just to see if his story lined up. The price was decent and they provided pictures with my personal name on the time stamps. That was enough proof to me…
After numerous back and forth, I was close at making a deal using Paypal G+S for around 12-13K. I didn’t think anything of it since Paypal G+S there is protection.
After contacting a buddy from China and asking if anyone there can do any better in price, he said no and I sent him a picture of the cards I will be buying from this guy on E4…
It turned out that he recognized the cert numbers and notified me right away I was getting scammed. He mentioned his buddy (“Sam”) has the actual cards I was going to buy from this guy in Italy…
Turns out this guy in Italy contacted Sam and asked for a timestamp with some random guy’s name on it. He agreed and provided the time stamp. I quickly stopped talking with that guy and was at my wits end trying to buy these cards…
Even though there were thousands of these cards printed, I couldn’t find 1 set of them in a PSA 10 for sale. The only two that I found was from one guy and the other guy was trying to scam me off the same item
I ended up saying fuck it and paid $1,000 more for the actual set through Sam. I sent the money to my buddy who helped me out and he sent the money though “We-Chat” (A Chinese messaging platform) [I wasn’t about to sent 14K through a Communist Chat Messaging App] And the deal was done…
At the end, I purchased the cards that I almost got scammed over… Wild…
yea… dont ever send timestamps with the other persons name on it if u feel like trolling them u can take a pic of the middle finger on it or something
Who the hell in their right mind would ever do this? I highly doubt the guy was naive enough to actually do this and feel like he might have been in on it.
I saw some FB posts about how AI can create time stamps now. So a time stamp isn’t necessarily the best way to prove ownership anymore. Maybe rapid succession time stamps? “Like take a selfie with it upside down on your head” “ok now take a selfie with it right side up on your head”
ive seen some fake timestamp posts after asking for them, they usually have a suspicious background behind the paper, like a black screen or something, probably used for ease of editing the text or something
With how AI is going I wonder if pretty soon people arent going to trust anyone when it comes to buying/selling. We’ll all be using RDP and checking items out in real time or something lol.
I’m having a hard time understanding how timestamps are ever proof of ownership.
Wouldn’t someone be able to take a listing and then composite a sticky note on top of it in photoshop/gimp?
man, I’ll be honest if I had been in your place…I think I would have gone through with it and been successfully scammed. I’m a big dum-dum, you were smart to figure out something was off and avoided the scam. I appreciate sharing this. I’ve seen people get scammed before. I got scammed before(not pokemon cards). We had the biggest scam in pokemon tcg history happen this year. Its wild to think! Because of this we have to be more vigilant than ever.
So thanks for sharing the “how” of the scam so that we can all be more careful. This is one reason I’m so deathly afraid to try to ever buy anything super expensive, because that is where the scammers go most. Now I’m more scared.
if u feel like trolling them u can take a pic of the middle finger on it or something
