It’s not me
I was thinking of just ignoring this, but then I remembered some advice from D. Muliere: be honest and don’t hide anything. Be proactive in informing people what’s happening. So with that in mind, I’m going to write a couple sentences about this troubling situation that I’ve spent a few hours thinking about.
Basically, there is a guy from India who scammed some people on forums by purchasing domain names from them, and paying with a fraudulent PayPal payment. Shortly after the payment (and usually after the domains have been transferred), PayPal discovers that the payment is invalid and takes it away from the seller. This leaves the seller with nothing.
The problem is that this scammer is using my name. It’s fairly obvious that it’s not me, though. He uses a different email address (differing by one character), different forum usernames, a different IP address, and a bogus mailing address (that looks similar to mine, but has some random characters pulled out or thrown in). The scams don’t involve me at all. It’s just that the spammer sometimes identifies himself using my name.
On a forum where this is being discussed, some asked: “How did he know about this post? was he informed?” (“he” refers to me). I’m not going to reply there anymore because it would bring unnecessary attention to me (I’ve already posted a clarification). The answer to that question is: Yes, I was informed. Someone from that forum actually came to my forum and sent me a PM.
Here’s the other silly question asked in that thread: “Why would whoever the thief be just randomly pick “You” to impersonate.. and have so much info on you?” Answer: It’s obviously not random. The thief picked me (why not? I have a fine reputation) and used public information. I could get information on Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, and use his name as my own. It’s not surprising and it’s not hard to get that information. Heck– a Google search will give it to you.
Having read that ‘discussion’ in question, I was just left shaking my head.
It would be almost laughable, if not for the very real problems that casual slander can cause.
Some people seem to be remarkably ignorant of the mechanism of these scams.
It is commonplace to use the identifying information of someone that is publicly known, has a good reputation, and readily available public details.
The scammer then alters these slightly for his own use, and to escape immediate detection.
A scammer does not slightly alter his own identity to leave a huge signature scrawled on an illegal act. This would be inexplicably moronic.
And to suggest that this is probable only reflects badly on the cognitive abilities of the accuser.
Now there’s a lot of ‘opinion’ out there that’s equally half-baked and ill-conceived, but casual accusations tainting a person’s good name by association is particularly thoughtless and stupid.