Welcome to Hamshack Connect Forum! Explore the Seller Ratings Forum for buyer reviews on hamshack.ca purchases. Use the Scam Reports section to share a recent experience with a Scammer you may have encountered when buying or selling an item. Scan additional categories like Announcements, Tips and Tricks, Learning and Quizzes, and Open Ham Radio Discussion, where you can connect and engage with like-mined amateurs on a variety of topics of interest.
Please be sure that you have read and understand Section 13 Posting Information on the Hamshack Connect Forum before posting any information here.
Scammer Appropriating Real HAM CALL SIGN with fake email AND FAKE DATED PHOTOS
I have been in touch with the actual owner of call sign VE4NW which has been stolen by someone using an email different from the email on QRZ.com. I have spoken via email and SMS (text) with the actual Albert Webber, and this is not him doing this. He does not have and is not selling an auto tuner module.
This seller provided purported hand-written note in a photo showing today's date (in october 2024) with what purports to be hand written name of seller. This is not a secure way of identifying real HAMs and not sufficient to avoid being scammed.
Name: Albert Webber
Email: albertwebberm@gmail.com
Message:
Hi Warren,
I have ELECRAFT K3 and K3S - KAT3 Auto Tuner and manual. I pulled from a working K3. I can send picture if you're interested.
Thanks
Albert
VE4NW
Albert wishes me to convey that the above is NOT him. I have his actual contact information if anyone wishes to verify my incident report.
I have faked photos and even a cell phone number from a person having area code 204 (manitoba). This indicates the scammers are using Twilio to provide even the ability to SMS someone at a given area code (204, manitoba) using a temporary phone number served by Twilio (web ecommerce hosting).
Thanks for taking the time to report this most recent attempt. I"ve added a listing to the site so that users see the report on the front-end of the site.
Be safe on-line!
73 Don VE7DXE
Uploaded files:
Here's an example of a photo provided by a scammer who is impersonating a real Canadian HAM.
This scammer's behaviour:
- using a gmail account but not the actual gmail associated with various sites that can be used to verify ham radio license holders.
- Understand the nomenclature surrounding ham radio accessories
- Pretend to be technically illiterate (unable to recover access to the real google mail account, using an "email my son set up for me").
- Leads on the victim by suggesting that the photo provided proves that the seller is "legit".
- Offers free shipping on an item, plus a very good offering price, probably $100 or more below real street value.
The surprising things
- They know how to use Twilio to get access to real seeming phone numbers with actual area codes used in specific regions of Canada.
- They were able to find photos of fairly difficult to find accessory circuit boards for my K3.
- the photo they produced looks fairly legit
The next edition of this type of scam I fully expect the scammer to also have set up QRZ.com info to point at their fake addresses.
Uploaded files:
The scammer clearly used a photo stolen from ebay listing by a very well known Elecraft Radio user. That user's business card is even partially visible in the picture, which even has the antenna connector in the same place and uses the same pink baggy underneath the items.
The SO CAL DX club business card right below the scammers image is still partially visible in the scammer's reused image. This is as far as I know the only current place on the web I could find that has an image of this circuit board.
Uploaded files: