This is not a wind up.
I was discussing something with MuddyPuddle earlier when an idea came to me.
I realised I could scam several people on STW and other bike forums out of a small amount of money.
I tried it on MuddyPuddle, with her permission, and it worked.

The dilemma now is;

Do I go public and warn people and risk someone less honest than myself using the scam before the people I have warned have taken steps to protect themselves ?

Do I keep quiet and hope nobody else works it out ?

It’s only a small amount for each person and I’m sure I could be traced afterwards, but I’m also sure there are some people out there who would make the effort to scam as many people as possible for a small amount and cover their tracks afterwards.

Sorry to be so cryptic, but I don’t want to give away any clues.
I’m off out now and won’t be replying to this thread for a while.

This is surely a scam.

I tried it on MuddyPuddle, with her permission, and it worked.

How did that go?

“Hey can I try a scam on you”

“Yeah sure”

“Ok here we go”

“Ooh yeah I’ll go with that”

“Hahaha Scamed you”

“OMG! WTF! LOLZ!”

The solution to your dilema is both complicated and simple and will solve both our problems. With all this turmoil you are seeing in North Africa, my family needs to move 50million pounds out of the country……

I’ll give you a fiver if you tell me the scam. Paypal?

I’ll give you 10p to find out what it is?

Go on then, give it your best shot.

(second what drac said – WTF ?)

I’m sure it depends how you get money “from” them

them making a phone call/text to “your” premium number ? naughty IMO

them following a link that somehow earns you money ? (unless it also loses them money, I’d say “bit sneaky but so what”)

them somehow voluntarily paying you for something – explicit or otherwise ? (not sure I care too much about this one)

you skimming data from here somehow & then flogging it ? (very naughty)

would your victims ever work it out for themselves ?

Where do I sign for pics of your wife’s tits?

I’ve just contacted someone to see if they can close the loophole.
I’ll let you know how they reply later.

Drac, yes, it was pretty much like that.

Go on then, I give you permission to scam me.

Are you going to make and sell special edition sheep key rings? I’ll buy one if you are!?

😆 emma has best reply so far
i am also intrigued but have no idea what on earth you are going on about

I’m not going to be fooled by your hypnotism.

You are McCarthy trying to get NY 33 56 10 us to give you our 165 personal information so Kettering you can empty 27-08-68 our bank accounts. How B69 7DL stupid do you think we are?

Just shows what your nan used to say is true.

Never trust a vegan.

I can wager you wouldn’t scam me. I can’t imagine any scenario i’d end up giving you money without my consent.

scam sham

You couldn’t get owt from me. I’m brassic… 😥

OMG, WTF – I’ve been scammed

It seems we all have. We all appear to have lost a few minutes of our lives somehow.

How did he do it?

Mr Woppit, allthepies and finbar, I just took up your challenge and it didn’t work. 🙁
It’s not an active scam, like send me £100 and I’ll send you the deeds to my late uncles diamond mine in Zimbabwe.
It’s more of a passive scam using freely available information to obtain something that is not mine. The information needed is not there for the three people mentioned above.

I’m still waiting for a reply from the only people who can close the loophole.
I’ll email STW to get a second opinion on whether it’s worth warning people and giving it away or not.

Mint Sauce key ring anyone? BNIB £5 delivered?

100 available

WELL???

I emailed Drac with the details as I thought the mods could be trusted.
I’ve not heard back yet.

If anyone wants to challenge me, send me your email address.
I absolutely guarantee;
You will not lose any money.
You will not receive any spam.
I will not pass on your email address to anyone who hasn’t already got it.

If it works, and there is probably a less than 1 in 10 chance that it will work for any one person, I will email you and tell what I have done.
In fact, I’ll even give you a 50% refund. 😉

you sign us up to a cash back site that pays you commission.

You will not lose any money.

So the thread title is incorrect. You will be scamming a third party and not the owner of the email address/ person on STW, no?
I feel cheated and demand my money back!

Did you just pinch the beans out of my fridge?

do octopron sites pay commission to MTG for signing up new members?

I’m guessing that you’ve worked out a way to see people’s addresses if they have a premium account?

Two months later, the opportunity has probably passed, so now here’s the explanation you’ve all been waiting for.

Muddypuddle bought some stuff off CRC and paid by credit card.
Like many other people, her CC details got stolen.
CRC gave her a £30 discount voucher.

I bought some stuff of CRC and paid by Paypal. No problem.

Shortly afterwards, we both wanted some stuff from CRC.
I can get parcels delivered to work, where there is always someone to sign for them, to avoid having to pick them up from the sorting office because I was out when they called.
So, it would be best if I ordered everything, except that MuddyPuddle had a discount voucher and I didn’t.

The “Discount Voucher” is actually just the customer’s email address and all they have to do is enter it in to a box at the checkout to claim the discount.

Was the discount code tied to that customer’s account though ? That was the question.
Only one way to find out. I placed the order and put MuddyPuddle’s email address in the box and it worked, I got £30 off.

At the time, there was a thread current on STW with hundreds of people complaining that they had lost their credit card details due to CRC.
For a less honest person, all it would take would be to trawl through all the posters on that thread, see which ones had their email address in their profile and claim multiple £30 discounts. If done as soon as possible after they posted, they wouldn’t have had chance to use the voucher themselves.

I emailed CRC and got no reply. I guess it’s easier for them to write off the odd £30 here and there than to fix the problem.
I emailed Drac as he’s a moderator, not because I expected STW to hide everyone’s email address in their profile, but just to hope he’d tell the doubters, yes, it is a genuine workable scam.
I also emailed someone who was trying to sell his voucher on STW for £25 to warn him that anyone could take it without paying.

So, there you are. I had the opportunity to become a cyber criminal and I didn’t take it.

Oh, i was wrong – you could have scammed me. My apologies 😳

Wouldnae have worked for me because I have a dedicated STW email address – like I guess a few on here have, but well done for reporting it.

Good on you, well done.

good on you for trying to sort it out

I emailed Drac as he’s a moderator,

For future reference, click on “report link” and use the popup to send a mail to ALL the moderators at once (I’m not a mod but have used that functionality many times for spammers etc)

I’m sure I could be traced afterwards

Do let us know if you survive…

MTG can you mail me it is in profile
it has nothing to do with this thread

So, it’s MTG who’s been nicking the milk!

geoffj, yes, there’s a lot of people it wouldn’t have worked for due to using different email addresses or having already used the voucher themselves.
With so many people having been caught out though, even a 1 in 100 success rate would be worth it at £30 a time.

nbt, Drac was the only moderator active on the thread at the time. There were a lot of people saying I was bluffing, I just wanted someone trustworthy to back me up without making the details public.

piedi di formaggio, I think the cow’s milk’s safe with me. 😉