Scammer alert - selling links
 

Didn't find time to write this earlier, but anyway, a warning for people buying links.

Clearly, it is someone here on GFY probably reading this right now. He is presenting himself as Eddie Patton and using email address: [email protected].

I was approached by email by him with an offer to buy blog posts or links. The first suspicious thing was that I have just obtained links on some of those websites plus, knowing people in my niche I know site offered have different owners. Second, he is stupid enough and was offering prices that are not realistic.

His paxum and PayPal address are same: [email protected]
Most of the site owners were notified immediately and they confirmed they never heard about guy with this name. Some of the site owners will probably respond to this post here.

Advice: always ask proof of domain ownership when buying ( for example, file upload on that site)

:2 cents::warning

Thanks :2 cents:

Thanks for the heads up

Thanks for that info.

Also, a lot of old-school sites (including most of mine) still have email contacts listed right there on the front page. Why would you buy links or posts from some random dude at gmail dot scam dot com without at least confirming with the email address posted on the site where you want your shit to appear?

Thanks for the notice.

Ray
Hardlinks.org

Better safe than sorry.

:thumbsup

Thanks for warning femdomdestiny. I appreciate it.

Thanks for the notice.

He's in my inbox right now trying to sell me links/blog posts on a bunch of different sites

I recognized the name "eddie" from seeing this thread a few days ago, came back to check, and yep, it's the same dude

Helped me dodge a bullet, thanks.

Ask for an invoice with his address :) I guess we are too late for that now but anyway glad you are notified now.

Pretty easy to detect those scammers, all you had to do is to compare whois of offered domains, so if there is a different owner,it's a scam.

it's not 1998 anymore, everybody is using private whois.

Yep :2 cents:

especially when it is free like these days.

Thanks for the heads up

Yes everyone use whois but it's not about seeing who own domain, it's about seeing difference. For example, if domain is registred on godaddy and hosted on godaddy dns, while domain 2 is registred with namecheap with thirdparty dns, big chance how it's not same owner. As usually, with private whois there is repeating patterns which can give you identification how all domains are owned by same owner or not.
And also, some of offered sites were big known sites for which i am quite sure they would never sell baclinks nor they have them, so that is another clue.

I use 5 different domain registrars and my sites are spread over 11 different hosts + Cloudflare on some sites.

Yes but you are Denny :)

:thumbsup

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:thumbsup

We have had a few scammers try this and ask for payment first.

Always ask link to be added first to see if they really own the site.

I never put up the desired link or post until payment is in hand — too many optimistic shitheads think they can slowpay you once they have what they want — but I’ll always do a quick publication proof of site control for somebody in my email box who is being careful.

For verification purposes, it is enough to hold link for 1 second.

or making up excuse about problem with funds or worst case dementia :1orglaugh

Got an email from the same guy OP mentioned. He listed many good quality sites which raised my alarm bells. There's no way one person can own so many so I asked him to verify but I never heard back from him since.

He'll probably try to scam using a different email since he's been outed so be on the alert.

Yes it is probably same source as i noticed one repeating pattern- list of sites it's always formatted same way while e-mail and site list changes. And different whois as mentioned before .

Thanks for the heads up! Scammers are all over the board lately.

He's in my inbox right now as "Mark Curton", [email protected]

I got his paxum and paypal IDs:

Paxum: [email protected]

Paypal: [email protected]

Anyone recognize any of these emails?

Several interesting results in Google for [email protected]


Ray
hardlinks.org

Yes, I do.,same fake persona, sent me to offer yesterday. I've told him I am interested in spending 3.5K on his fake links.

Case forwarded to the proper place now.

So, what I figured out is, he's been brokering links without the consent of his clients. he acts like he owns the sites he's selling links from but it turns out he's just playing middleman and charging a large markup

Before this thread started I was dumb enough to buy a link from him. I did actually get the link but after seeing this thread I contacted the real owner of the site I bought from; I could have got the link for half the price. And the owner of the site said that he specifically told this guy, don't broker links for my site w/o making it clear you're brokering, not the owner. Which was clearly violated in our transaction.

I notified paxum but they said it's not against their TOS what he's doing

Ok, reselling doesn't sound as a problem, but what about people who never gave authorization to him to sell? Every webmaster I've contacted told me he never heard about this guy

Well the site I contacted knew one of his nicks (and had specifically told him, make it obvious you're brokering and not the owner, which he completely ignored) but who knows if he knew about the other nicks the guy is using

either way, paxum doesn't care if he does this, regardless of authorization. as far as paxum is concerned if he can provide the service he's offering (links on websites) it doesn't matter to them if he misleads webmasters or acts w/o their consent.

thanks78