Welcome to Roadfly's ALERTS message board.

On behalf of Charlie, Alan and myself, welcome to Roadfly's Alerts message board. It is our hope that this forum will serve as a valuable tool to buyers and sellers alike by serving as a resource for the latest information on scams, fraud and other malicious acts related to the buying and selling of merchandise on the internet.

While the internet can be a valuable tool for buying and selling merchandise, it can be dangerous. Scammers and fraudsters can be be very convincing - they thrive by surprising you, befriending you, strong-arming you (if necessary) and, ultimately stealing from you.

To get the most out of this board, use it before you follow-through on a transaction with someone. Search through it, taking time to look for similar circumstances to your own situation. If anything seems "fishy" or "too good to be true" it probably is.

You can also use this board to alert others to scams and or fraud. But be warned: if you post to the board, identifying a scam, fraud or someone who has cheated you out of goods, services or money, PLEASE be 100% certain that you were indeed legitimately cheated. Failure to properly back-up, document or prove that you were scammed/cheated could result in libelous charges from the person you've identified.

Do's

Check this forum before you conduct a transaction

Use common sense when buying/selling online.

If the deal sounds too good to be true, walk away from it.

Report legitimate incidents of scam/fraud/deception here.

Save all of your transaction information and report it to the proper authorities.

Check other scam resources (links below).

Don't

Use this forum to "strong-arm" a person into paying or delivering goods to you.

Jump the gun and report fraud before situation is resolved.

Be fooled by deals that require you to send someone a "refund" or "the difference" in purchase price and amount paid.

Use escrow services without researching them beforehand.

Open e-mail attachments from unknown people.

Respond to any e-mail from Roadfly, eBay, PayPal, CitiBank, etc. requesting information about your account. We do not send unsolicited e-mails for any reason.

We've compiled a basic list of resources for people that may be interested in learning more about scams and potential fraud. Please check this list before you buy or sell anything on the web - it could prevent you from being burned by someone.

1. More tips, help and resources from Roadfly to help avoid scams and fraud.

2. A long list of well known scams, including check fraud, escrow service fraud, eBay fraud, Amazon fraud, and more.

3. An internet user who's taken matters into his own hands - various scam information, along with interesting dialogue with the scammers.

If you have (or know of) any good anti-scam resources, please post links to them here. By working together, we can do our part to help weed-out some of the fraudsters and scammers. Be smart - don't get burned by an internet deal - check this forum often and share any scams (including suspicious e-mails) with your fellow Roadfly'ers.