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I got scammed last year in a much smaller scam and had debated talking about it publicly, but why not? People should know this stuff happens. In my case, there was no real harm done, but might as well share the story.

The scam wasn't one of these big sophisticated banking scams or the like (such as the one that got Cory in the link below). This one was dumber, and I kinda suspected it was a scam right as it was happening... pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/c...

Over the last few months, there had been multiple posts on the forum warning about a scammer who had a pattern: not willing to share pictures of the books. Asking if the buyer will pay via "friends & family" (not protected) on Paypal instead of "goods and services." Also, being based in Portugal

The person who operates the forum... is not necessarily great, and frequently deletes those threads with those warnings. But, so many people who buy/sell those books use the forum, it's hard to avoid. But, anyway... I was at least somewhat forewarned of a scammer.

So, somewhere last fall a guy popped up and was offering an out of print book I've wanted *for years*. The book is rare and hard to find and when it shows up it goes for a ridiculous amount of money (way more than I would ever pay for it). This time, though...