MTFCA Forum

I want to clarify something
Ed Fuller is not the person that is behind this.
THE SCAMMER, responded to me via text message because I included my phone number in response to his listing.
If you have read this, Please do not infer that I somehow believe that our trusted member has anything to do with the problem.

Ed and I have been in contact and the purchase was completed.
I blocked the scammers number.

I responded to an ad from Ed Fuller yesterday about the license plate bracket
I got a text indicating it was him at 1:13 A.M. wanting payment.
I indicated I would send a check, but the number came from a Florida area code.
This morning the texts started early and wanted the funds to be sent to a different address via PayPal than what i have used in the past. Whoever this is is demanding payment. I have sent payment to Ed, via the account that I had on file, not to the one the tester has asked met to respond to.
The scam number is:
1 656-247-7834
The PayPal info is:
Joycenggugi@outlook.com

I’m suspicious of this activity, due to the urgency of the requests.
The number that has text me is not available for a phone call.

Ed, If this is really you texting me, I would like to apologize to you.
If this is a scam, everyone needs to be aware that even spelling out a digit in a phone number will not stoop the scammers from contacting us, as I spell out “zero ” when responding to an ad.

Be vigilant when buying here, even from known members.

Scott Francis

absolutely anything from @outlook.com is most definitely a scam

less certain, though anecdotally, it would appear that your phone may have been hacked if someone is intercepting your texts.

I put my contact number in the reply on the forum
With the last digit spelled out.
That is how they contacted me

yeah, the days of safely doing that are long over...

The “ real Ed” has been in contact and the payment went to him due to his contact info already being in my account at PayPal

Being awakened in the middle of the night seemed weird and if I wasn’t half asleep, I might have sent the payment since Ed is a known respected forum member.

The absolute urgency of the responses texts made me suspicious and when asked to respond thru the forum was met with pushback, it became apparent it wasn’t Ed.

Be aware everyone,
Happy new year
Scott

Rot has a way of spreading, especially when it is ignored.

The text message system is easy to spoof if you have the right tools. A Scammer do not need to hack anybodys phone in order to send text messages that seems to come from your number. With the right tools you can overwrite the sender number with any number or even text.

South Park Zephyr wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 30, 2025 11:34 am

I put my contact number in the reply on the forum
With the last digit spelled out.
That is how they contacted me

Once they got your phone number, they GOT YOU! It amuses me that people spell a number thinking that eliminates the chance of a scammer hacking you. IT DOESN'T. They may be dumb but most know how to SPELL and convert to a NUMBER.
And giving your CITY/STATE here for it to be posted every time you/we post doesn't help any either. It's not necessary.

Well,
He even has my address,
Since I sent it to him via text for the shipping….

It worked out ok though since I had Ed’s PayPal account due to a prior transaction.

I don’t care if he has my number, city, state and address
He isn’t going to do anything over a missed transaction. He would only open himself up to further legal scrutiny if he was to be that foolish. Odds are he isn’t on this continent anyway.

I put this info here only to alert fellow members to be vigilant when buying things here, or anywhere on the internet.

South Park Zephyr wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 31, 2025 11:34 pm

Well,
He even has my address,
Since I sent it to him via text for the shipping….

It worked out ok though since I had Ed’s PayPal account due to a prior transaction.

I don’t care if he has my number, city, state and address
He isn’t going to do anything over a missed transaction. He would only open himself up to further legal scrutiny if he was to be that foolish. Odds are he isn’t on this continent anyway.

I put this info here only to alert fellow members to be vigilant when buying things here, or anywhere on the internet.

Just so no banking is on your phone, as our "smartphones" are literally a "pocket computer" and many people DO banking on their phones. I may access my credit cards rarely on the phone, but I fall back on the "no fraud liability" thing of them. The bank accounts are never done on my phone. Once the scammer has your phone number, they can get into ALL your personal data and clean you out. And yes they're almost all from Africa!

IMembers need to realize how easy it is to get information about a person off the internet. It used to be that your full social security number was your secret ID and was used as an identifier in many banks and businesses as your account number. The Congress passed a law to make it illegal for Banks & business to use it as an account number but still retain it for verification &/or filing with the IRS as needed.

So your new ID across the Internet is your phone number. Its so easy to find a wealth of information about a person & family members from it. A land line number was a "family" ID, but a cell phone number singles you out. A few years back if you had an issue with a bank or business, you were asked to provide the last 4 digits of you social security number, birth date and maybe something else. Since they all followed this pattern it just takes one of them to be hacked for that info to be distributed across the darkside of the internet.

Perhaps the worst thing that people are doing is providing private info on Facebook, not just limited to their education etc but family photos & images of their face. That image can be used, when applicable, to open your phone, computer etc if you used facial recognition.

A second source of information for scammers & robbers is an Obituary. There is a list of family members: (often including their City/State) & visitation & interment dates. This is a signal when no one will be home.

For protection via the Forum the best way (although not perfect) is to initially communicate with a PM (private message) or send an email via the Forum by clicking on the persons UserName Have a nice day


For everything else where they are using two phase sign-on, the first is a regular sign-on (log on) followed by sending a text to you phone or an email to you to use in completing the sign on.

Here is an example of "public information" - scroll down these sites
https://obituaries.startribune.com/obit ... 1093386571
Everything you need even the house & its value
https://www.truepeoplesearch.com/find/p ... 08449lu46r

Then when you put an App on your phone they ask for access to many things depending on their needs or a way to collect data about you. Now this data isn't tied to you phone number, address or even name BUT that's not hard to do down the road.

Here is an example of Google Maps - now think about some other app seeking similar access but for a different unstated intent.
For any App you can "turn off" access to the "optional permissions" but most users don't even check these