As we ring in a new year the Cardsphere community is facing what's become a fairly common challenge online: the advent of scammers. I don't mean counterfeiters – we're quite good at shutting that down very quickly with our fraud detection and community reporting. I mean your garden variety low-life who will use any means (including Cardsphere's messaging system) to get in touch and start the social engineering.
Please be very wary when dealing with any users who are encouraging you to do deals outside Cardsphere! Not only is this against our Terms of Service, but is also a great way to leak information to scammers. You should never, ever provide people trying to get any kind of personal information about you with any details. There is no recourse available for anyone who exchanges cards or funds outside Cardsphere, even if the arrangements were made using our messaging system.
Currently, we are seeing someone claiming to be named Jasmine ("call me Jazzy") contacting Cardsphere users with a story about their brother dying, and needing to unload all his old cards. This quickly moves on to encouraging you to contact them via SMS on their phones (providing your phone number) and asking for addresses to ship the "brother's" collection to you. I'm sorry to report that quite a few people have provided personal information via the messaging system.
We have banned several accounts for this kind activity and will continue to do so, but the best way to protect yourself from scammers is to be smart and not engage! Remember, if something seems to good to be true – it's probably a scam.
If you encounter anyone suspect or are ever concerned with any user's activity, please send us an email to contact@cardsphere.com with as much detail as possible, or pop into the Discord server and let us know. Once again we're amazed at how many users have closed ranks and come forward to report the scam.
Thanks folks!
Efren, Michael, and Ted.
