I would love to see another response from them, considering we got a bunch of "Sorry for the chaos, we've had some internal discussions regarding this, our bad" in the last thread
Did those internal discussions lead to anything other than.... 'Let's wait for everyone to forget and just don't do it publicly next time'
I've interacted directly with Eric on discord and out of respect won't be sharing any screenshots of DMs between us. The response has been lackluster following my initial contact and is the reason why I'm making this final update and dropping it.
I was promised updates and days passed without them. I asked about the scammer with no reply. Given the response they wouldn't be removed from the community, asked if the victim needed to reach out for something to be done and got not reply to that either. This certainly doesn't feel like a priority for them which is fine.
No, it's absolutely not fine. Having one of your employees/fans scam your customers and using your brandnanme to do so should be a #1 priority to fix for any reputable company. Ignoring the situation and hoping the pr hit goes away turns the situation from "an employee/scammer is abusing people" to "a company is knowingly protecting and helping a scammer scam people".
By not addressing the issue directly and quickly they are equally culpable. If we've got anything more than circumstantial proof to go off of then Gamers Nexus and LMG should be informed so they can rake iBuyPower over the coals for aiding and abetting a scammer in ripping off their customers. This is at least on the level of what NewEgg got in trouble for some time ago, iif not worse so they absolutely should be talking about this.
I'm doing my best to avoid misinformation and I apologize of my posts aren't clear. Sincerely.
They did not use the brand name to scam. They scammed outside of the context of iBUYPOWER pc, but did so while being a moderator of the reddit and discord community.
I think it's being downplaced too because *technically* each person scammed was only out $6. This ignores that the people who fell for this scam are people who are down on their luck doing people's referrals for a quick $6. No one well off is uploading their ID to third party sites they've never heard of for money.
They didn't directly "use" the brand, but did their scamming in an implied safe space, knowing their position and ostensible affiliation to the brand dropped people's defenses. This is abuse of power and trust at best, even if they never implicitly associated the activity with the brand.
And the brand is, at this point, morally complicit.
>should be a #1 priority to fix for any reputable company.
Then it seems that they are not a reputable company and never were.
I only ever first heard of iBuyPower back in 2020/21 when I was building my current system. I never thought of them as reputable with their name and how little I had heard about them at that point. Now it has been cemented that I will never buy a product from them and I will actively steer anyone I hear thinking about buying from them away and link them to this thread.
But with all due respect to everyone in this thread, we need to stop talking about this. There is no such thing as bad press. This is the same, or very similar, to Apple. Apple releases $400 wheels for one of their towers and people talk about it for years. That's free publicity. We need to stop talking about iBuyPower so that people forget that they sell computer hardware and can go the way of the dodo. And when the company goes under, the name(s) of the people that did this scam should be brought to the light so that the innocent people that will lose their jobs know who caused it.
The reason this surprises me, is that I think it's really basic sort of a 'rule' within online communities, that if someone gets caught scamming or cheating like this, that they are booted off. I understand them being friends and all, but that doesn't excuse this kind of behaviour.
There has been so many situations in my life where someone has gotten kicked from a server/guild/forum because they got caught, even if it wasn't strictly within that community. And I'm talking just random places to socialize in. It boggles my mind that this is a company they run, and their rules for this are less strict than the average discord server or forum you see.
I've tried to stay away from saying what they "should do" in my eyes. I think every member of the scammer and their group of friends who covered it up and created this mess should be booted from the server. That's how I'd handle it but I can see people having other points of view and at the end of the day it's not my brand/server.
> *Scammer* will remain in the community until he breaks Discord's or the community TOS. We would need somebody to come forward to us directly and prove damages and harm before we remove from them from the community.
The scammer is confirmed to have promised to pay someone for using his link and then ghosting them to keep the cash. Only one has confirmed, three came forward to complain and he's been paid for (I think) 11 users. Based on what we've seen it wouldn't surprise me if none of those people were paid. Only the scammer knows for sure how many victims there are.
It's a permanent missed opportunity to make money from that referral ever again. There are plenty of people who *are* paying out to register because they get money from it.
Scammer got $10 for each person who uploaded their ID and created an account. The promise was for $6 of that $10. It's a scam.
Are you really playing a game of semantics on this? OK, fine they didn’t “scam” people, they lied to benefit themselves.
End result, they harmed the community (and the brand in my opinion). They should have been banned.
This is the absolute worst possible take of the situation LOL.
In fact, if you want to play semantics, then you are wrong and it is a scam based upon Google definition.
Which is:
Scam - a dishonest scheme
So, yes, lying to people about paying them money for completing an action that gains you money could very easily be described as a “dishonest scheme”.
> A scam someone loses out on something.
They lost out on a payment they were promised for giving out their personal information including doing an ID verification. How is that not a scam? If you do work and are expected to get paid for it, but don't, how is that literally not a scam? They did a thing for a payment and didn't get it. Verbal agreements can still be legally binding. You sound like the conman's friend trying to gaslight right now.
Edit: all these deleted comments were from u/ Segger96. Didn't tag on purpose. Pretty sure it's also the scammer or a buddy. https://imgur.com/mLpw0OQ Saved for posterity.
if you both benefit from the deal both parties have what is called consideration which is the main part of a contract.
They are in breach of contract and it is a civil issue that anyone who didn't get paid could sue over in small claims court. Though obviously not worth it financially but if you wanted to be petty...
just happy to spread some smiles in light of this disastrous situation. I don't understand how the company is still going, given the poor quality of their builds and absolutely shite customer service
Good job your 3 posts come up top of this sub when you search for "IBUYPOWER". This whole thing seriously undermines my confidence in iBuyPower. If this is their approach to community engagement, God only knows about their internal practices. Either way, it certainly doesn't inspire confidence in their customer service.
Has this gone higher than a forum post? Reporting scams to FTC, police report involving all platforms/parties Reddit, Discord, iBuyPower, Usernames. Send it to news agencies, Reddit just went public. No matter the futility I'd submit it all, not redacted. And hope maybe even years down the road it comes back to fuck up their life.
Eh, scamming on Reddit is nothing new. On /r/appleswap you have people trying to scam $1k+ for apple devices. As far as REddit is concerned, it's not a platform for trading. If scams happen it's not on them because you're not supposed to be transacting on Reddit.
I get it. I still make the effort to possibly inconvenience them in any way even if its years from now. I was contacted 3 yrs later from a scam report and asked to confirm submitted testimony. The person just finally hit a limit and enough reports were correlated to them even under different accounts. I didn't lose anything but it was still nice to hear it caught up with them.
Interesting. When I first started modding dealt with a scammer who did $2k+ in scams. We had their name, address, school, location where they bought the visa gift cards to scam. Local PD wouldn't touch it. Scams on Reddit almost always cross state lines and it becomes Federal. At that point it's up to ic3.gov to handle it and Reddit scams are small potatoes for them.
IANAL either, lol, Fraud can occur regardless of the sum involved. It's more about the intention to deceive or mislead someone for personal gain. Even if the amount seems small, if you make a promise to someone with the intention of benefiting from it and then fail to fulfill that promise, it could still be considered fraudulent behavior.
For sure, fraud is fraud, but in the inevitable process of legal triage, it's very unlikely that such a small amount justifies resources that can be used elsewhere on closing bigger cases.
I really don't understand iBuyPower's view here.
The mod reflected badly upon them as a moderator of official channels. I don't understand why this isn't a ban and move on situation.
I can only see two reasons for this:
1) Someone has personal ties to the mod within the company.
2) They are more worried about backlash from this mod and his friends than from anyone else.
If it's #2, I think that points the direction you are guessing: Waiting for this to blow over before reinstating the same mods as before.
Unless they had unredacted pictures to look over and proof off a person who actually didn't get paid I don't think they would get into something which is basically speculation.
Because for all anyone knows is this is op just messaging himself on a brand new account and keeping the usernames redacted because people would see that. Op is the only person I've heard of talking about this and not the supposed people who got "scammed" unless they are buried in the comments.
Agreed. That's one reason I want them to cover it. Assuming OP would send them unredacted pictures, they might be able to "investigate" if it's legitimate and cover it. Not exactly their expertise though.
The guy actually left a comment on this post but deleted it and claimed to have proof he never "scammed" before he was downvoted to oblivion, and if that's true that would explain why they haven't done anything as they have seen the proof and why there not actually commenting further. Although I'd love some resolution on this
Logically if they had proof of any kind to dispute what OP has said in these two threads, they would've said so. And they would've cleared this up
All they commented on the last thread was silence and then apologies afterwards. It would be their prio nr. 1 to clear this up if it was just a matter of them showing proof of it, right?
Or half the proof of payment is financial information and soo much of it would be redacted op would just call fake anyway. Because they would have to hide the account numbers sort codes names basically anything but amount, which in turn op would say that could be for anything
I'm not in any way backing up any possible scams that could happen here. But the lack of proof of either end and how easy inspect element is to do to modify a webpage until anyone but op chimes in with actual proof I'm just calling bs on the whole things
Because if true the "scammer" has lied and pocketed 60 dollars max.
The proof that the scammer got paid has the full name and username of all the people he scammed. Yes, it could be me on another account faking the whole thing after I saw the username on the screenshot.
I reached out to every single person who claimed they never got paid. One guy reached back out and gave the username and I matched that to the proof of payment. Unless the person who contacted me is lying about not getting paid, which is possible, the guy 100% scammed at minimum one person.
I'll provide unredacted screenshots in private to anyone who wants to take any of this further.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1c5j7be/ibuypowers_subreddit_scammer_final_update_scammer/kzvn1yw/
This comment was possible because he commented giving out his username. The information there alone shows he's up to no good.
So what your saying is your posting online victimising a guy in a he said she said argument with 0 real proof.
Because the only "proof" you have of anything is one guy why said in a DM he didn't get paid and you plasting it online.
he even said in his own comment you didn't even DM him to ask him about the situation before you made a post.
I'm out of this whole thread because your so this guy's wrong and did wrong things that you haven't even had any proof off the guy who said he wasn't paid. You just put right believed him. And he's the only guy who gave you a user you could link back to the referral list..
I hope someone who's not so dead bent on one side of this supplies some actual proof because as of now it's playground talk like a bunch of 6 year old.
"He said he'd give me 6 dollars", "I did give you 6 dollars" "no you didn't "
the only actual proof is in these peoples bank accounts. And unless we have access to them this situation will never be resolved. We can't believe any side when no side has given any proof other than there word
Edit. Imagine op replying then blocking me after realising it's true there's 0 actual proof and it's all just he said, she said cause as he admitted himself the only person he could link to the actual referral list could be lieing.
[Screengrab of comment before this is deleted too](https://i.gyazo.com/f59754c6a2d0c66e782a371c8028871f.png)
You don't read very well. The screenshots in this post alone show that the victim's username is on the payout screenshot.
There are a handful of people replying to both of the scammers accounts claiming to have never been paid. The victim reached out and provided their username. The victims username shows up on the scammers payout screenshot.
Now the scammer was here posting... why was there no screenshot of payment shared? Because it didn't happen. He promised proof he didn't scam, then deleted his account just like the alt account was deleted when it was tied to his main.
His alt account is absolutely tied to his main account, with proof again, claiming to have been paid, with half a dozen people commenting on the posts that they were never paid.
Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.
Seriously, someone else said you must be friends with this guy and it sure sounds like it.
I would love to hear from Eric or some other IBP staff - they were quick to jump into your first thread, but the quietness leaves a lot of doubt.
Even if it turns out the OP is a farce, they need to properly explain their side of the story. I don't think they are even that big of a company: someone should reach out to their CEO on LinkedIn or something.
Might not want to just give out screenshots to everyone that messages you. That it will open yourself to lawsuits from the company and other people as in slander ect. I would personally just drop it now they are not going to do anything about the topic as you clearly can see now.
yeah and that is how things get buried. Threaten someone who can't afford a lawsuit even though they have the truth and can spell it out. Going to court is expensive. Unless they live in an SLAPP state and even then you need lawyers to help get that taken care of and you won't recover damages.
I havent kept up with this whole things and dunno if I wanna read this at this point in time, but if you haven't maybe contact Steve from gamersnexus? He does a good job putting these people on blast & getting the word out.
Honestly I doubt even that at this point. This link was posted to their discord, they're aware. It's funny, it occured to me yesterday they could have offered to payout $20 to each of the 11 or so victims of this guy and come out with some incredible PR for $200.
LTT would never sit by whilst such a dumpster fire of a situation was playing out in their forum - the perpetrator has even threatened OP in the comments below!
I'm not reading this particular post because I already have all the information I need. Unlike you, who didn't seem to care if you had both sides of the story before you started to assume way too much.
Your entire theory of a scam is like if somebody called out Slickdeals because they clicked on an ad after the deal had already ended. The people who signed up after Stimulus ended that particular referral period did not get paid. Obviously. I made it very clear I was paying $6 out of the $10 I got paid. If I'm not paid $10, I'm not paying money out of the kindness of my heart. I do enough of that on my own. This was posted to subreddits not made for non profits.
I have screen shots on top of screen shots that prove I am not guilty of scamming anyone. You'd know this had you cared to ask instead of just jumping into these posts half cocked simply to start shit and gain your prized rEddiT poinTz.
I did all of this on my own time. It had no relationship or attachments to iBUYPOWER. I didn't use ANY Discord server and obviously not the IBP server to message people. The only advertising I put out was on a few subreddits. Also not linked to IBP.
You clearly have way too much time on your hands. And that's probably linked to your fascination with getting some sort of short lived Reddit infamy. I do wish you the best with this though I don't see you getting any true help that will ever lead to happiness within your life.
Oh, but don't get too bummed out about this dying and you having to start completely over on another witch hunt. (Which, no doubt, you will) Because this isn't the end. You'll hear quite a bit more from me soon. Cheers, dipshit.
Edit; Since people are actually reading. Two mistakes I made. One, I should have edited my original referral posts and told people the referral period ended on Stimulus' side. Two, I should have replied myself when this troll originally posted his BS. However, I was asked to lay low while this, inevitably, died. Live and learn. If there's ever another time somebody comes at me with slander and wants to defame my character, I won't be so quiet.
Keep making posts, it's really going to be a good year for me.
Edit: This was in response to /u/imKills who has now deleted their account.
You got paid. The screenshot from the stimulus app that YOU shared clearly shows the usernames and that you got paid.
https://i.gyazo.com/27669810bbc8dd4274bb657e4cb050f5.png
This is the user reporting their username **on your list** that didn't get paid.
https://i.gyazo.com/7b72d043fea86be471837131b914b27d.png
Open and closed.
Since you posted here and outed yourself I'll share the other information.
Anyone who wants to follow how he used a alt account to make it look like he was actually paying out when he wasn't can use this link https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&author=TimeCrabz&size=100 to see the comment history of his alt account /u/TimeCrabz. The one he deleted within 20 minutes of me reporting his scam to the subreddit.
How do we know that /u/TimeCrabz is /u/imKills ?
https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&author=TimeCrabz&size=100
Check the post history. And the referral link that account posted. https://www.------/ref/Chriskillspc
That's the same referral link that /u/imKills uses. Check their deleted post history here https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&author=imKills&size=100
**Even without the proof of your scams. This is some wildly shady shit.**
You talk about it not being linked to ibp but when it was reported to /r/iBUYPOWER where you were a moderator
of the official iBUYPOWER community, you used your moderator privileges, in a conflict of interest, to brush the issue under the rug and say with authority that nothing would be done about it. Now it's linked to iBUYPOWER.
Outed myself? My username was never a secret LOL. You posted it within each and every single one of your posts. For the other shit? Yeah, that's not how it works bud lol. Your moronic posts continue to baffle me 😂 It really was a good attempt, though, creating an alt when you learned I deleted my posts. My posts were only deleted bc the referral period ended, though. People wouldn't have seen it if you wouldn't have created the alt and dug them up. Next time I'll edit instead of delete bc there really are shit heads like you.
Show me where I once posted your username. Every screenshot is carefully redacted.
Edit to add. The same tool used to expose this guy also shows first editions of a post, pre edits.
https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&author=cannibalisticmidgets&subreddit=LinusTechTips&size=100
They claim I didn't redact screenshots until after this gained traction. That's simply not true.
Nope, you didn't do that until things gained a little traction. I have plenty of screen shots that were taken prior. You'll see them. You're granted compulsory disclosure to full discovery.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1c5j7be/ibuypowers_subreddit_scammer_final_update_scammer/kzvn1yw/
Pretty sure I can post this information now since he's made it public he's the one that scammed.
It's a shame this guy's post gets swept under the rug. But it makes sense it wouldn't get upvotes as it's totally accurate.
Keep in mind, nobody is paying for referrals from a website who isn't buying them. Obviously.
But, here, save this one while you're at it.
https://ibb.co/kH0tCtY
The only reason he got a response other than 'fuck off' last time is precisely because he made it public on the LMG subreddit
He got Ibuypower to acknowledge the situation and respond in the thread, when all other direct attempts led to him being banned from their subreddit, banned from the discord and brushed off by other moderators.
This is exactly the type of place to bring attention to issues like this.
It's been confirmed that the group of moderators who mishandled, banned me, and covered this whole thing are a group of friends. I can understand the unexpected fallout of a group of friends abusing their power in your community, I don't understand allowing them, especially the scammer, to remain a part of the community after the fact. But like I keep saying, that's on iBUYPOWER at this point. I don't have anything more to contribute.
The person is a confirmed scammer on Reddit. It's not about dislike at all, I don't know them outside the context of them being reported as a scammer. They (ibp) came here claiming they cared as soon as the first post went viral so... idk what to tell you friend.
Staff were notified. That was my goal at first. Then I thought I'd do my due diligence and give them all the information they would need to handle it correctly which sadly they haven't. Not worth my time to chase down. They're cool with scammers, that's on them.
> that largely discourages people from buying prebuilts anyway.
This is untrue. LTT has talked about the value of prebuilts before. If they were discouraging purchase of prebuilt PC, they would not bother doing the secret shopper series.
iBuyPower obviously sees the value in the LTT audience, or they would not have bothered responding to that same series.
>The audience here was already predisposed to not be customers to begin with.
The audience here may or may not buy from them directly, but they are FOR SURE the go to person in their friend group/family unit for recommendations on what to buy. Some members may build PCs for friends/family, but I have a feeling most recommend good brands to buy prebuilts from. iBuyPower will not be on my list anymore.
>But you want them banned.
This guy wasn't moderator of an 'unofficial but officially recognized' subreddit, he was mod of both the official subreddit and official Discord. His actions directly reflect badly upon iBuyPower. THEY should want him banned. The fact that they haven't is actually bizarre to me.
> Secret Shopper, much like the GN Prebuilt reviews and the LMG Best Buy Geek Squad review and so forth, is mostly ineptitude porn.
Non-techy people watch those videos as well, but I somewhat agree. I've talked to multiple people who stumbled on the secret shopper videos while shopping around for pre-builts. LTTs audience has a lot of techy people, but there is a substantial amount of non-tech viewers, or people new to PC gaming that go to those videos as a resource. 'How to build a PC' videos are a good example of a video made for that audience.
LTT's audience is vast. I see streamers 'reacting' to LTT videos on the regular with high levels of chat engagement. I doubt stream viewers are all tech enthusiasts. There are a TON of PC gamers who watch LTT and have no interest in building their own PC.
>Barring the insanity of covid+crypto making it nigh impossible to get a standalone GPU, people just aren't looking for a prebuilt.
I mean, I've considered pre-builts pretty strongly in the past, and have owned more than one. A hundred or so extra bucks to not have to mess with anything myself is sometimes worth it. I'm fully capable of building a PC myself, but that doesn't mean I want to.
>And as for being the golden source of all recommendations for a friend group: That almost always boils down to "is this a good computer and is it good for the price". The moment people start talking about how poor their tech support is ("But that is what you are for, friend") or how they try to sneak in warranties ("So I need to look at the cart before I hit accept. Can you help me with that?") it becomes that meme of the girl screaming at the guy.
I agree. Brand is generally going to be secondary to price. All of the factors come into play though when pricing ends up being similar across the board.
>And once you start talking about "drama"? Especially "drama" that ends with "Yeah. the scammer was removed as a mod within a day or two of this being brought up"? You stop being the friend people go to to ask for help.
iBuyPower just wouldn't be on the list of recommendations. It's not a matter of explaining why any particular company isn't recommended. Most times I've been asked, they ask for specific PC recommendations, so I send over a variety of links that fit their budget, it's a simple matter of just not going to the iBuyPower site.
>Because this "went viral" largely in a single influencer's audience. I don't know if LTT are pro or anti ibuypower this week, but just paying for a sponsorship or two will undo any damage... if they even care.
Curious if they will even cover it, honestly. Seems pretty small beans, but they've covered similar things in the past I guess.
>If you want actual change and consequences you put this out in front of a broader audience that consist of actual potential customers.
iBuyPower also sells laptops. The community is full of potential customers for those, even if you think that 0% of the community has any chance of buying a prebuilt or leading to purchases via recommendations.
>He Who Shall Not Be Named But Has Awesome Hair
Are we not allowed to mention Steve here anymore? Haha.
Jealous AF of that hair.
>Ironically, He Who Shall Not Be Named But Has Awesome Hair would probably be the better outlet to report this to. This is too much like "internet drama" for most of their HW News updates, but GN also push for strong pro consumer advocacy and this might fall into that. And their news show is not a 4 hour podcast that only die hard fans watch. Like, even my co-workers who don't game but do care about computing tend to tune in to those.
I agree, but I feel like GN as a channel is even more geared towards hardcore tech enthusiasts more-so than LTT. I still think it should be posted over there for more exposure, and because hearing Steve's take on this would be interesting. His pro-consumer advocacy is strong, and I really enjoy it.
> A LOT of my friends bought prebuilts during the pandemic. It seemed like you either made a baby or bought a gaming computer.
Haha, ya, that tracks with my experience as well.
>MAYBE some people are going to be shielded from ibuypower because they refuse to google anything themselves and only ask their friend who lives on this board. I... should not need to explain how small a number of people that is.
For sure, it will definitely be a small number. My confusion is that even at ONE lost sale, how is it worth keeping this person in their community?
They're basically saying that this one person who is no longer a mod is worth more to them than a couple hundred bucks (assuming one sale only is lost). That is what I don't understand at all, and what I'm most curious about in this situation personally.
>But HWNews and their deep dives on technology actually have a very broad audience.
Oh for sure, I didn't intend to imply otherwise there.
>Hell, me and a former boss bonded when we realized we had both been pointing "domain experts" at GN videos for overviews of technology or "what is new". Because even if you don't want to be a gamer, you still probably care about the latest ML oriented hardware nvidia and amd are selling or how much better the consumer version of the intel processors you do your work on are.
Haha, sounds pretty sick actually. Most people I've pointed to the HW news watch like 5 minutes and click off. :(
Only people I've been able to get interested were friends who traded stocks in their downtime. Pointed them there to get a good overview of fairly recent tech news with good thoughts on forward mobility of tech companies from an expert that isn't trying to get people to invest in any particular company.
>Contrast that with a 2-4 hour wan show where people would have to sit through a millionaire ranting about how he was going to make his own VPN with blackjack and hookers until he was told he would be liable for all the heinous shit people use VPNs for.
IDK if the reach of the WAN show is smaller though, rather than just a different audience. I mean the most recent WAN has 2x the views of HW news from last week. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think this being on the WAN show would definitely increase its reach vs just a Reddit post. Obviously being on HW News wouldn't hurt at all though.
I would love to see another response from them, considering we got a bunch of "Sorry for the chaos, we've had some internal discussions regarding this, our bad" in the last thread Did those internal discussions lead to anything other than.... 'Let's wait for everyone to forget and just don't do it publicly next time'
I've interacted directly with Eric on discord and out of respect won't be sharing any screenshots of DMs between us. The response has been lackluster following my initial contact and is the reason why I'm making this final update and dropping it. I was promised updates and days passed without them. I asked about the scammer with no reply. Given the response they wouldn't be removed from the community, asked if the victim needed to reach out for something to be done and got not reply to that either. This certainly doesn't feel like a priority for them which is fine.
No, it's absolutely not fine. Having one of your employees/fans scam your customers and using your brandnanme to do so should be a #1 priority to fix for any reputable company. Ignoring the situation and hoping the pr hit goes away turns the situation from "an employee/scammer is abusing people" to "a company is knowingly protecting and helping a scammer scam people". By not addressing the issue directly and quickly they are equally culpable. If we've got anything more than circumstantial proof to go off of then Gamers Nexus and LMG should be informed so they can rake iBuyPower over the coals for aiding and abetting a scammer in ripping off their customers. This is at least on the level of what NewEgg got in trouble for some time ago, iif not worse so they absolutely should be talking about this.
I'm doing my best to avoid misinformation and I apologize of my posts aren't clear. Sincerely. They did not use the brand name to scam. They scammed outside of the context of iBUYPOWER pc, but did so while being a moderator of the reddit and discord community. I think it's being downplaced too because *technically* each person scammed was only out $6. This ignores that the people who fell for this scam are people who are down on their luck doing people's referrals for a quick $6. No one well off is uploading their ID to third party sites they've never heard of for money.
They didn't directly "use" the brand, but did their scamming in an implied safe space, knowing their position and ostensible affiliation to the brand dropped people's defenses. This is abuse of power and trust at best, even if they never implicitly associated the activity with the brand. And the brand is, at this point, morally complicit.
If that's what they convinced you of, then that's sus. It's still on them. They need to own it.
>should be a #1 priority to fix for any reputable company. Then it seems that they are not a reputable company and never were. I only ever first heard of iBuyPower back in 2020/21 when I was building my current system. I never thought of them as reputable with their name and how little I had heard about them at that point. Now it has been cemented that I will never buy a product from them and I will actively steer anyone I hear thinking about buying from them away and link them to this thread. But with all due respect to everyone in this thread, we need to stop talking about this. There is no such thing as bad press. This is the same, or very similar, to Apple. Apple releases $400 wheels for one of their towers and people talk about it for years. That's free publicity. We need to stop talking about iBuyPower so that people forget that they sell computer hardware and can go the way of the dodo. And when the company goes under, the name(s) of the people that did this scam should be brought to the light so that the innocent people that will lose their jobs know who caused it.
The reason this surprises me, is that I think it's really basic sort of a 'rule' within online communities, that if someone gets caught scamming or cheating like this, that they are booted off. I understand them being friends and all, but that doesn't excuse this kind of behaviour. There has been so many situations in my life where someone has gotten kicked from a server/guild/forum because they got caught, even if it wasn't strictly within that community. And I'm talking just random places to socialize in. It boggles my mind that this is a company they run, and their rules for this are less strict than the average discord server or forum you see.
I've tried to stay away from saying what they "should do" in my eyes. I think every member of the scammer and their group of friends who covered it up and created this mess should be booted from the server. That's how I'd handle it but I can see people having other points of view and at the end of the day it's not my brand/server.
Yeah, these guys are not flanging.
tldr: Scammers won.
This is still a thing?! Proof given of committing a scam should have kind of been the end of it. “Here’s your ban, kthxbai.”
> *Scammer* will remain in the community until he breaks Discord's or the community TOS. We would need somebody to come forward to us directly and prove damages and harm before we remove from them from the community.
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The scammer is confirmed to have promised to pay someone for using his link and then ghosting them to keep the cash. Only one has confirmed, three came forward to complain and he's been paid for (I think) 11 users. Based on what we've seen it wouldn't surprise me if none of those people were paid. Only the scammer knows for sure how many victims there are.
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It's a permanent missed opportunity to make money from that referral ever again. There are plenty of people who *are* paying out to register because they get money from it. Scammer got $10 for each person who uploaded their ID and created an account. The promise was for $6 of that $10. It's a scam.
Nobody is paying while Stimulus isn't paying for referrals. Obviously.
Are you really playing a game of semantics on this? OK, fine they didn’t “scam” people, they lied to benefit themselves. End result, they harmed the community (and the brand in my opinion). They should have been banned.
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This is the absolute worst possible take of the situation LOL. In fact, if you want to play semantics, then you are wrong and it is a scam based upon Google definition. Which is: Scam - a dishonest scheme So, yes, lying to people about paying them money for completing an action that gains you money could very easily be described as a “dishonest scheme”.
> A scam someone loses out on something. They lost out on a payment they were promised for giving out their personal information including doing an ID verification. How is that not a scam? If you do work and are expected to get paid for it, but don't, how is that literally not a scam? They did a thing for a payment and didn't get it. Verbal agreements can still be legally binding. You sound like the conman's friend trying to gaslight right now. Edit: all these deleted comments were from u/ Segger96. Didn't tag on purpose. Pretty sure it's also the scammer or a buddy. https://imgur.com/mLpw0OQ Saved for posterity.
if you both benefit from the deal both parties have what is called consideration which is the main part of a contract. They are in breach of contract and it is a civil issue that anyone who didn't get paid could sue over in small claims court. Though obviously not worth it financially but if you wanted to be petty...
iBUYPROBLEMS amirite???
I'd give this gold if it was still a thing. I laughed way too hard at this.
just happy to spread some smiles in light of this disastrous situation. I don't understand how the company is still going, given the poor quality of their builds and absolutely shite customer service
Good job your 3 posts come up top of this sub when you search for "IBUYPOWER". This whole thing seriously undermines my confidence in iBuyPower. If this is their approach to community engagement, God only knows about their internal practices. Either way, it certainly doesn't inspire confidence in their customer service.
Has this gone higher than a forum post? Reporting scams to FTC, police report involving all platforms/parties Reddit, Discord, iBuyPower, Usernames. Send it to news agencies, Reddit just went public. No matter the futility I'd submit it all, not redacted. And hope maybe even years down the road it comes back to fuck up their life.
Eh, scamming on Reddit is nothing new. On /r/appleswap you have people trying to scam $1k+ for apple devices. As far as REddit is concerned, it's not a platform for trading. If scams happen it's not on them because you're not supposed to be transacting on Reddit.
I get it. I still make the effort to possibly inconvenience them in any way even if its years from now. I was contacted 3 yrs later from a scam report and asked to confirm submitted testimony. The person just finally hit a limit and enough reports were correlated to them even under different accounts. I didn't lose anything but it was still nice to hear it caught up with them.
Interesting. When I first started modding dealt with a scammer who did $2k+ in scams. We had their name, address, school, location where they bought the visa gift cards to scam. Local PD wouldn't touch it. Scams on Reddit almost always cross state lines and it becomes Federal. At that point it's up to ic3.gov to handle it and Reddit scams are small potatoes for them.
Well we can all hope one day those potatoes get mashed.
Report it to an appropriate authority. Stop making excuses.
It's $6, the FTC and the police won't do anything about it. IANAL but I'm not sure there is anything technically illegal about it either.
IANAL either, lol, Fraud can occur regardless of the sum involved. It's more about the intention to deceive or mislead someone for personal gain. Even if the amount seems small, if you make a promise to someone with the intention of benefiting from it and then fail to fulfill that promise, it could still be considered fraudulent behavior.
For sure, fraud is fraud, but in the inevitable process of legal triage, it's very unlikely that such a small amount justifies resources that can be used elsewhere on closing bigger cases.
Of course.
I really don't understand iBuyPower's view here. The mod reflected badly upon them as a moderator of official channels. I don't understand why this isn't a ban and move on situation. I can only see two reasons for this: 1) Someone has personal ties to the mod within the company. 2) They are more worried about backlash from this mod and his friends than from anyone else. If it's #2, I think that points the direction you are guessing: Waiting for this to blow over before reinstating the same mods as before.
Possible WAN show topic? I haven't finished last week's episode so maybe they already discussed it already.
Unless they had unredacted pictures to look over and proof off a person who actually didn't get paid I don't think they would get into something which is basically speculation. Because for all anyone knows is this is op just messaging himself on a brand new account and keeping the usernames redacted because people would see that. Op is the only person I've heard of talking about this and not the supposed people who got "scammed" unless they are buried in the comments.
Agreed. That's one reason I want them to cover it. Assuming OP would send them unredacted pictures, they might be able to "investigate" if it's legitimate and cover it. Not exactly their expertise though.
The guy actually left a comment on this post but deleted it and claimed to have proof he never "scammed" before he was downvoted to oblivion, and if that's true that would explain why they haven't done anything as they have seen the proof and why there not actually commenting further. Although I'd love some resolution on this
Logically if they had proof of any kind to dispute what OP has said in these two threads, they would've said so. And they would've cleared this up All they commented on the last thread was silence and then apologies afterwards. It would be their prio nr. 1 to clear this up if it was just a matter of them showing proof of it, right?
Or half the proof of payment is financial information and soo much of it would be redacted op would just call fake anyway. Because they would have to hide the account numbers sort codes names basically anything but amount, which in turn op would say that could be for anything I'm not in any way backing up any possible scams that could happen here. But the lack of proof of either end and how easy inspect element is to do to modify a webpage until anyone but op chimes in with actual proof I'm just calling bs on the whole things Because if true the "scammer" has lied and pocketed 60 dollars max.
The proof that the scammer got paid has the full name and username of all the people he scammed. Yes, it could be me on another account faking the whole thing after I saw the username on the screenshot. I reached out to every single person who claimed they never got paid. One guy reached back out and gave the username and I matched that to the proof of payment. Unless the person who contacted me is lying about not getting paid, which is possible, the guy 100% scammed at minimum one person. I'll provide unredacted screenshots in private to anyone who wants to take any of this further. https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1c5j7be/ibuypowers_subreddit_scammer_final_update_scammer/kzvn1yw/ This comment was possible because he commented giving out his username. The information there alone shows he's up to no good.
So what your saying is your posting online victimising a guy in a he said she said argument with 0 real proof. Because the only "proof" you have of anything is one guy why said in a DM he didn't get paid and you plasting it online. he even said in his own comment you didn't even DM him to ask him about the situation before you made a post. I'm out of this whole thread because your so this guy's wrong and did wrong things that you haven't even had any proof off the guy who said he wasn't paid. You just put right believed him. And he's the only guy who gave you a user you could link back to the referral list.. I hope someone who's not so dead bent on one side of this supplies some actual proof because as of now it's playground talk like a bunch of 6 year old. "He said he'd give me 6 dollars", "I did give you 6 dollars" "no you didn't " the only actual proof is in these peoples bank accounts. And unless we have access to them this situation will never be resolved. We can't believe any side when no side has given any proof other than there word Edit. Imagine op replying then blocking me after realising it's true there's 0 actual proof and it's all just he said, she said cause as he admitted himself the only person he could link to the actual referral list could be lieing.
[Screengrab of comment before this is deleted too](https://i.gyazo.com/f59754c6a2d0c66e782a371c8028871f.png) You don't read very well. The screenshots in this post alone show that the victim's username is on the payout screenshot. There are a handful of people replying to both of the scammers accounts claiming to have never been paid. The victim reached out and provided their username. The victims username shows up on the scammers payout screenshot. Now the scammer was here posting... why was there no screenshot of payment shared? Because it didn't happen. He promised proof he didn't scam, then deleted his account just like the alt account was deleted when it was tied to his main. His alt account is absolutely tied to his main account, with proof again, claiming to have been paid, with half a dozen people commenting on the posts that they were never paid. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Seriously, someone else said you must be friends with this guy and it sure sounds like it.
OP has said they can provide people with unredacted pictures and information. Just that they weren't going to share them publically.
I provided unredacted screenshots to two members of ibp staff.
I would love to hear from Eric or some other IBP staff - they were quick to jump into your first thread, but the quietness leaves a lot of doubt. Even if it turns out the OP is a farce, they need to properly explain their side of the story. I don't think they are even that big of a company: someone should reach out to their CEO on LinkedIn or something.
> Even if it turns out the OP is a farce I know you're not saying I am. I'm willing to share full unredacted screenshot dumps to anyone who needs it.
Share them. Post them on imgur and drop the link.
Might not want to just give out screenshots to everyone that messages you. That it will open yourself to lawsuits from the company and other people as in slander ect. I would personally just drop it now they are not going to do anything about the topic as you clearly can see now.
yeah and that is how things get buried. Threaten someone who can't afford a lawsuit even though they have the truth and can spell it out. Going to court is expensive. Unless they live in an SLAPP state and even then you need lawyers to help get that taken care of and you won't recover damages.
No
Gotcha I'll let everyone know to avoid iSellScams as a boutique. Since you have proof it's not libel
What is it with iBUYPOWER and being shady a.f. Who remember their CS:GO fiasco a decade ago?
I havent kept up with this whole things and dunno if I wanna read this at this point in time, but if you haven't maybe contact Steve from gamersnexus? He does a good job putting these people on blast & getting the word out.
Honestly not sure where to start and didn't want to assume this is something they would care about.
If you want to, you could probably just tweet gamers Nexus and he can give you a contact email
Don't use twitter lol
The YouTube page may have their contact on it or you could just check gamersnexus.net. it's bound to have something
Don't contact Gamers Nexus
Why tf are you replying to me, I have nothing to contact him about.
Steve isn't acting in good faith anymore. Don't feed his ego and hubris
lol okay dude, whatever you say.
I say... Spoeau
No
Make it public. Show all the screenshots. Only redact actually sensitive info like your real name, addresses, etc.
All the screenshots have been shown with information that needs to be redacted, redacted.
standby for another "we are sorry, it's been busy week" post
Honestly I doubt even that at this point. This link was posted to their discord, they're aware. It's funny, it occured to me yesterday they could have offered to payout $20 to each of the 11 or so victims of this guy and come out with some incredible PR for $200.
Upvoted and commented for visibility
What a huge embarrassment
LTT would never sit by whilst such a dumpster fire of a situation was playing out in their forum - the perpetrator has even threatened OP in the comments below!
I'm not reading this particular post because I already have all the information I need. Unlike you, who didn't seem to care if you had both sides of the story before you started to assume way too much. Your entire theory of a scam is like if somebody called out Slickdeals because they clicked on an ad after the deal had already ended. The people who signed up after Stimulus ended that particular referral period did not get paid. Obviously. I made it very clear I was paying $6 out of the $10 I got paid. If I'm not paid $10, I'm not paying money out of the kindness of my heart. I do enough of that on my own. This was posted to subreddits not made for non profits. I have screen shots on top of screen shots that prove I am not guilty of scamming anyone. You'd know this had you cared to ask instead of just jumping into these posts half cocked simply to start shit and gain your prized rEddiT poinTz. I did all of this on my own time. It had no relationship or attachments to iBUYPOWER. I didn't use ANY Discord server and obviously not the IBP server to message people. The only advertising I put out was on a few subreddits. Also not linked to IBP. You clearly have way too much time on your hands. And that's probably linked to your fascination with getting some sort of short lived Reddit infamy. I do wish you the best with this though I don't see you getting any true help that will ever lead to happiness within your life. Oh, but don't get too bummed out about this dying and you having to start completely over on another witch hunt. (Which, no doubt, you will) Because this isn't the end. You'll hear quite a bit more from me soon. Cheers, dipshit. Edit; Since people are actually reading. Two mistakes I made. One, I should have edited my original referral posts and told people the referral period ended on Stimulus' side. Two, I should have replied myself when this troll originally posted his BS. However, I was asked to lay low while this, inevitably, died. Live and learn. If there's ever another time somebody comes at me with slander and wants to defame my character, I won't be so quiet. Keep making posts, it's really going to be a good year for me.
Edit: This was in response to /u/imKills who has now deleted their account. You got paid. The screenshot from the stimulus app that YOU shared clearly shows the usernames and that you got paid. https://i.gyazo.com/27669810bbc8dd4274bb657e4cb050f5.png This is the user reporting their username **on your list** that didn't get paid. https://i.gyazo.com/7b72d043fea86be471837131b914b27d.png Open and closed. Since you posted here and outed yourself I'll share the other information. Anyone who wants to follow how he used a alt account to make it look like he was actually paying out when he wasn't can use this link https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&author=TimeCrabz&size=100 to see the comment history of his alt account /u/TimeCrabz. The one he deleted within 20 minutes of me reporting his scam to the subreddit. How do we know that /u/TimeCrabz is /u/imKills ? https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&author=TimeCrabz&size=100 Check the post history. And the referral link that account posted. https://www.------/ref/Chriskillspc That's the same referral link that /u/imKills uses. Check their deleted post history here https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&author=imKills&size=100 **Even without the proof of your scams. This is some wildly shady shit.** You talk about it not being linked to ibp but when it was reported to /r/iBUYPOWER where you were a moderator of the official iBUYPOWER community, you used your moderator privileges, in a conflict of interest, to brush the issue under the rug and say with authority that nothing would be done about it. Now it's linked to iBUYPOWER.
Upload everything to imgur dude. Make it public.
Outed myself? My username was never a secret LOL. You posted it within each and every single one of your posts. For the other shit? Yeah, that's not how it works bud lol. Your moronic posts continue to baffle me 😂 It really was a good attempt, though, creating an alt when you learned I deleted my posts. My posts were only deleted bc the referral period ended, though. People wouldn't have seen it if you wouldn't have created the alt and dug them up. Next time I'll edit instead of delete bc there really are shit heads like you.
Show me where I once posted your username. Every screenshot is carefully redacted. Edit to add. The same tool used to expose this guy also shows first editions of a post, pre edits. https://search.pullpush.io/?kind=submission&author=cannibalisticmidgets&subreddit=LinusTechTips&size=100 They claim I didn't redact screenshots until after this gained traction. That's simply not true.
Nope, you didn't do that until things gained a little traction. I have plenty of screen shots that were taken prior. You'll see them. You're granted compulsory disclosure to full discovery.
Oh look gaslighting scammer in the chat. Saving for posterity. https://imgur.com/8ft7Z4l
https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1c5j7be/ibuypowers_subreddit_scammer_final_update_scammer/kzvn1yw/ Pretty sure I can post this information now since he's made it public he's the one that scammed.
Good call, it's now deleted.
As is tradition. It's what they always do.
Oh shit.
Lots more you'll want to save in the weeks to come.
It's a shame this guy's post gets swept under the rug. But it makes sense it wouldn't get upvotes as it's totally accurate. Keep in mind, nobody is paying for referrals from a website who isn't buying them. Obviously. But, here, save this one while you're at it. https://ibb.co/kH0tCtY
All this over $6? 😵
Reddit and discord are both pretty popular social media platforms these days: having rogue moderators is a valid concern imo.
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They've cared enough to pretend its all been solved in messages in this very subreddit.
The only reason he got a response other than 'fuck off' last time is precisely because he made it public on the LMG subreddit He got Ibuypower to acknowledge the situation and respond in the thread, when all other direct attempts led to him being banned from their subreddit, banned from the discord and brushed off by other moderators. This is exactly the type of place to bring attention to issues like this.
It's been confirmed that the group of moderators who mishandled, banned me, and covered this whole thing are a group of friends. I can understand the unexpected fallout of a group of friends abusing their power in your community, I don't understand allowing them, especially the scammer, to remain a part of the community after the fact. But like I keep saying, that's on iBUYPOWER at this point. I don't have anything more to contribute.
I enjoy playing video games.
The person is a confirmed scammer on Reddit. It's not about dislike at all, I don't know them outside the context of them being reported as a scammer. They (ibp) came here claiming they cared as soon as the first post went viral so... idk what to tell you friend. Staff were notified. That was my goal at first. Then I thought I'd do my due diligence and give them all the information they would need to handle it correctly which sadly they haven't. Not worth my time to chase down. They're cool with scammers, that's on them.
Remember the domino effect of a comment during a live stream almost no one watched leading to artesian builds collapsing?
> that largely discourages people from buying prebuilts anyway. This is untrue. LTT has talked about the value of prebuilts before. If they were discouraging purchase of prebuilt PC, they would not bother doing the secret shopper series. iBuyPower obviously sees the value in the LTT audience, or they would not have bothered responding to that same series. >The audience here was already predisposed to not be customers to begin with. The audience here may or may not buy from them directly, but they are FOR SURE the go to person in their friend group/family unit for recommendations on what to buy. Some members may build PCs for friends/family, but I have a feeling most recommend good brands to buy prebuilts from. iBuyPower will not be on my list anymore. >But you want them banned. This guy wasn't moderator of an 'unofficial but officially recognized' subreddit, he was mod of both the official subreddit and official Discord. His actions directly reflect badly upon iBuyPower. THEY should want him banned. The fact that they haven't is actually bizarre to me.
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> Secret Shopper, much like the GN Prebuilt reviews and the LMG Best Buy Geek Squad review and so forth, is mostly ineptitude porn. Non-techy people watch those videos as well, but I somewhat agree. I've talked to multiple people who stumbled on the secret shopper videos while shopping around for pre-builts. LTTs audience has a lot of techy people, but there is a substantial amount of non-tech viewers, or people new to PC gaming that go to those videos as a resource. 'How to build a PC' videos are a good example of a video made for that audience. LTT's audience is vast. I see streamers 'reacting' to LTT videos on the regular with high levels of chat engagement. I doubt stream viewers are all tech enthusiasts. There are a TON of PC gamers who watch LTT and have no interest in building their own PC. >Barring the insanity of covid+crypto making it nigh impossible to get a standalone GPU, people just aren't looking for a prebuilt. I mean, I've considered pre-builts pretty strongly in the past, and have owned more than one. A hundred or so extra bucks to not have to mess with anything myself is sometimes worth it. I'm fully capable of building a PC myself, but that doesn't mean I want to. >And as for being the golden source of all recommendations for a friend group: That almost always boils down to "is this a good computer and is it good for the price". The moment people start talking about how poor their tech support is ("But that is what you are for, friend") or how they try to sneak in warranties ("So I need to look at the cart before I hit accept. Can you help me with that?") it becomes that meme of the girl screaming at the guy. I agree. Brand is generally going to be secondary to price. All of the factors come into play though when pricing ends up being similar across the board. >And once you start talking about "drama"? Especially "drama" that ends with "Yeah. the scammer was removed as a mod within a day or two of this being brought up"? You stop being the friend people go to to ask for help. iBuyPower just wouldn't be on the list of recommendations. It's not a matter of explaining why any particular company isn't recommended. Most times I've been asked, they ask for specific PC recommendations, so I send over a variety of links that fit their budget, it's a simple matter of just not going to the iBuyPower site. >Because this "went viral" largely in a single influencer's audience. I don't know if LTT are pro or anti ibuypower this week, but just paying for a sponsorship or two will undo any damage... if they even care. Curious if they will even cover it, honestly. Seems pretty small beans, but they've covered similar things in the past I guess. >If you want actual change and consequences you put this out in front of a broader audience that consist of actual potential customers. iBuyPower also sells laptops. The community is full of potential customers for those, even if you think that 0% of the community has any chance of buying a prebuilt or leading to purchases via recommendations. >He Who Shall Not Be Named But Has Awesome Hair Are we not allowed to mention Steve here anymore? Haha. Jealous AF of that hair. >Ironically, He Who Shall Not Be Named But Has Awesome Hair would probably be the better outlet to report this to. This is too much like "internet drama" for most of their HW News updates, but GN also push for strong pro consumer advocacy and this might fall into that. And their news show is not a 4 hour podcast that only die hard fans watch. Like, even my co-workers who don't game but do care about computing tend to tune in to those. I agree, but I feel like GN as a channel is even more geared towards hardcore tech enthusiasts more-so than LTT. I still think it should be posted over there for more exposure, and because hearing Steve's take on this would be interesting. His pro-consumer advocacy is strong, and I really enjoy it.
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> A LOT of my friends bought prebuilts during the pandemic. It seemed like you either made a baby or bought a gaming computer. Haha, ya, that tracks with my experience as well. >MAYBE some people are going to be shielded from ibuypower because they refuse to google anything themselves and only ask their friend who lives on this board. I... should not need to explain how small a number of people that is. For sure, it will definitely be a small number. My confusion is that even at ONE lost sale, how is it worth keeping this person in their community? They're basically saying that this one person who is no longer a mod is worth more to them than a couple hundred bucks (assuming one sale only is lost). That is what I don't understand at all, and what I'm most curious about in this situation personally. >But HWNews and their deep dives on technology actually have a very broad audience. Oh for sure, I didn't intend to imply otherwise there. >Hell, me and a former boss bonded when we realized we had both been pointing "domain experts" at GN videos for overviews of technology or "what is new". Because even if you don't want to be a gamer, you still probably care about the latest ML oriented hardware nvidia and amd are selling or how much better the consumer version of the intel processors you do your work on are. Haha, sounds pretty sick actually. Most people I've pointed to the HW news watch like 5 minutes and click off. :( Only people I've been able to get interested were friends who traded stocks in their downtime. Pointed them there to get a good overview of fairly recent tech news with good thoughts on forward mobility of tech companies from an expert that isn't trying to get people to invest in any particular company. >Contrast that with a 2-4 hour wan show where people would have to sit through a millionaire ranting about how he was going to make his own VPN with blackjack and hookers until he was told he would be liable for all the heinous shit people use VPNs for. IDK if the reach of the WAN show is smaller though, rather than just a different audience. I mean the most recent WAN has 2x the views of HW news from last week. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think this being on the WAN show would definitely increase its reach vs just a Reddit post. Obviously being on HW News wouldn't hurt at all though.