Am I being scammed? (by person who previously dealt legitimately with me)

Factual Questions
41

Wow, this has generated a lot more controversy than I expected. I thought it was just that I was ignorant about such matters, and that other people would know, but, after reading all the replies so far, I am still confused. The paranoid and the non-paranoid parties both seem to have some good arguments.

To clarify a couple of points that seem to have turned out to be relevant, I and my bank account are in the U.S.A. I do not know for sure where the person/company offering to pay me is based (it does not say on their web site) but I strongly suspect it is outside the U.S. (I rather think I have heard that it is not legal to operate a gambling site within the U.S., although that may not apply to the site in question, as it is a portal site rather than one where games actually happen, or bets are actually placed.) When I dealt with them before, I checked out their site with WHOIS, and it appeared that they were based in Canada. However, all I can get from WHOIS now is that they are registered through GoDaddy.

Perhaps I should fess up about the site’s identity, just in case anyone has any direct knowledge of it. It is pokerlistings . com

The first time I dealt with them, I did originally ask if they could just mail me a check, but they were reluctant, and wanted to deal through PayPal. I did not argue at the time, and I set up a PayPal account (I did not have one before) just for the purpose. Perhaps their reluctance to send a check makes sense in the light of what IamNotSpartacus says in post #37 (and the fact that they are proposing to pay me in U.S. dollars).

It is possible that their delay in getting back to me to renew might indicate that I am no longer really dealing with the same people. However, they were also kind of slow to get back last year too, for their first renewal, but when they did eventually get back in touch, the transaction went through PayPal fine. There are also a couple of other similar sites I have had similar dealings with, and some of them have also tended to be a bit flaky about replying promptly to emails. In one case I did not hear for a few weeks and I took his link down, but then, months later he got back to me and wanted it up again, and his payment got to me OK through PayPal. I guess links on little sites like mine are not a huge priority to these people, even though they are willing to pay for them, but for me that $500 is well worth having. The odd thing this time is that they don’t want to pay through PayPal, especially in the light of what WhyNot says in post #8.

Thank you to everyone who has replied, but it looks like I am just going to have to contact my bank and ask their advice (if I can get through their phone-tree to anyone helpful).

42

That’s not what Wiki says.

43

Actually, scratch that. You can’t tell from the Wiki what information one is asked for.

44

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that it’s a scam - it probably isn’t. But to assume that it’s impossible that it is, or that no one would ask you for bank information as part of a scam, is a little naive.

45

If it’s a written-on-paper DD instruction, the account holder has to sign it, but I have no idea how rigorously those signatures are validated. Not very, I suspect.

For an online DD instruction, it’s just a bunch of text fields and checkboxes - as long as the data is all correct, the instruction will be accepted by the bank.

46

As a side question, njtt, how did they ask you to present the link on your site?

I’ve had several offers of paid links from online gambling sites, but they always want me to embed an endorsement in the body text of one of my pages, or something else like that - obscuring the fact that it’s a paid link.

The other thing I ought to mention is that if you also have Google ad units on the site, then you are probably in violation of the Google Webmaster guidelines, which specify that you shouldn’t use your ad units on a site that also promotes online gambling. I’m not going to moralise or argue about the rights and wrongs of that, but you should be aware that it’s a reason why Google might suddenly choose to stop paying you.

47

Meh. Yes I carry some Google ads, but no-one clicks them anyway. These people pay waaay better than Google ever would. Like I said, my site traffic is low, but my PageRank is good.

Yes, they did originally want me to embed the link in the body text, but I refused to do that. What they get for their money is a couple of sentences, in a box with a different background to the rest of the page, and small graphic saying ADVERTISEMENT. The idea is to make it visually clear to human visitors that it is a paid link, but not to have anything in the HTML that will make it obvious to a search engine spider. Whether it really fools Google, I don’t know, but they agreed to pay for that. (I might have got a bit more money if I had been willing to embed the link right into the site content, but I have my standards.)

48

You don’t have a password to log in to you banka ccount online? That’s unusual.

You couldn’t gain access to my bank account with that info; it’s merely identification of the bank account, no anything that can be used to access it.

To log in online, I need to enter a customer number, followed by a password. You can’t just enter my bank account number and get access to my account!

49

I don’t need to log in to my bank’s website to pay by a check to all third parties. Like Darth Panda detailed, I go to the website of the entity I owe money to (Comcast, ComEd, Amazon, etc.) and log in there. Click Make Payment (or Checkout) and I need my bank’s routing number, my checking account number and my name, and maybe my driver’s license number for some of them. And, I’ll be honest, sometimes I’ve entered the wrong driver’s license number and not realized it until I hit Submit Payment, and it goes through anyway.

I don’t even own a checkbook. I use my debit card or ACH checks online to pay everything.

50

Fair enough - I just wanted to make sure you knew the score (there was a recent thread about TVTropes getting bitten on the arse by the policy guidelines).

Nicely played. I never got as far as that in my negotiations - mainly because I’m trying to keep the content of my site as family-friendly as possible, and online gambling doesn’t really sit well with that.

51

Listings is the largest gambling affiliate site in the world. I very much doubt they would scam someone.

52

Wow. In that case, the OP would be foolish to hand over that information. Even my debit card prompts a security password from my bank.

53

But if it’s unsafe to hand over the information, it’s also unsafe to pay (any debt) by check, since the information is printed on them.

54

Exactly. Which means that someone could take your account number and order a bunch of stuff from various websites and have it shipped to an unoccupied house or a phony PO Box or whatever.

55

Safest way to do this: Open another bank account, give them the details, as soon as the transfer happens move the money to your real account.

56

It’s true that direct debit is the weakest link in the system, although there are safeguards. As in everything security and convenience are opposing goals. But any bank should permit to block all direct debit charges if that’s a concern, and it should be. I did that.

57

Well, in that case, the OP should add another zero to the amount due! :smiley:

Yeah, pretty much. I wouldn’t pay by check (if I had any) to someone I didn’t trust. Not in this day and age.

58

As I said above, a sweep account

Absolutely. Whether it’s a paper check, or pulling an ACH transfer from the website of the entity I’m paying, or even paying by credit card, if I don’t trust the entity I’m dealing with, I’ll push a payment from my bank account, or use Paypal, or not do business with them at all.