As suggested to me by Licurg I'm making this thread so that forum members who have been impersonated can post here to warn other users about it.

Obviously I am one of the people who have been impersonated by a scammer. Apperently he is using my Avatar and my Username with a fullstop at the end. Please be aware of this and feel free to check with me if you get a pm from him/her by clicking on the PM button next to my name in this post.

Other users that have been impersonated:

Big_McLargeHuge see: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/ive_been_impersonated/post5
SirPrimalform see: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/ive_been_impersonated/post36
Heretic777 see: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/ive_been_impersonated/post75
retro_gamer see: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/ive_been_impersonated/post101
JMich see: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/ive_been_impersonated/post238
grynn see: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/ive_been_impersonated/post287

This fucking needs to stop. GOG needs user public profiles, period. Ideally, some trading mechanism, like on steam.

Whats causing so many scammers recently cause there seems to have been huge rise.
Good idea with the thread as well

something must be done, this is getting out of control

Well, i'll be the first victim to post. Someone on the forums (thanks a lot!) sent me a warning that i was being impersonated. Here is a picture: http://imgur.com/OIm5i. I literally just started using this site this month, why impersonate me? Well, whatever the case, there you go. Thanks again to the awesome forum member who sent me the warning.

Because of "_".

(that is NOT a smiley)

Ya, guess i made it too easy huh? :(. Anyways, i've temporarily changed my Avatar till the impersonator gets banned or something is done about this :(.

Before i trade, i always look at join date and number of reps, ALWAYS.

But this is the problem, they are not shown in the PM screen, so you have to go looking for a post by that person.

Well, yeah, it's merely the first target for an idiot. A lot of people have easier names to "copy", but it'll take a bit more time for the retard to grasp it.

Seriously, GOG needs to tweak their forum a bit to have a little bit of data displayed in the PMs, OR you people should set up the exchanges through the forums. Also, I think that some forums display a bit of the ip adress, which may help users monitor multiple accounts to some extent.

AQnyway. The problem with clever people is that they too often forget to take idiots into account, and that's ironically their downfall. But let's not let one bring down the expectation level of this whole website.

Agreed. PM doesn't work like it should, because you can't see important info like Rep, Date of Registration or Country... just the Avatar, and that can be easily impersonated. More info could be convenient.

Also, GOG should not allow the users to change the country of origin... what's the point in that?

GOG used to be a cool place, now there are s**t everywhere. Please, more security to the legit users in the forums!

Actually, the avatar can give you a bit of information, more specifically the month when the avatar was added. It does require you to do the check though, but it is a quick and easy check if you have a few warning bells ringing.

But in the private messages, where can you check that information?
https://secure.gog.com/en/account/messages

Maybe GOG can setup a system where your location is automatically checked and updated based on your IP address? Idk if that's secure but it seems like it would solve the moving problem.
I think you just right click on the image and view it (if you're on Firefox). In the URL is a month and year.

Exactly, that can be easily implemented. Based in the IP, GOG can check the location of origin where the user in now. And that can be posted under the Avatar ;)