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Last week I received a call from one of Richard Hoovers[Santa Cruz Guitars] team about a fake ASW instagram account that looks the same accept that its "Alaska Specialty Wood", instead of our "Alaska Specialty Woods". Rick new it was fake when there is a pic of Richard Hoover and Fred Turner as well as mahogany and other woods in lumber form that we don't do. I think it was someone that burned them, but I'm not sure about that. But then again Thursday a customer in Spain sent me a Paypal request for $4600 Euro. wondering what the heck is this, I find out Alberto, got scammed by this same scammer, selling ancient sitka tops that he didn't have.
Then Saturday another customer contacted me by phone that he saw the fake instagram account.
Anyway, everyone beware. Numerous folks, including all of us here, have reported the fake account, but it's still active.

Thanks for the warning on this. I have received numerous messages from that fake account.

I knew better than to assume you guys had the bandwidth to be sitting around messaging random builders on Instagram to drum up business.

I work for a little Seattle based software company and I tell people almost everyday - we will not contact you unsolicited. We do not want to talk to you if we can avoid it!

Sorry you have to deal with this hassle, Brent.

Brad


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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

I just worry that more folks may get burned by the sob, and just trying to get word out so nobody does.

Yes they message me every week or two with some malarkey. Poor English and repeatedly calling me “kind sir” are somewhat of a red flag


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There’s more than one.
I got a message from this one the other day.
I was pretty sure you weren’t randomly contacting small time amateur builders.

The same thing happened to Roytonewoods. Somone was pretending to be them on Instagram since the beginning of March and contacting their followers to try to sell them wood. Probably the same scammer.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Yeah, that Roy scammer is relentless.

“Hello kind sir, where might you be located?”

The profile has posts about wood and whatnot. I think in his case he lost control of his account more so than someone pretending to be him.

Change your passwords and get a password manager app people!


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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

This is the sob that burned Richard Hoover last fall. I recognize the brent woods. Because the email thread I was finally included in, and I'm going what the heck? I had no idea there was an instagram account like that.
I never had an account anything like that name. They obviously stole pictures off a real account and created the fraud.
I just looked and this account is still active yet as well. What the hell?, surely folks have reported the fraud.

I have been getting the messages as well.

Also every time I list a new guitar on Reverb I get the some scammer trying to bid on my guitars.

I got an email a little while ago, appearing to be from ASW, that was actually an exact duplicate of an email I received from them 3 years ago after I had bought some tops. Undoubtedly a result of the same hack/identity theft/whatever that's led to the Instagram issues. But the email wasn't asking for anything. Just updating me that my order (which has resulted in several guitars since then) has been fulfilled. Weird.

Dave

Dave, that’s not good. That sounds more like data breach on ASW side than impersonation of ASW on social media. Not good.

Maybe Brent can chime in on this as it’s a more serious risk if customer data is compromised.


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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Speaking of, I tried clicking the link on the OLF banner just now and got a malwarebytes warning for "phishing". Should I just ignore the warning?

I get no warning flags of any sort from Kaspersky...I do get a few pings from Ghostery, 2 of which get blocked because they are google trackers, the other items are aspects of the site itself and are harmless...basically the site is clean

Looks like there is a new fake account



“hello sir”


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_________________
Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Personally, I think all scammers should be hunted down and fed to feral animals.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Yes, I got a new message from these creeps today too.


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There has been no data breech of the ASW data that is hosted on a robust dedicated server that I believe if it is shared with any other, it's just my web master. And Troy my web master is a stickler for high security.

The hackers are just getting info that anyone can get and creating a fake account.
The couple that I know of were both contacted regarding the ancient sitka. Both of those customers had purchased some of those tops and wanted to get more. The instagram account was created using pictures from either instagram or facebook.

When we send emails, most are auto-generated in woo-commerce and are sent using our Send In Blue account. anything to do withy orders of fulfillment.

My suggestion is if anyone questions legitimacy of identity and email, just call 855 425 3669 [855 -4 AK-WOOD] that rings to our landline number of the shop/ office and home. 907 826 3566

There is no phishing in our website. It's squeaky clean! there are occasional pop-up windows that offer the free ASW/ EarthTone Soundboards T-shirt once an order threshold of $300 is met. Other than that there's nothing.