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How I got scammed through "Ebrahim Saadawi"


Timotheus
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you money is gone live and learn dude. I bought and sold few items via western union hate pay pal and their fees but for me to buy and sell i reassure seller its me and it will be send by chatting on Skype so they can see my face showing the sold item, they can see my drivers license phone (no number no address) and and my city so if i scam them they have my full name and city i live in and same thing when i buy i will not send money till we skype i see passport or drivers license with current electric bill or mail which fake are not easy to provide at face to face skype at that moment never head a problem. And i record entire skype info video ect just in case never head any problems. And i send over 2k via western union and sold some expensive items

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man this thread is disgusting, getting enjoyment from someone being scammed and a long time respected member either behind it or worse being publicly shamed and accused while they themselves might be victims as well. So all of you can enjoy this, savor the misfortune of others and continue to concoct your wild theories. If someone hacks my account is this what is in store for me too? How about all of you? I would remind you that this isn't a movie, there are real lives involved and non of us know what really happened.

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27 minutes ago, dhessel said:

man this thread is disgusting, getting enjoyment from someone being scammed and a long time respected member either behind it or worse being publicly shamed and accused while they themselves might be victims as well. So all of you can enjoy this, savor the misfortune of others and continue to concoct your wild theories. If someone hacks my account is this what is in store for me too? How about all of you? I would remind you that this isn't a movie, there are real lives involved and non of us know what really happened.

This isn't a movie?

Nobody's amused by the scam. We're all being scammed every single day. How do you think the oligarchs make their money? What do you think usury is? What do you think politicians do for a living? I think you're confusing schadenfreude with some light-hearted solidarity for the victims. Nobody got run over by a tank; it's not the end of the world. Somebody sold me an anamorphic lens that arrived in pieces. I've bought a number of lenses with flaws that weren't noted. I once ordered a bunch of things from a store in LA that never showed up. I can't even remember all the times I've been scammed. It was all money spent that I could ill afford to lose. I didn't cry about it, I just moved on to the next disaster. Laughing in the face of diversity is an essential ingredient to success in the film business and in life.

The important lessons to be learned here are:

Use strong passwords, and never use the same password on multiple accounts.

Admins should not knowingly allow accounts to be shared.

Never pay for private sales through Western Union or wire transfer: Escrow is a thing.

Trust no one.

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15 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

 

image.png

http://nofilmschool.com/u/ebrahimsaadawi

picture-358-1410050626.png

 

Did a reverse google image search of it, nothing showed up unfortunately.

15 hours ago, HelsinkiZim said:

I think the guy exists, but I don't think it is the same guy posting - even the informative posts. For someone with a life and career like that, I cannot imagine they would take the hours needed to write the in-depth posts he writes.

I had always assumed Senior was so old he might be semi retired, and thus had plenty of spare time, and Junior was at school and thus also had a fair amount of time on his hands to post to forums. 

15 hours ago, HelsinkiZim said:

Or there was no company and it was a large social media build up at a long term scam that got cut short because they couldn't think of a way to bank big. I am sure selling a red package was on the list.

People have pulled off selling RED cameras with much smaller forum profile than they had, so I think if the intent had been to pull off a grand scam to bank big on, I'm sure it could've been done instead and long ago. 

So it doesn't make any sense to put in all that effort over years and years purely just to make a couple of thousand.

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12 hours ago, mercer said:

Has anyone remotely considered the possibility that Ebrahim and Timotheus are the same person and this is an elaborate ploy to get even more money out of people?

 

12 hours ago, Nikkor said:

Or that Andrew has multinicks and is keeping the forum alive during the summer.

 

12 hours ago, mercer said:

Also, has anyone noticed that Zach Goodwin has been eerily silent lately... Just sayin. 

LOL LOL LOL LOL, I am loving reading these outrageously ridiculous conspiracy theories some folks are making up! Keep them coming :D 

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All you perfect humans who are concerned with peoples feeling on a forum need to lighten up. Nobodys life is being ruined. Its a forum mostly used by hobbyist lens enthusiasts. Unless you are a 15yr old kid being called names online, I dont think we need to worry. Not that making jokes about kids being bullied online is appropriate but I just dont get that stuff??? Must be a generation thing? Maybe all the ecstasy parents around my age took in the early 2000s did have an impact on their kids because when I was at school we would all be pricks to eachother and none of us ended up hurt enough to end our lives. 

Point is, this is the internet, hardly real life. Its a forum booo hooo. Fact is someone who uses this forum has a name associated with fraud and some of us find this interesting with the main idea of getting to the bottom of it, mostly in the hope the account holder is innocent and the scammer gets punched in the dick and nobody else makes the same rookie mistake and gets scammed like this again.

There is no witch hunt or lynch mob, its an online forum. His actual friends and family will still love him.  

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2 hours ago, Lee Kelly said:
2 hours ago, Lee Kelly said:

All you perfect humans who are concerned with peoples feeling on a forum need to lighten up. Nobodys life is being ruined. Its a forum mostly used by hobbyist lens enthusiasts. Unless you are a 15yr old kid being called names online, I dont think we need to worry. Not that making jokes about kids being bullied online is appropriate but I just dont get that stuff??? Must be a generation thing? Maybe all the ecstasy parents around my age took in the early 2000s did have an impact on their kids because when I was at school we would all be pricks to eachother and none of us ended up hurt enough to end our lives. 

Point is, this is the internet, hardly real life. Its a forum booo hooo. Fact is someone who uses this forum has a name associated with fraud and some of us find this interesting with the main idea of getting to the bottom of it, mostly in the hope the account holder is innocent and the scammer gets punched in the dick and nobody else makes the same rookie mistake and gets scammed like this again.

There is no witch hunt or lynch mob, its an online forum. His actual friends and family will still love him.  

As if lives were not ruined and jobs lost by virtual lynching in the internet. I don't know where you live, but in my place internet is part of the real life, and a very important one.

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Yeah, I am truly sorry this happened to all parties involved and there are really only two things we, as a community, can do about it... Spend some time and try to put the pieces together and laugh at the ridiculous meta movie narrative.

When one comes upon diversity you can laugh or cry... I'd rather laugh.

And in some ways we are all victims here... Ebrahim was/is a valued member of this community with a lot to share. And with this news, should I still be interested in the Canon 10-20mm that he was so eager to pedal? Is the C100 In fact more filmic than the C100 ii. Are the taxes to send to Egypt really as large as he claimed... I mean 24,000 USD for 1DC... Is that true... Or has that been part of the overarching scam?

I don't know.

In the very beginning of this mystery, I was one of the first to state that it doesn't make sense for him to spend all this time for such little gain, but maybe this scam is a small piece of a bigger pie that targets niche forums... Maybe there are other forums involving cooking or birdwatching or any other insignificant hobby that these people target. Really... There is nothing that Ebrahim wrote that couldn't have quickly and easily been copy and pasted from dozens of other sites. And a lot of criminals spend more time and effort to break the law than they would if they just got a real job. 

But with all this being said, Occam's Razor is probably the most realistic possibility and the earliest theories are the closest to the truth. 

But theories are fun, stories with twists and turns and conspiracies are fascinating and why I enjoy movies and filmmaking so here's another...

What if there WAS an original Ebrahim but since he joined, maybe sometime last year, he passed away and the grandson has assumed his identity? I think there was a break in time when Ebrahim wasn't around for a while.

But to my original point... If you can't see the humor in life, in both its triumphs and tragedies... then you are a boring turd.

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4 hours ago, AaronChicago said:

Wasn't there an impression that he was a beta tester/early adopter/reviewer?

Hi Aaron

I posted on page 7 about the review...SLR Magic sent him one to review...maybe one of the indications that this was'nt Ebrahim at all, as the seller claimed they paid 599 for it and were losing money selling at 250...also posted weird "will you buy me a drone and ship it to me from the US" Ebrahim post....unnoticed in the feeding frenzy, but indications to me seem to point to the fact, that this is not the same person...the language completely differs...Ebrahim's knowledge of cameras and technical aspects of filming run too deep for a scam artist to be having arguments/discussions with other members about a highly technical subject...most importantly, if you're really curious, read his drone buying request  to Jonesy Jones...definately not written by Ebrahim, so whatever this is, it started a while back...

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6 hours ago, IronFilm said:

People have pulled off selling RED cameras with much smaller forum profile than they had, so I think if the intent had been to pull off a grand scam to bank big on, I'm sure it could've been done instead and long ago. 


So it doesn't make any sense to put in all that effort over years and years purely just to make a couple of thousand.

Sure it does.

I was observer to a scam pulled off on an unrelated forum. Long-standing, knowledgeable member, known face to face in get-togethers with other long-standing members, pulls off a $2k scam on the forum. Why would someone well off enough to so actively participate in this hobby (boutique watches) spend years building up a long con for a measly two grand, right?

As the story unfolded, it turned out that the scammer needed some quick money to cover for a bad personal decision and suiciding an account to get it was the easy way out.

Many scams target those close to them. It's called affinity fraud.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud

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So who is making the short true crime spoof video of the thread?

Should it be a group effort, a EOSHD collaboration?

I dibs being producer! I organise everything if others want to do something...

 

Think about it, we have all backstory - the forum posts, pictures - it could be 90% screen grabs.

Someone could write the script, I could give it a try and someone more experienced could re-write it. I am thinking really short, like 5 to 10 mins.

It doesn't even need to be a spoof, it could be a real attempt at doing something interesting here.

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20 minutes ago, HelsinkiZim said:

So who is making the short true crime spoof video of the thread?

Should it be a group effort, a EOSHD collaboration?

I dibs being producer! I organise everything if others want to do something...

 

Think about it, we have all backstory - the forum posts, pictures - it could be 90% screen grabs.

Someone could write the script, I could give it a try and someone more experienced could re-write it. I am thinking really short, like 5 to 10 mins.

It doesn't even need to be a spoof, it could be a real attempt at doing something interesting here.

You know this isn't a horrible idea. Whoever is behind this scam is a lowlife piece of shit. I don't like the idea of low life pieces of shit bringing me down, so why not turn this whole thing into something positive? If not, a group project... Maybe a micro short contest? This site should have contests anyway. 

Of course the way this is turning out Ebrahim would probably end up winning...

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3 minutes ago, mercer said:

You know this isn't a horrible idea. Whoever is behind this scam is a lowlife piece of shit. I don't like the idea of low life pieces of shit bringing me down, so why not turn this whole thing into something positive? If not, a group project... Maybe a micro short contest? This site should have contests anyway. 

Of course the way this is turning out Ebrahim would probably end up winning...

Alright, Ill start looking into it...

The key is just to do an honest account of what has happened and ask a few questions about internet fraud, online identity, the consumer camera revolution/ obsession and what could possibly be the solution for all of this. It shouldn't be exploitative, and it should aim to actually vindicate the accusedl.

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