K9CCH
08-24-2013, 06:15 PM
How does someone hijack a call sign?
And why is this crime so prevalent in this hobby?
I have bought and sold thousands of dollars of photography equipment through online transactions and I've never seen the amount of fraud that is within the amateur radio community. I was approached by a 'hijacked call sign' after posting my WTB: ad on eham.net. Thankfully I'm smart enough to immediately do my homework and was able to find out that it was a scam within just a few minutes. But hearing the horror stories of people loosing a few hundred, to a few thousand dollars is scary.
Its bad enough that we have to guard our social security numbers, and credit card data so closely, but now to have to guard your call sign?
How do you do that?
And why is this crime so prevalent in this hobby?
I have bought and sold thousands of dollars of photography equipment through online transactions and I've never seen the amount of fraud that is within the amateur radio community. I was approached by a 'hijacked call sign' after posting my WTB: ad on eham.net. Thankfully I'm smart enough to immediately do my homework and was able to find out that it was a scam within just a few minutes. But hearing the horror stories of people loosing a few hundred, to a few thousand dollars is scary.
Its bad enough that we have to guard our social security numbers, and credit card data so closely, but now to have to guard your call sign?
How do you do that?