This is one of my first, and still one of my all time favourite, investigations.
Not because it was a masterclass
Because it was relentless.
It was the scam that just kept on giving. It sent me down more rabbit holes than I care to admit. I spent months trying to work out who “TinkyWinky” actually was. I did reverse phone searches, traced crypto transactions, and even went undercover to catch him out.
But the story doesn’t start with crypto or undercover work.
It starts with a forum.
A new moderation role for me.
And a vendor application that arrived with the urgency of a fire alarm, and the structure of a shopping list.
The opening pitch: “offloading” as a community project
The scam starts off very seriously: one of the forum admins, GK, is approached by a new user claiming to be a vendor.
The reason I’m calling him TinkyWinky is simple: that was his username at the time.
TinkyWinky presented himself as a man who had acquired an impressive amount of stock and wanted the community to treat offloading it as a shared project.
He arrived offering to sell 30% of his stock at what he described as “giveaway prices.” The implication was generosity. The subtext was urgency. At this stage there was no official price list yet but he had a product list containing huge numbers of kits per product such as GHK Basic 50 mg at 780 kits, Tirzepeptide 30 mg at 980 kits.
GK responded with the unglamorous suggestion that he register properly as a vendor and complete the required statement.
In other words: paperwork first, selling later.
Ten days later: the offer evolves into a fantasy
He returned 10 days later.
The offer had evolved. Now he wanted to sell in bulk. Not a few kits. Not gradually. All 460 packs. Ideally to a single buyer who would come to his office and hand him $87,222
At this point it became clear something had gone wrong upstream.
He explained that when buying from the manufacturer he did not realise that an MOQ of 480 meant that one “kit” contained a quantity of ten. This was presented as an unfortunate misunderstanding rather than what it actually was: a structural failure of due diligence.
Enter the moderator: Mod M
At this point another moderator, Mod M, informs him he doesn’t meet the criteria to become a vendor on the forum. The standards include testing, process, and community nomination.
These were not new rules.
Mod M suggests he opens his own Discord server and/or joins the wider ecosystem properly.
By this stage it’s quite clear to everyone involved that TinkyWinky is an amateur, at best, a crook at worst.
Referrals, contacts, and the outsourcing of credibility
Instead of adapting, TinkyWinky pivots.
He begins asking GK for referrals: companies, buyers, contact details. Anyone willing to absorb 460 packs in a single transaction.
GK declines to share private information.
So TinkyWinky leaves his own email and phone number with GK.
The price list: impressive scale, less impressive spelling
The next day he’s back again, with more urgency
He produces a more official looking price list.
It is impressive in scale and less impressive in spelling: “Semaglutides” and “Tirzepeptide.”Quantities are uniform, 480 kits, and totals climb into the hundreds of thousands. The confidence is unwavering.
Examples from his list:
Semaglutides 10 mg, $200 per box, 480 boxes, $96,000
Tirzepeptide 10 mg, $220 per box, 480 boxes, $105,600
ARA-290 5 mg, $50 per box, 480 boxes, $24,000
One thing that stood out immediately was his spelling and his distinct texting style:
“i did a list of stoklot in my warehouse willing to give at a giveaway price not all 30% cause i have clients in my town and near by (woodmere)”
GK again advises the same thing: open your own server, test your products, build properly, build slowly.
“Factory reports” and the phrase that says everything
TinkyWinky returns the following day, now presenting factory test reports:
“The test reports from factory direct”
He presents what he describes as a ZLZ / Janoshik COA and claims this is the factory he buys from and they have shared the report with him.
The phrasing is memorable:
“All results test 99. I trust it’s good and safe to inject.”
GK explains the difference between internal factory reports and independent third-party testing.
This distinction appears to be new information to him.
The discount spiral continues
The next day he’s back again.
Prices fluctuate again. He says he’s adjusting to “meet up with” current forum prices, and his prices will now be 70% off original cost because he noticed the manufacturer sold to him at prices so high it will be a huge loss, but he needs to get rid of the stock.
He produces the same price list again but now some of the prices have been reduced. Semaglutides 10 mg is now $70 per kit, Tirzepeptide 10 mg is $120 and Tirzepeptide 30 mg has been reduced from $620 to $140 per kit. The MOQs remain at 480 kits
He again asks whether GK has found a buyer.
He acknowledges it was a bad investment. Mentions needing to recover funds. Mentions family pressure and large invoices.
The structure of the request does not change, still wants a single buyer, still wants introductions rather than groundwork, still wants the community to temporarily suspend standards for his emergency
GK again advises him to open a server.
Discord: opened, unusable, outsourced
A few hours later he claims he has opened a server.
However, he does not know how to use it.
He explains his social media is normally run by a PA. He asks how to get buyers into the server to view his “wholesale stock clearance.” He asks GK to help promote him, how to gain followers and whether she can share his link.
GK repeats the same guidance multiple times:
Testing first.
Relationships second.
Sales last.
Effort required.
Time required.
Patience required.
The pattern is consistent:
outsource credibility.
GK does the research he should have done
At some point, GK looks up ZLZ tests and finds that out of 13 tests, 5 have failed either purity or mass.
TinkyWinky returns yet again with a plan:
“those with low purity, I can sell them at lower cost, but the one with higher purity, we can still use the price on the pricelist. Afterall, what I need is a buyer that can take everything from me at a clearance cost. I am open for negotiation they can always come to my office.”
The “office buyer” fantasy never dies.
Promotion requests and the “audience” problem
A few hours later he’s back asking GK to promote him again:
“How do I get followers on my pepchat and discord so I can be able to sell my items”
“I’m struggling to gain followers as my friend requests haven’t been accepted. Would you be willing to share my link…?”
GK agrees to take a look at his servers, but finds he’s advertising QSC stock there and advises him to remove it.
She doesn’t stay long in this server.
Next Tinky Winky acknowledges he’s added Pepchat “for updates,” claims he has so much to learn, and admits he’s still unsure how he allowed his team to convince him to invest and bring stock “here.”
Then he offers the new target number: $100,000 for someone to take all the stock.
The sob story arrives
He’s back again, now at an even more reduced price of $87,300, and this time adds a family emergency narrative, including medical bills, divorce, and a $64,300 invoice due “tomorrow morning.”
He returns to asking GK to get him listed and to post his link on the forum because people “didn’t add back” due to “no following and history.”
GK reiterates what she’s been telling him the whole time:
Nothing in this space is easy and fast. It takes time. If staff pushed you into this, staff need to help you build the infrastructure. And you will struggle without current tests.
Contrary to what was believed at the time, this was not the last GK heard from him.
The point of all this
The most striking part of the exchange apart from the volume of stock and prices was the insistence that a community built around harm reduction and process should temporarily suspend both in order to help one person correct an expensive miscalculation.
TinkyWinky needed liquidity.
The forum required legitimacy.
Only one of those was treated as negotiable.
And that, more than the spelling mistakes, the discount spirals, or the office buyer fantasy, is where the scam begins to show its shape.
Stay tuned for the next instalment of this Quadrilogy when TinkyWinky moves on to his next victim but has a much tougher time of it
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