money being held.....

[bull72]

i advertised an item on gumtree and was quickly contacted by a potential buyer who offered the full £500  asking price. she then said she had sent the funds plus an additional £300 which £270 was for an over seas courier to collect and deliver it to her. £30 was to pay for the money gram transfer via tesco. when i log into my paypal i cannot see any evidence of this money anywhere, so my assumption is its a scam....can anyone advise?

[kernowlass · Accepted solution]

@bull72

Oh yes   >>>

THIS IS A TYPICAL PAYPAL SCAM.

They encourage you to use paypal.

You will get/got a "fake" email that looks as though it is from paypal.....it isn't.

It will say the buyer has paid ...you won't have been paid.

If the item requires shipping they will tell you that they will pay you extra and you must pay the agent via western union / moneygram BEFORE the funds are released to you.

They are not interested in the item, they just want the western union etc funds and you will never see money in your paypal balance.

They also threaten legal action...have a laugh at that one and ignore it as its rubbish.

Paypal NEVER tell you to send trackable, they advise it for seller protection etc but it is not compulsory.

Paypal NEVER tell you to send an item before the payment is showing in your paypal account.

Paypal NEVER expect you to use a rival money transfer service.

Delete any emails and ignore the scammers.

[bull72]

thank you, its as i thought. theyve claimed to have repoted me . thanks for your help

[Juliahamson]

The exact same thing just happened to me today, with the buyer claiming she was in a wheelchair and so couldn't get to the bank to get funds to pay the courier, hence her asking me to pay them via moneygram. It sounded dodgey as usually when Ive used man-with-a-van before, you pay on safe receipt of delivery of items. The PayPal receipt looked pretty legit - only when you read it did the language sound slightly off - and if you check the sender address - it's not actually from PayPal. This thread confirms the scam!! Thank you for sharing!