Possible Spoof

[Robayne]

Last week I sold my Saxophone to a man in Johannesburg and He assured me that money had been sent already and so did PayPal email me on this email to tell me that they have received the funds. There after I was asked to send it over and please attached the way I'll so they can see it is being shipped over by PayPal so that the process can begin. After that I received other mails from PayPal addressing me as my first name and Surname and assuring me the money is safely with them and I now have to pay a service fee in order to receive it of 99$. After receiving that message it took me about 2 days to pay the fee at the money market. After they received that payment however I was notified that the payment was received after 24hours and now the account is deactivated and in order to activate it I have to send another R2000. Please Help me. This is my first time. I don't know if I'm being scammed and nothing is actually reflected in my PayPal account. But the buyer of the goods hasn't stopped checking up on me to make sure I have received the money and assure me that this is how the process is. Please help me

[kernowlass]

@Robayne 

SCAM.

They encourage you to accept a 'direct' Paypal payment.
No funds or activity of the transaction shows in your Paypal account and any emails 'may' go into your junk/spam folders.

They don't quibble on cost and may also say they can't view the item as they are disabled or working abroad etc etc but they will arrange a shipping agent to collect it. There is no such thing as a 'service fee'.

You will get/got a "fake" email that looks as though it is from paypal.....it isn't because they don't actually have a Paypal account and have no intention of paying you.
It will say the buyer has paid ...you won't have been paid.
They will tell you that the payment is released when you provide paypal with a tracking/shipping number......this won't happen.

OR
The 'fake' paypal email will tell you that the buyer has paid for the item + shipping costs but you must send those shipping costs to the courier/ shipping agent via anther payment processor than Paypal OR via providing some vouchers or tokens before the funds are released to you.
They are not interested in the item, they just want that couriers/shipping funds and you will never see money in your paypal balance.

Once you have become a victim they may try again with more fake Paypal emails with other 'reasons' that you must send them a payment for other made up account issue reasons.

Paypal NEVER tell you to send an item before the payment is showing in your paypal account.
Paypal do not tell you to send trackable, they advise it for selling protection but it is not compulsory.
Paypal NEVER expect you to use a rival money transfer service eg Moneygram or Western Union etc.