Scam

[Melissa8199]

Yesterday I was scammed out of $365 from someone using a fraudulent PayPal email account. I made a sell and held up my end of the deal with shipping and was never paid. The buyer or whoever was behind the PayPal account told me there was a limitation on my account and that I had to buy $300 in gift cards and send them to the PayPal email I was corresponding to to take the limitation off of my account. I have never used PayPal for selling anything before so I wasn’t privy to how things went with this. The email kept saying that I had to send the money to receive a $200 covid relief payment. I expressed to the buyer that I wasn’t interested in the $200 I just wanted my money I was owed. He then got angry. I started noticing the emails were using the same verbiage as the buyer and got weary. I then received another email saying that o needed some certificate to have my funds released and the amount is $500. I refused to send the scammer the $500 and preceded to ask for my $300 and he told me the only way I could get it is by sending him $500. I was over it at this point. I’m sure he’s on OfferUp under a new name scamming someone else because when I told him I was taking this to a detective he said “good luck with that” and hasn’t replied since. I just want to know what my options are and to make others aware. If u are asked to ship something to Hawthorne, CA DONT SO IT it’s a scam! The person used a TextNow number so I’m not sure where they are or how to locate my money. I’m sure I won’t get it back so please beware. I can not speak to anyone from PayPal and OfferUp told me to make a police report then get back to them.

[kernowlass]

@Melissa8199 

Sadly a common scam ongoing for years.

No funds in your paypal balance = you have not been paid, even if pending it would show in your paypal balance.

Sellers never have send money to a buyer using another payment processor or a gift card for anything to do with a paypal account. 

As the transaction was not done via paypal then sadly paypal can do nothing about it.

The scammers use fake names and throwaway or hijacked email addresses and work out of public internet cafes normally in another continent.