I have been asked to purchase a gift card

[KatN6]

Hello I recently sold an item and was told I needed to provide a tracking number which I did but then I was informed the buyer accidentally sent the money to my account twice and now I need to buy a gift card and email PayPal a picture in order to receive my payment the buyer has already received the package. Has this ever happened to anyone?

[sharpiemarker]

@KatN6 

There have been many reports of this happening.

Hate to break it to you but you've been scammed with fake PayPal emails claiming money was sent and you have not been paid, nor will you get paid...EVER by the sounds of it. 

PayPal does not hide payments asking for tracking number first via email or ask you to buy a gift card first. If someone really paid, even if PayPal puts a hold on payment, you should still see a record of payment in your PayPal account. Providing tracking numbers is optional and done within the transaction details in your PayPal account.

Its a law enforcement issue at this point to recover your item. File a police report and have them forward it to the recipient's local PD. I reckon no actual PayPal payment transaction took place, therefore no funds to recover. Scammer probably don't even have a PayPal account. Just want to scam you out of your item and then trying to scam you out of a gift card on top of it, stringing you along.