Phishing attempt

[Alex9110]

Hello. I want to sell some furniture and a person from another country, who recommended himself as being a marine biologist, noticed me that he wants to buy it. He aksed me to give him my PayPal e-mail, the name of the item I am selling, the price of the item, the address where the shipping company will pick up the item and a telephone number. I have given the Information and after that he contacted me on whatsapp and asked me to verify my e-mail and there I have the further instructions. I recieved 2 spam messages as from service of PayPal marked as dangerous and a possible phishing attempt. The instructions given were telling that a transaction is in process at 95% done. To finish the transaction that included shipping money and the fee of buying Bitcoin in value of the shipping cost, I have to buy cryptocurrency on https://payments.changelly.com/ and in this same site I have to transfer them to the shipping company. In my PayPal account I can't see this transaction in process and I am almost sure that it is a phishing attempt. Could you please give me advice in this situation? Thank you very much!

[kernowlass]

@Alex9110 

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 but they will arrange a shipping agent to collect it.

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.

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 or bitcoins 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.

Paypal NEVER tell you to do anything until the funds are in your paypal balance.
Paypal NEVER expect you to use a rival money transfer service eg Moneygram or Western Union / Bitcoins etc.
Also their is no seller protection on paypal for any type of item that is collected by the buyer.

Delete any emails and ignore the scammers.