Receiving a payment when selling an item - procedure and verification

[workinsam]

Hi, I am selling an item and the buyer says the payment is still pending on PayPal, and that PayPal has deducted the funds from his account. According to him, the funds will be released to my account as soon as I make postage and submit to PayPal the postage tracking number.

I would like to know exactly how this works and verify this information is correct before I proceed to send my item. If so, what is the correct way to do it?

Many thanks.

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@workinsam 

It's a scam. If you have been REALLY paid, you will see a transaction of some sort in your PayPal account by logging on. If your payment is subject to the PayPal or eBay 21 day hold, you will see a pending balance and the transaction marked on hold. PayPal will never hide a payment and reveal it only when you add tracking. If the transaction is not shown on your PayPal account, how in the world does one add tracking number then? PayPal doesn't work that way. So this buyer is a scammer and want you give tracking number only to them via email but the problem is, they have not paid because they sent you some fake email talking about they paid when clearly they haven't. 

[workinsam]

Really appreciated @sharpiemarker!

That has happened twice in the last week with a couple things I want to get rid of. Buyers ask for the PayPal email and then offer even more than the price you advert for "covering shipping expenses" but they demand you to show them the tracking number first and no transactions on my account.

I have been using PayPal for this some years now and never heard of anything like what this chap was talking about.

Is there any way of protection against this? Can share my PayPal email compromise my privacy in any sense?

Many thanks.

[workinsam]

I have just seen this in my spam folder. No links to my account, writing typos, no buttons or links working. Not a thing on my actual PayPal account.

Thanks for advising on this @sharpiemarker . One has to watch out every single move.  

[sharpiemarker]

@workinsam 

I can't see the images but yeah, you really have to watch out for these fake PayPal emails. Real PayPal emails in terms of receiving money is very to the point saying "Claim Money" or Payment Received and give you essential details, but never give you further instructions as they know you got enough sense to ship out after you've been paid, not give you all these nonsensical instructions in an email.

That's really all that is, to get your email address and spam you and to trip you up.