I don’t know if I’m being scammed.

[Joe_Dekker]

PLEASE READ WHOLE ARTICLE. I was trying to sell my old laptop on letgo (local pickup selling app) and someone told me he wanted to buy it. I said yes, and he said I would need to ship it to him because he lives far away. I also said yes to his request, and he said he would pay me 600 for the laptop, which seems very strange. Then, I sent him an invoice for him to be able to pay me. He said he did, and I got two emails that seemingly came from PayPal. One looked legit, and the other seemed fake. I told my buyer I couldn’t trust him, and I stated me evidence. He said he respected it, but he still needs to get his funds back that he might or might not have paid me. Also, please note when I sent the invoice, even though in the email it said the buyer paid the 600$ invoice, the invoice still hasn’t been paid when you look on my account. Does anyone have any advice, on how to refund someone?

[sharpiemarker]

@Joe_Dekker 

Unless you clearly see a record of payment AND the PayPal invoice marked as paid with a reference in the invoice history to the payment transaction record, you're being scammed. Can't dispute a payment that never happened.

[Jil013]

Hi @Joe_Dekker

Thank you for raising your concern through our community forum.

It's good that you are taking precautions on how you deal online.

If someone sends you a payment, you’ll receive an email notification. The funds you receive will also appear in your account balance.

However, had you received an email saying you’ve received a payment, but you don’t see it in your PayPal account, there are a number of possibilities:
1. It may have been accidentally sent to the wrong email address. You could contact the sender to confirm that the payment was sent to the correct email address.
2. You may have the email address on your account, but you didn't confirm it. You need to comfirm your email address to prove that you have access to it, before you can receive payments. You can confirm it under your payment settings.

If none of these are your case, consider the item unpaid and do not ship the merchandise.

Hope this helps. Stay safe!