Possible scam on Gumtree? What to do?

[FraPlum]

Hi all,

I am trying to sell an item on Gumtree, minutes after I posted the add I received two messages asking to send an email to an email address they provided. Naively, I have sent an email to both, they replied similar things:

One:

Great! please consider it sold as i am willing to pay your full asking price because i need to buy it for my cousin asap,
i have read through the advert and I'm totally satisfied with it,sadly i would not be able to come personally to collect
due to my hearing loss and me being on a wheelchair. I would appreciate it if you email me with more photos (if available)
since I'm unable to see it in person. i have a courier agent that would help me to pick it up at your preferred location
after you have received your money and I'll pay you via PayPal today. Where is the pick up location so that i can inform 

the courier agent about it now?

Two:

I'm so happy for the reply, I'm ready to buy this for my dearest someone as a gift which is so important, the only issue here is that i work full time and am not around hence i have a verified courier agent that will come for the collection after money as been credited to your account and they will be available for all necessities needed done about collection. I won’t be able to make a call to you due to my work. That is the reason you got a message from my child.

Am so happy about this and have been through your post on gumtree so we are good to go on this sale. 

This transaction will be done through PayPal only as I am unable to bring cash due to the nature of my work so if you have a PayPal account kindly get back to me with the PayPal email address and the name of the PayPal account holder for payment confirmation and then we can proceed from there on the collection .. 

Thanks

I have replied to the first one, giving my PayPal payme link. But then I got suspicious and checked online.

What should I do now? It's clear to me that this is a scum, can I just ignore all e-mails or should I take any action to protect my PayPal account?

[kernowlass · Accepted solution]

@FraPlum 

SCAM.

They encourage you to accept a 'direct' Paypal payment and often want to buy it for a relative....not.
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 as they are disabled or working abroad etc etc 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 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 send an item before the payment is showing in your paypal account.
Paypal do not tell you to send trackable, they advise it for selling protection but it is not compulsory.
Paypal NEVER expect you to use a rival money transfer service eg Moneygram or Western Union 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.