payment on hold. real or fake?

[supertane]

Hi all

I am selling a motorbike to a person in the Phillipines. He agreed to purchase from me at $4,800 and i am required to send a sum of S$650 as part of the "transport agent" fees. Is this real?

Email was sent from a domain called servicepayteam. I asked him for proof of transaction that it is on hold, but he refused, which is weird. 

Extract of email:

"Thank you for using PayPal, this is a confirmation receipt concerning the transaction involving you and Weng [removed], be informed that payment cannot be reversed and we won't be able to refund it. You are 100% safe and protected with PayPal Policy.

As mentioned in the receipt of payment and as per PayPal (Purchased Goods) policy, we have fully debited the total amount of $5,450.00 SGD from our beneficiary account which includes the buyer's shipping pick up fees.

In order to complete this transaction and get the funds approved and credited to your PayPal account, as per PayPal policy you are mandated to proceed to transfer funds for transporting of your purchased goods to the "Transport agent for Pick-Up & Shipping", and as requested, funds should be sent via "Wise Transfer" with the sum of  $650.00 SGD to the shipping agent and send us a Scanned Copy/Photograph of your Transaction Receipt (in .JPG Format)."

Not to mention there is this message too, which is suspicious

Appreciate your response thanks!

 

Regards

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi @supertane,

Thank you for your post in the Community Forum, and for your caution with a questionable transaction situation!

The situation described has all the earmarkings of an Overpayment Scam, which is outlined in this US Help Center article. 

If there were a payment on hold, you would be able to see it in your Transaction History/Activity, and even if there were, the rest of the situation is extremely suspicious and indicative of a spoof email.

You were absolutely correct to be skeptical of this, and I'm so glad that you hesitated!

Olivia

[duoBeer]

I felt wired and wrong when they first asked to pay for the shipping/courier fee thus I came into this community and thanks to this post I almost caught it.

I was posting my bicycle to sell and the same name starts with Weng contacting me and that scammer showed some interest in buying. The scammer said buying this bike for his son in the Philippines and was willing to arrange to ship and only use PayPal blah blah. The scammer asked me to make a request to his email for the payment I realized after I received the email with the domain servicepayteam.com in the junk with my full name and asking for a shipping fee 650$ exactly as same as above. 

[kernowlass]

@duoBeer 

Scams been ongoing for about 15 years and I post daily on it on this forum, glad you were not scammed. No funds in your paypal account balance = you have not been paid. Also sellers do NOT pay upfront fees for whatever reason.