Hello, I just learned that I was victim of a scam... here's my story, hope that will help others. I posted an item for sale on craigslist and sure enough, got an email from someone who wanted to buy it. She told me she would prefer to use PayPal and wanted me to ship the item as she is a Air Hostess and is not in town for the next couple of weeks... first red flag I guess... anyhow, I trust PayPal, so I went with it. I sent her a payment request - and it shows pending in my account. So far so good. Now here is the twist. I received an email from what looked like a very legitimate email address, requesting a scan of the shipping receipt as well as the tracking number in order for the payment to be released. Fair enough, so I sent the scan. Then another email from the same addess, subject being FUND APPROVED saying this: "Dear "my name", thank you for using PayPal. This is to inform you that your tracking number and scanned receipt has been received, so it has been forwarded to our processing unit to complete the verification. therefore, once the shipment receipt has be fully verified, your account will be credited immediatly with the full payment made to your account by the buyer of your item. Please we urge you to use patience till the verification process is completed. this will take up to 48-72 hours for your account to be credited. Please kindly bear with us. This is due to some technical problems and upgrade service we have been having online due to the high rate of internet scam (no kidding). We will contact you as soon as the verification is completed and we are very sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused you. Thank you for your cooperation. PayPal". So I called PayPal because I was getting worried that the money was still not released after 24H - they told me it was a scam... so I called the police, then the anti-fraud Canada - they were amazing and wrote a full report. I hope they also retrieve my package so I don't lose everything - already cost me $85 in shipping, which I doubt to see that money ever again. Now I really hope these criminals get caught... but I believe in karma, what goes around comes around 🙂
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