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My husband and I are selling a car on ebay
The second day we receive a message from somebody who wanted to make an offer. It sounded pretty odd at first. He gave us an offer of $200 under the asking price. He also insisted on paying via paypal.Well, thats great. But then he went on telling us that he was a marine biologist and currently at sea. He was buying this car for his dad. The only way he could pay us was via pay pal and he would have an agent pick up the car for him and deliver it to his dad.
All he needed from us were our paypal e mail address.
I wrote him back asking him for his name address and phone number so I could prepare a title transfer and a bill of sale. He never gave it to me. Instead he writes again, this time telling me that "he was just about to transfer the money to my paypal account when he had run into a problem with the pickup agent. The pickup agent who was head stationed in Kansas only accepted western Union money transfers, in this case $800, that they would have to receive before picking up the car. He goes on to tell me that he would deposit an additional $800 into our PayPal account for us to take $800 and go to Western Union and send the money to the "shipping agent" in Kansas. lol
I obviously was in deep doubt at this point. So decided to google pay pal scams and guess what. This little marine biologist and his friends are all over the place. I also called paypal and they had heard it all before.
Paypal told me that the scammers will send you a "confirmation of payment" e mail from Paypal telling you the funds have been recived. Only problem is, the email is not from paypal. So while the seller thinking he has funds coming to him he takes his own money, $800, to transfer to some phantom "agent" in Kansas only to never recive the funds in his paypal account.
I finally wrote him back again telling him that if he really wanted the car to log back into e bay and click the buy it now button and pick up the car himself. With cash.
We never heard from him again.
So, have this or anything similar ever happened to you?
never had anything like that happen but it's good that you tell it here so people can be warned...what a scam and I bet they are successful many times. If you're strapped for money, not familiar with online business and paypal and ebay and so on, you can be tricked easily. It's not stupid people who get bit by scam artists, they are pros at what they do.
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" Charleston South Carolina"
(set 1 day ago)
Location: home...finally, home .
8,814 posts, read 21,270,219 times
Reputation: 20102
That is a very well-known scam and it has many variations (mostly having to do with soldiers deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan). I am glad you brought this up because that is exactly what this forum is for.... to help each other & your post did. Thank you.
__________________ ******************
People may not recall what you said to them, but they will always remember how you made them feel .
My husband and I are selling a car on ebay
The second day we receive a message from somebody who wanted to make an offer. It sounded pretty odd at first. He gave us an offer of $200 under the asking price. He also insisted on paying via paypal.Well, thats great. But then he went on telling us that he was a marine biologist and currently at sea. He was buying this car for his dad. The only way he could pay us was via pay pal and he would have an agent pick up the car for him and deliver it to his dad.
All he needed from us were our paypal e mail address.
I wrote him back asking him for his name address and phone number so I could prepare a title transfer and a bill of sale. He never gave it to me. Instead he writes again, this time telling me that "he was just about to transfer the money to my paypal account when he had run into a problem with the pickup agent. The pickup agent who was head stationed in Kansas only accepted western Union money transfers, in this case $800, that they would have to receive before picking up the car. He goes on to tell me that he would deposit an additional $800 into our PayPal account for us to take $800 and go to Western Union and send the money to the "shipping agent" in Kansas. lol
I obviously was in deep doubt at this point. So decided to google pay pal scams and guess what. This little marine biologist and his friends are all over the place. I also called paypal and they had heard it all before.
Paypal told me that the scammers will send you a "confirmation of payment" e mail from Paypal telling you the funds have been recived. Only problem is, the email is not from paypal. So while the seller thinking he has funds coming to him he takes his own money, $800, to transfer to some phantom "agent" in Kansas only to never recive the funds in his paypal account.
I finally wrote him back again telling him that if he really wanted the car to log back into e bay and click the buy it now button and pick up the car himself. With cash.
We never heard from him again.
So, have this or anything similar ever happened to you?
Not to me but to my mom. She had an ad on Craigslist for a pretty expensive stair chairlift. She got one e-mail, very similar to the one you did, including the person being 'out of country', has a pickup person and will pay through PayPal. My mom doesn't have a PayPal account and, luckily, thought it sounded 'fishy'. She's pretty sharp for being 85! She pretty much told the guy what you did...come in person and bring money. She never heard from him again either. It makes me sad to think that some people actually fall for this stuff.
There are all kinds of ebay and Craigslist scams. I had an ad on CL, a guy contacted me saying he was moving here from England, wanted me to accept his cashiers check and have a friend pick up the purchase. Of course I didn't, the problem with these checks, you become the quilty party and answer for cashing the fraudulent check once its discovered. He sends someone to pick up the merch, hes off the hook.
Many other examples of fraud on ebay, where a purchase is made, they claim what they've been sold is misrepresented or damaged. When all they're doing is trading you their old damaged item. You reimburse them, including the postage, plus the postage to have the item shipped back...You've been scammed.
Check this out. This is the second person who contacted me outside e bay
I copyed the e mail.
"i am buying this for my Son and i am a petroleum engineer currently on a rig offshore i really want this to be a surprise gift for my Son so i wont let him know anything about this until it gets delivered to him , i am sure he will be more than happy with it.I can only pay with paypal here, i will need you to give me your paypal email address so i can make the payments asap and please if you don't have paypal account yet, it is very easy to set up, go to www.paypal.com and get it set up , after you have set it up i will only need the e-mail address you use for registration with paypal so as to put the money through.tell me more about the advert price is okay note well:
Pick up agent will come for the pick up as soon as i have made the payments, i would have loved to talk to you on phone but i am a petroleum engineer I work mainly offshore, our phone is down on the rig right now due to bad weather, we can only communicate with our base for now.
Thanks"
Check this out. This is the second person who contacted me outside e bay
I copyed the e mail.
"i am buying this for my Son and i am a petroleum engineer currently on a rig offshore i really want this to be a surprise gift for my Son so i wont let him know anything about this until it gets delivered to him , i am sure he will be more than happy with it.I can only pay with paypal here, i will need you to give me your paypal email address so i can make the payments asap and please if you don't have paypal account yet, it is very easy to set up, go to www.paypal.com and get it set up , after you have set it up i will only need the e-mail address you use for registration with paypal so as to put the money through.tell me more about the advert price is okay note well:
Pick up agent will come for the pick up as soon as i have made the payments, i would have loved to talk to you on phone but i am a petroleum engineer I work mainly offshore, our phone is down on the rig right now due to bad weather, we can only communicate with our base for now.
Thanks"
So...... did you immediately give them your address? :P
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