I know you said you got an email off PP, but have you logged into your PP account? You should be able to see any incomplete transactions within PP. What they sometimes do is make an email look as if its official and a genuine PP one, which of course it isnt, in the hope you will fall for it. Dont follow any link in emails, but go into your PP account via eBay.. If by any strange chance you DO have an incomplete transaction confirming it, send a note to PP stating that you dont know what this is and are not expecting any money so to remove this transaction. I dont think you will have any trouble, as they pray on the greedy and easily lead who they hope will send the £550 with a view of getting more money in return. This NEVER happens if you have your whits about you. Good luck... As for your mate, to be honest, anything of THAT value, i would ONLY allow cash on collection. He may lose a little in loss of bids, but will save in PP fees, and possibly being scammed or a payment reversal happening.
well, he was only gonna do cash on collection but because he's all new to ebay and stuff he almost fell for this... Yeah, I checked my paypal, there's nothing there at all... it's clearly a scam and I explained this to him and showed him this thread, I personally would not fall for something like this because it sounds dodgy from the word go but he didn't know any better.
Even if the money shows up in his paypal account I'd still call scam. One trick is to deposit money into an account with like an international check or whatnot, but it's more money than needed so they ask you to send the difference. The victim deposits the check and the bank bumps the amount in the account. Reassured by the number in their bank account the victim sends the excess funds back to the scammer. However, the check fails to clear after a few weeks and the bank reverses the transaction even possibly leaving you in the negative if you spent any of the cash. I obviously can't remember the complete details, but you gotta know every inch of the transaction.
Paypal will never send you an email like that and they will never request that you send them money to complete a transaction. Don't give up on EBAY, just go into your account settings and block all bidders from countries like Nigeria.
As soon as anyone says that they will pay for it, but someone else local will pick it up is always a big red flag. I never do it that way, tough. If they want to have the local guy turn up with cash to pick it up, fine. No electronic transactions that way.
I had the same thing happen to me with my first sale on eBay for a PSP, nigerian sent a fake paypal email and then asked me to ship it to a different address I reported him, and sold my PSP elsewhere, but was annoying as it ended my auction. Set up security options to stop them scamming you
I'm glad this worked out for you, could have been ugly if your friend did it alone. Sad part is, this isn't even a new scam, it's been around for years. Oops, i sent to much, can you send the remainder back? When ever selling anything over a certain amount, always mark it as, ships only after payment clears. Which usually takes 3-5 business days.
Well they didn't say oops, they asked my mate if he would ship internationally and before he even replied I had an email from "paypal" saying they paid £4550 into my account and they want him to pay the £550 via western union... Then they emailed him saying they paid into his paypal as well lol
Good to know everything turned out just fine! I remember like a year ago, I watched a tv documentary about this. The reporter managed to get through these scamming networks and one of the scammers told him how everything was done. Quite interesting and despicable at the same time. To think that so many clueless people fall for this in the hope they'll get something in return...
We had a add in the paper selling puppies, and recieved 2 seperate phone calls using the handicap system, where an operator types and speaks for a person. Anyway they wanted us to accept a money order and someone else would pickup the puppy, since they lived outa state. They would provide no personal information and we couldn't call them back because of the handicap system middleman. I mean come on who buy's a pet sight unseen, they didn't even ask for a pic. ASSES for wasting my time. LOL
hello, after 2 years, this scam is still around. i just want to point out: - it had nothing to do with ebay in my case. the amount of money was rather small, but he kept on harping about paypal and asking me to open an account there so he can pay me. i guess it's not a bot, but someone using prefabricated answers to my mails. i'm having fun keeping him/her busy for a while (and his/her hopes up that i might be stupid enough to fall for this ;-) nothing about nigeria - NORWAY this time. the guy came as mr. trygve christian meling (trygvechristianmeling@hotmail.com) and he even sent a copy of his passport! i googled the "asped express shipping company" - it doesn't exist but brought me to this forum thread instead. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the guy already had my mobile phone number and e-mail-adress and is now desperately trying to get more personal information out of me, like paypal details and home address !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! passport: http://imgur.com/ZFRrh ps: sorry for the real trygve meling.
Likely not his passport. While I don't see another one like it if I do an image search, it's probably stolen.
Yes I'd say it's definitely a stolen passport, or an elaborate fake. If ever you have shipping as Australia only on Ebay (highly recommended), then if someone from overseas wins the bid or buys the item you simply have to report it and Ebay will refund your money. This is true even if the user claims to be a local user then insists on sending it overseas (I've had this before). If you list as local pickup, and someone from interstate buys it, this may not necessarily be a non-genuine thing as they may have someone for local pickup, but again be wary. Actually be wary of all instances of local pickup! I always find the local pickup option a bit tenuous, I wouldn't want a stranger coming to my place. Selling electronic goods like a TV is even more iffy in this case because they can ask for you to check that it works... You could offer to drop it off, like your local city area. Sure, it may require fuel, but make use of it like shopping (after of course), or just something to do when going on a cruise. I've done that before. If something goes wrong with the item at least you won't have them coming around and hassling you, and you can go through the Ebay complaint system instead.
what you can do is have a fishing box and take a huge dump in it and leave some dead rats in it then send it to them.
I've sold things where someone else picks them up. Usually when selling on a forum, though. -scheherazade
Lucky for you and your mate Quick thinking there! BUt like somebody said I would advice on cash on collection with such a big amount.
