Con Artist??

[Rob1980]

Hello all.

I have had someone emailing me about my car and they have said that they are interested and that they want it. They have asked for my paypal account and my address so that they can send their pick up agent to collect the car and they are happy to pay the 3.4% (£240 on top) paypal fees on top. Does this sound a bit suspect to you? It does to me!

Basically he is going to pay without seeing it and will send someone to collect it once I invoice him through paypal. Why would someone do this?

With my paypal account and address will it be possible to hack my account? I have a feeling thats what this may be about. I have said that I can not use paypal at the moment as I need to get my account verified which will take a week (I have lied) and that if he is really interest maybe he should come down and view that car and then pay with a bankers draft... I will let you know what he comes back with.

Opinions and experience would be greatly appreciated here as I am not at all convinced....

[Rob1980]

Here is his reply....

Sorry to hear you don't have an account with PayPal. I hope you wont
mind to get an account with PayPal. Its reliable and easy to use
PayPal, all you need to do is visit www.paypal.co.uk and register with
them. When you are done with the registration send me the email used
for the registration with PayPal so i can pay in.
Await your response.

[Trevhib]

I'm sure this is a scam, don't do anything.

I haven't heard about this one in a while and I can't remember how it works but I'm positive it's a fiddle.

[BluntyR5GTT]

Mate avoid anything like this at all costs i see so many of these threads pit up on various forums. Dont give any details etc. Its actually good fun to wind them up n really take the mick and see how far you can go.

[dangerous dave]

i wont part with that sorta money unless its cash, these days i'd want it straight into my bank so any problems with surely become their problem and i'll always get mine.

i dont trust paypal as far as i could throw it.. i only deal with people i can trust or off ebay, and thats a rist as we all know.

[Rob1980]

Thanks guys, I thought the same thing.

I think I may need to wind the guy up as you have said!

[Trevhib]

Something similar to this:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question...7123938AAQimAX

It ends up costing you basically.

[Big Steve - Raider]

Tell him it's really no bother for you to drop the car off and he can give you the money! 3.5% will pay for a train home!

[Rob1980]

Something similar to this:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question...7123938AAQimAX

It ends up costing you basically.

Sounds exactly like my situation.

Cheers Trev.

[Rob1980]

Tell him it's really no bother for you to drop the car off and he can give you the money! 3.5% will pay for a train home!

Ha ha! I like that!

[raider_gtt]

Email him back tell him the police are chaseing this one up bet you don't hear from him again mate

[Matt@CodeRedMotorsports]

Mention you are reluctant to do the deal via paypal, after reading about a scam in 'Which?' magazine, as it details that many people are getting stung in favour of the purchaser and don't want to end up being another statistic......

[paul b]

I can only tell you from whats happened to a friend...

he had something purchased via e-bay,,, pay pal payment into the account and no problems he thought....
he then found out a claim against the "paying" account had been made and was made to pay back the £'ssss (thousands) until it was sorted...

it was the paying account that was hacked , so the guy got the goods and disappeared but had paid by using someone else's account, which was then claimed to be hacked and a full refund was given... mate lost the goods and the cash and was blackmarked by e-bay for the trouble....

paypal's a very easy thing to scam and is easy to do for the person doing it...
paypal refund the cost to the "scammed" account
e-bay allow the good's to stay as sold... not stolen...weird if you ask me, Fraud is far too easy via the net.

mate's account was found to hacked about 1 month later, probably from the same scammer using his money to buy something on e-bay... he reported it to paypal and had to wait a month for a refund, he asked why so long when his own e-bay was scammed and the payment was "retracted" within 2 day's... compensation and interest was claimed... bad new's though

[Alastair]

Mention you are reluctant to do the deal via paypal, after reading about a scam in 'Which?' magazine, as it details that many people are getting stung in favour of the purchaser and don't want to end up being another statistic......

Ive been done over too, purchaser made out the item wasnt as described, then raised a claim, i had money taken once he posted up a tracking number, no parcel so i lost my goods and funds, they even refused to refund the cost of the sale... i wont be using ebay/paypal if i can help it in the near future, ebay resolution centre is useless...

[Phoenix Autosport]

For the ebay sellers on the forum another one i have seen 3 times over the last month or so is an email asking for international shipping costs for one of your items.
The prospective buyer doesnt say what the part is but instead appears to have cut and pasted the address of your listing into the email.
When you click the address which is hyperlinked it takes you to a fake login page the adress of which is is not the same as it reads in the email but is deceptively similar.
It looks exactly like the login page to ebay but it is actualy a site that is logging any ebay sign in details that are entred.

i very nearly fell for it the first time but i had only just logged into ebay about 2 mins beforehand in another tab so thought it very odd, after checking i was still logged in i instead manualy entered the item number from their link and it was for a mobile phone in america so they are obviously too lasy to tailor the con to suit each person.
if you do get caught by this or think you have been change your ebay password asap so the details they have wont do them any good

[raider_gtt]

Thanks for the info will watch for this

[Trevhib]

Good advice