10 replies to this topic

[mattbeddow]

Hi guys/girls

 

Just wanted to give you all a heads up on a fraudulent buyer doing the rounds at the moment.

Seemed he was quite active in 2011/12 but he has resurfaced.

 

I dont know where they got the ad from (im thinking gumtree) but i got a text message from an auzzie number asking me to email this guy with some information. I dont have the text any more but the key words i can remember were "what is the last asking price", seemed odd.

 

The email address was markjohn288@gmail.com and i got this reply this morning:

 

Hello thanks for reply, i am a marine engineer, i am at sea right now. I
am buying this for my son as a surprise gift. I can only pay through
paypal at the moment as i don't have access to my bank account online(i
dont have internet banking with it), but i have it attached to my
paypal account, and this is why i insisted on using paypal to pay,all
i will need is your paypal email address to make the payment, and if
you dont have a paypal account yet, you can set one it cant take you
less than 3mins to do that, i will be expecting your paypal email so l
can pay. I have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after
payment has been sorted, l will be waiting for your reply asap..

 

It sounded dodgy and after some googleing came across a few posts from people saying this was fraud so ive told him were to go.

 

It would seem they pay via paypal then ask you to pay the agent, who never comes and they then reverse the payment from paypal and run off.

 

Word to your mother

 

[richw911]

Love the reply this guy sent them    :

 

http://forum.earlyba...php?f=1&t=50926

 

[Captain Mainwaring]

It's a real piss off actually. I do live overseas and I do need to have people trust me a bit, though I can pay by bank transfer, people are also reticent in handing out their bank details and feel that paypal is safer.

 

At the beginning of the month I needed some new wheel nuts and ordered them from a guy off of ebay, it was a buy it now sale, postage instantly quoted, not cheep, not expensive, but I got what I wanted.....however the rot set in when I started chasing this guy for a tracking number, for the last 20 days he maintained that the payment had never cleared and he wouldn't ship....to the point of making me look like a con man....finally after many rants and fronting him with an email from paypal confirming that the payment had cleared, he relented and has finally shipped, though it was quite clear he was leaving as long as he could before shipping to secure himself - why lie like that? Just say he wanted cleared funds instead of lying.

The guy was a right arse over £25 worth of wheel nuts and I'd never recommend him because of it....but I can't say I blame him, paypal allows and encourages this cheating to go on.

[Captain Mainwaring]

Do be careful too about where you think SMS's come from - everytime I take an overseas contract I buy a local SIM card and also register it with skype - I must have 20 registered numbers from all over the world that I can send an SMS from.

[cooperdan]

i remember this... ha

i was selling my focus st in 2010 and i got one these emails,

I sneezed soon as i finished reading it, allergic to bull*hit

[Merryck]

I've often sold to people overseas. Usually they send an email saying they live abroad and is it ok to proceed with bidding. You can tell the difference quite easily usually between someone who is trustworthy and someone who isn't.

 

Captain Mainwaring, do you have someone in the UK who can handle things for you? It's what a lot of people do. They tend to have a friend/family member take delivery of the item then forward it on. The seller need never know that you're abroad at all.

[TheFakeKiwi]

I'd hazard it came from a GumTree ad as I had similar text when I sold my convertible a year or two back and at that time it was the only add posted. The email I subsequently got a very similar email back and went 'what the hell'?

[ChrisCityE]

I've had multiple emails of "I'm on oil rigs and cannot use my phone, I'm buying this for my son" and the exact same story as you for the Mini I'm selling on eBay ATM.

All gmail accounts.

[cooperdan]

Hi, im on the space station at the minute and ive seen your car from my telescope.
Id happily pay the asking price on the front windscreen there, as its for my step son in africa, do you have paypal as i can transfer the money through that by my samsung S5 is that ok

Edited by cooperdan, 23 May 2013 - 04:22 PM.

[ChrisCityE]

Hi, im on the space station at the minute and ive seen your car from my telescope.
Id happily pay the asking price on the front windscreen there, as its for my step son in africa, do you have paypal as i can transfer the money through that by my samsung S5 is that ok

I only do western union money transfers sorry ;)

Give me your PayPal details and we can come to an arrangement!

Oh, and how many of those letters end with "god bless" - dead giveaway!

Edited by ChrisCityE, 23 May 2013 - 04:44 PM.

[cooperdan]

god bless haha ><