Paypal Scam?

[Iamcazzy]

I've put an item for sale on gumtree and a woman has contacted me via text message asking to pay by Paypal only. She's requested my email address and name in order to send me the money. On top of this, the buyer has offered to pay £50 over the asking price in order for me to sell only to her and no other person.

She has declined my suggestion of picking up the item on my doorstep and wants to send "an agent" to pick up the item in a couple of weeks time. I'd obviously prefer to hand over the item when I get the cash.

The sum involved is £230 and I'm very suspicious that this is a scam and the woman can create a reversal via Paypal returning the money to her account. Her texting is in what you might call "broken english" and she's an "engineer who works on the sea" who wants the item for her children.

She's provided her address which seems to be a flat in Peckham Rye. There is no positive indication that she lives in the UK and her name doesn't come up on Linkedin nor 192.com.

Can you give me some advice please?

Thank you

[snags]

Scam.

[aelmpvw]

offering to pay £50 over the asking price would set off the alarm bells for me

[grasscarp]

I would ask for cash on collection.
I was caught in something similar using paypal. Dont do it.

[Canary42]

"touch" and "bargepole" spring to mind.

[SlackAlice]

I don't do 'Paypal' so pure cash on collection would be the only way for me.

[cupotee2]

Good advice given.

I have been having emails supposedly from Paypal telling me there is suspicious activity on my Paypal account and please log in and check..I don't have one, I cancelled it some time ago.

[Iamcazzy]

Thank you all for your advice. For me, my suspicions started when I couldn't understand why this woman could not simply send her agent up with the cash (I live in the West Midlands) if she was so anxious to buy the item.

I'm not familiar with the way Paypal works, so I can't see how the scam operates myself but I'm not going to fall for it now!

Thanks for the advice.

[ganesh]

Yep, I got a very similar scenario which involved an agent picking up from me to send abroad and needed money upfront. It is a well known scam, anybody buying something from you but wants you to pay money to somebody first is obviously a scam.
I reported it to gumtree and they told me they were very aware of it happening on their site. It is a very good target. Beware.

[Baldric]

Certainly sounds like a scam to me!

[Bazile]

I'm totally in the dark , having never bought anything from anyone using paypal .

So , isn't paypal the method used by buyers and sellers on ebay , for example ?

What is paypal and how should it operate ?

[HansUrbancka]

Paypal is part and parcel of Ebay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal

Hans.

[Old_Geezer]

Paypal is basically a banking service. From a buyer's point of view, you give them your card deails and then you don't have to give the card details out to everyone you buy from. They get their money from Paypal, Paypal are the ones you charge it to your card.

[ummmm]

We'll have to go back to cheques if all these scams continue at this rate!

[grasscarp]

Paypal only approve of purchases that you post to people. I got caught out by letting someone pay via paypal and then pick up an item.
turned out the paypal account used was not theirs and they had hacked someones account. Although I had "withdrawn" money to my account it was taken back (which I agreed). Much later paypal gave me my money because I had been so cooperative.

[VHG]

Never trust ANYONE who wants to pay you more than you are asking.

[Gizmonster]

You say she's provided her address.
I know you're in the West Midlands, so why not call her bluff and say you're going down near where she lives to visit relatives, etc and offer to drop it off in person .... and wait for the excuses as it's obviously a scam.
I love stuff like this as I wind them up for fun - I once had someone claiming to be from my broadband helpline on the phone for about 30 mins .... my missus was in stitches as they clearly didn't know I was just winding them up :)

[Alicat58]

I had the very same experience during the past week. I posted an ad for my TV on Gumtree and got a text from someone called Julia Fletcher asking me to reply via e-mail. I did and she was offering the full price for my TV, said she was disabled and in a wheelchair but would arrange for her own courier to pick it up.
I then got an e-mail saying the courier company wanted the money up front, via moneygram. She said that she would put the full amount for the TV, plus the £200 courier fee plus another £40 for sending the moneygram to an address in Cyprus!
Then came an e-mail, supposedly from PayPal which said there was money waiting to be put into my account pending me sending the moneygram. By this time a million bells were ringing so I called PayPal who were great! The woman did not have a PayPal account and it was definitely and obviously a scam!
If in doubt call PayPal as it is free and if you don't have a PayPal account it is always a scam!!