Some opinions on this

Pigwidgeon

So I put an old phone I have up on gumtree a few days ago. I got an email from someone who wants to buy it, all well and good.

They wanted to do the transaction through paypal which I thought fair enough. However when they accepted the payment request it had a different item in the receipt. This was when alarm bells started ringing. I then noticed that the name of the email address and the name on the shipping address were different and that I've to ship the phone to Nigeria.

I had a quick google and there was a lot of reports of hacked paypal accounts when sending items to Nigeria.

Just wondering what the good people of boards reckon. Am I being too cautious or is this more than likely a scam?

allthedoyles

I don't use Gumtree , but you said enough for me to immediately become suspicious .

My opinion is to drop this transaction like a ton of bricks and don't answer any more emails from this guy .

The Lovely Muffin

allthedoyles wrote: »

I don't use Gumtree , but you said enough for me to immediately become suspicious .

My opinion is to drop this transaction like a ton of bricks and don't answer any more emails from this guy .

+1 to this.

This stinks of a scam.

Save yourself any hassle, stop this transaction and maybe advertise the phone on adverts.ie?

I've used adverts and never had a problem there, can highly recommend it.

Nody

Tell the buyer to pay you via Western Union due to the location he/she wants it shipped; if you get paid via WU you're covered as that can not be reversed (and this as Paypal will).

RasTa

Sounds like you haven't got paid. Is the money in your PayPal account?

Pigwidgeon

Have just checked there no the payment hasn't gone through. First time using paypal so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect so thought I'd get some more opinions before i did anything. I'll just ignore anymore emails from them.

RasTa

You'd be surprised how many people still fall for it without checking their PP account for the funds.

jor el

This is guaranteed to be a scam. Walk away, and ignore them. Or better yet, don't ignore them, but string them along with an ever expanding story of hard luck and misfortune as to why you haven't sent the phone yet.

Tell him you went to the post office, but when you got there you realised you forgot to bring the phone, so you went home.

Then say you went to the post office with the phone, but they wouldn't let you post it without it being wrapped up, or in a box, which you didn't know you had to do. You brought the phone home in order to box it.

Then say you can't find a box, and ask him to send you one so that you can put the phone in it.

Then tell him to send the box to your friend, Póg Mothoin, because you are away visiting your mother in law who won't hurry up and die of galloping consumption.

Tell him her cat weed on your trousers, and you are too upset to send the phone.

Tell him you need to buy new trousers now, because tom cats keep following you around and humping your leg. Ask for more money to help pay for the new trousers.

See how far you can get before he accuses you of being a scammer. Last time I did this, I got about 6 or 7 emails in before he called me a scammer and told me to stop wasting his time.

Pigwidgeon

Yeah the paypal emails look quite legit for a first timer like me. I had a look at the spam thread here and the ones I'd gotten were very similar. I also got one today from 'paypal' telling me to get the item posted. Going to report the emails to them later on.