Scam

[musicmann777]

Hello,

I am concerned with a particular scam that is going around which I have come across twice in the last 3-4 days. Buyers are contacting sellers through either eBay messaging or text if you use other selling site and have pretended to show interest in an item you're selling. Ask for an email address and advise to make payment through PayPal and ask for your email address. They advise that they use a courier service in order to collect the item. The Scam is they send a fake PayPal email that shows money for he item and extra money for the courier service pending and is at 98% the instructions on this email advise to go to a post office and pay X amount of cash to some unknown source and then apprantly the pending money will go into your PayPal account. Now I wasn't caught out but I'm sure other people could be. These people are not using the proper eBay channels to buy items. Please can anyone take this further and perhaps spread the word?

[023mjc]

The word is already spread - it's the oldest scam in the book.  We can only tell people if the actually come here to ask, and often then it's too late, but there are pages somewhere here on the site about staying safe. 

The scammers usually offer more than the item is worth, and rely on the sellers greed.  They target accounts with low feedbgack to take advantage of their inexperience.

The rules of the site are clear, and to be honest, if people are greedy enough to accept these "offers" thinking they are getting more than the item is worth, and at the same time avoid paying ebay fees, and they have often been warned here first, but still do it anyway, theres nothing we can say afterwards to help them.

Well done for not falling for it. When anything unusual happens that you are unsure of - even the smallest thing, always ask here first.