I know there's a catch but what is it???

[Eddie Parks]

I am eway off topic but please help. I am selling a car on Gumtree, a Toyota MR2 with very low milage at £4,500 and I get this:

"Thanks for your response, I am quite okay with your price,I need you to understand that i am willing and ready to purchase it right away,put it off the AD site,consider me as your favorite buyer,and Please note that i have shippers/movers who handles my shipping arrangement anywhere in the world.
They will be coming for the pickup,after you have received payment and it has been confirm by you,If this is acceptable,advice soon as i am a Marine Engineer and i am buying this for my son as a surprise gift.So kindly get back to me with also some pictures of it.
I can only pay through PayPal at the moment as i do not have access to my bank account online,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 pay pal email address to make the payments and some pictures if you do not have a PayPal account yet,its pretty easy to set one up at www.paypal.com,i will be expecting your email.I have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been sorted."

There has to be a catch - I know there is a catch but what the H*** is it??

If I get her money in my eBay account before I give her the car how can she screw me!!!

Eddie

[Phil2M]

There is a paypal 'thing' where payments can be reversed, by the buyer.

Quote from paypal emails :

"Reversals: Please be aware that your payment can still be reversed, (e.g. if it is subject to a chargeback), even after you have sent the item to your buyer. Complying with PayPal's protection programmes and following the trading guidelines, in our Safety Advice helps to protect you from things like chargebacks."

[Alan O]

Eddie,

I would strongly avoid him. It's a scam and almost certainly he is from overseas.

Alan

[Peter Brydon]

Eddie,

Like you I would be on my guard, the sender of the mail could have said the same thing in about 2 dozen words, I wonder if English is their first language.

If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Peter

[Charlie585]

Eddie,

If you smell a rat just tell her that you want a cash sale, not unusual when buying a car privately and it should put them off.

Ry

[Bill A]

It is a scam. They are phishing for your paypal details.

[whizzbang]

Definitely a scam, I have received similar emails when posting things on Craigslist. I tried to figure out how the scam works but the best I could come up with is that the money will come from either a hacked PayPal account or a fake PayPal account. More money than you are selling the item for will appear in your PayPal account and you will be asked to send some of it to the "shipping agent" to cover their costs - only this will be real money, not PayPal electrons, because the shipping agent cannot accept PayPal. By the time the hacked/fake PayPal money is discovered, you will be out the amount you sent to the shipping agent. I'm sure there are holes in this explanation, but it works something like that!

Cheers, Ian.

[Eddie Parks]

I've sent her this:

Kathy that's fine. Pictures attached:

Please pay your shipper who can then pay me in cash.

We'll see waht happens next.

Eddie

[billy]

Hope all works out but having so many people of the Forum site to give advice is well helpful I for one do not wish to have this happen to me! and was shocked a while back when I had that e-mail saying 8th Foot? Peter i think was stranded and needed cash, went straight here and found others had similar messages all bogus of course he was off fishing!

Look forward to hearing the outcome now eddie? all the best billy

[Bill A]

Ian has spelled out the gist of the scam. There are several variations. I volunteer at the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, and we deal with variations on this all the time. With the growth of the internet, the scammers have moved from the phone to the web. Lots of information about scams. Here is a link to this scam. There are other sites that are good to subscribe to or bookmark. http://www.snopes.com/ http://www.hoax-slayer.com/ http://www.antifraudcentre-centreant...fraudover.html

[Eddie Parks]

So heres the response:

Thanks for the reply,i am really interested in it and also i won't be able to send you a cashier check or cash at the moment because am on the sea and also i have already organize a pick who will come pick it up as soon as payment has been sorted out and also they don't collect cash or Cashier Check from their Customers...Kindly bear with me

And mine:

Fine, you can pay me by PayPal and once the money has cleared and is in my bank you can pick the car up.

I am starting to be quite amused.

[wright241]

Eddie, Seen it - as have others - check to see what the gap is between you getting paid and him being able to get the payment back via paypal.... The last time I queried exactly the same scenario, it was something like 5 days - I don't know what it is now. My point being, that there is a time limit. Its too easy for anyone to get "ones" email address these days. I assume that you use a different one for you paypal account anyway........... and a "good/safe" i.e. a "tough" password.
David

[Peter Brydon]

Eddie.

So she is now happy to go ahead without the photos that were essential in the earlier E mail !!!

P.B.

[Peter Aitkens]

I seem to get a whiff of Nigeria.

[Eddie Parks]

Yes me too. But I think it is now 14 days that the buyer can claw back the cash.

I must check with PayPal and see what they think.

But I doubt I can be persuaded to go ahead!!