PayPal Scam?

[PUS212P]

Dear fellow members,

Currently in the process of selling my car and presently advertised on several mediums including Car and Classic.
EMail approach from a guy wishing to buy for his son and allegedly working in the Cygnus Gas fields so no phone only email?

Hasn’t viewed and wants to pay by PayPal and then send a collection service.

All sounds a bit too good to be true and the adage of that we all know only to well.

Has anyone else heard of similar situations as issues such as fraud, money laundering as well as a scam come to mind?

Thanks
Lee

[Mark1Stu]

I'd avoid. Sounds dodgy to me.

You're the seller, so you dictate the terms. If they're keen and you're reasonable, the car will sell safely. But perhaps not quickly.

Good luck with the sale (to someone else).

[RayR]

Definite scam. I had an extremely similar one for a race car, contacted the hosting website site (Trade Me in NZ) and they confirmed as a scam.

[Chris_R]

Lee, it's great that you posted this question as the forum post will also serve as a warning to anyone else who reads this and who hopefully will also pass on the message to others.

Yes, definitely a scam. They pay via Paypal, send the collection and then reverse the Paypal transaction. They will open a dispute with PayPal saying goods wasn’t as described and poof! money returned to their account, so they’ll end up with car and money, as returning the vehicle is not required when PayPal returns the money to the buyer. Result: they get the car and keep the money.
Respond if you wish to the email and say you don't do Paypal but will accept cash on collection.

Also make a report to Action Fraud. Although you haven't been actually defrauded an attempt has been made and they may be able to link what information you have to other information from other reports.

[mojo]

As a more general rule for sellers on Ebay or any other sales site that allows PayPal:

You must never accept PayPal as a method of payment if the item is collected or delivered in person, because if the buyer disputes that the item was "delivered" and you cannot provide proof from an officially accepted carrier, then they will just refund the buyer. It doesn't matter if you have, for example, a receipt, signed by the buyer - because PayPal won't accept that as proof.

[timmo]

I have had problems with buyers paying through Paypal. My son sold an expensive pair of trainers, which we delivered to an address they specified. Unbeknown until later on, and after they claimed they hadn,t been delivered, we discovered the Paypal address was different to the delivery address. The upshot of all this is that we were not covered by sellers protection as the items were delivered to a different address. The paypal money had gone through, I had even transferred it into my personal account to make sure, but Paypal can put you account into arrears and pay back the buyer, which they did to me.

Don't do it, its just not worth the hassle, or insist on cash on collection, that normally will put them off!

[PUS212P]

Thanks Chaps,
Sound advice all round and after some digging around, one of many such scams out there.
Reported to PayPal, so let’s see what happens.
Not desperate to sell and will probably pull down the advert for the winter in any case.

[Firebird1900]

A bit of a late reply, as all the previous posters have said this is a scam - an old one at that which was prevalent on eBay in the early days.

[Jens]

You might try something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QdPW8JrYzQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Uc-cztsJo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;