Hi all,
I’d like to pass on a little scam that I’ve been “involved” in over the last few days.
Last week, I advertised our camper-trailer on a commercial RV site. Over the weekend, I received 3 replies, all from people using ‘free’ e-mail accounts (Yahoo and GMail). All the enquiries were worded in a similar vein. This is the first from a punter we’ll call ‘CB’:-
“Hello is the item still for sale? Kindly get back to me with the condition and last price you could go for?”
When I replied that the item was still for sale, and what other information did the prospective buyer want, he replied that they were unable to inspect the item but as long as I could confirm the condition, then all was OK.
“Due to the nature of my job and my location i will not be able to come for inspection am a very busy type as i work long hours everyday,i don't really think i need to come for a look, because i have gone through your advertisement and i am satisfied with it so i will call you when am chanced from work but as of now we can be chatting online or sending emails.
And can you please confirm to me again that the item is very good with no fault?”
Apart from the total lack of any grasp of the use of capital letters, grammar or punctuation, it still sounded a bit ‘suss’. This is a customised camper-trailer with lots of features; certainly more to it than I could put in the ad. The prospective purchaser is also very keen to use PayPal.
“ok no problem i will be paying you $xx,xxx with my PayPal account because it's attached to my bank account and its safe and very secure way to make payment. If my mode of payment is accepted just send me your paypal email address,(Paypal ID) or send me paypal payment request so i can pay in right away. Make sure you get back to me so that i can make the payment. I have a private courier agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been made, so no shipping included.
And if you dont have a paypal account, you can easily go to www.paypal.com.au and
sign up. its very easy. i will call you later I await your reply asap.”
Rightly or wrongly, I have a long-term uneasy feeling about PayPal. There are heaps of stories on the net about PayPal making unilateral decisions about peoples’ accounts after disputes and leaving them hung out to dry with little redress. It seems two-way discussion is hard to come by with PayPal.
Anyway, I don’t have a PayPal account (and can’t see myself ever getting one) so I replied that :-
> I'm sorry, but due to the number of scams around, PayPal is NOT an
> acceptable method of payment.
>
> I will accept direct transfer into my bank account, or a Bank Cheque.
> Goods will not be available until all monies are paid.
>
> I hope you understand.
In a delightful moment of irony, I now get my own argument (scams, etc) flung back at me:-
“hi mate am afraid i can only pay you through paypal because i have been scammed before and i realised paypal is the only way of making online payment and you will be secured by them watching your back and stand as a mediator between the two parties”
Yeah, right.
I suggested that seeing he was in the NT, I would be happy to deliver the trailer to him and he could pay in cash when it was delivered – no chance of a scam. That was the last I heard from him.
BUT…
Along come another two punters. One (‘Frank’) didn’t reply when I said I didn’t take PayPal. The next ‘JB’ said he was from the ACT and opened the proceedings with :-
“Hello is it still up for sale?get back to me with last price of it and condition.”
Still no grasp of basic punctuation, etc (am I being too harsh here?). The give-away was that he used exactly the same phone contact number as ‘CB’. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
His reply was also vaguely familiar:-
“ok no problem i will be paying you xx,xxx with my PayPal account because it's attached to my bank account and its safe and very secure way to make payment. If my mode of payment is accepted just send me your paypal email address,(Paypal ID) so i can pay in right away. Make sure you get back to me so that i can make the payment. I have a private courier agent that will come for the pick up after payments has been made, so no shipping included. And if you dont have a paypal account, you can easily go to www.paypal.com.au and
sign up. its very easy. i will call you later I await your reply asap.”
This is just about word-for-word, an exact copy of 'CB' e-mail. At this point, I decided to see what would happen if I rung the mobile number that was common to these two eager purchasers. I got Telstra’s ‘Phone Switched Off’. Message, so decided I’d follow it up with another e-mail.
> Hi Joel,
>
> I have a problem with PayPal (no account). I just tried to ring you
> but it seems your phone is turned off. When is a good time to ring?
>
I immediately got an e-mail back:-
“
yea is thru i lost the phone about 2hrs ago,can you please send your paypal email account to me now so i can made the payment for you today.”
How sad (and convenient) about his phone, but he’s still eager to get my PayPal account number even though I’ve just told him I don’t have one! Note his Caps Lock and Shift keys are still broken.
At this stage, I’d had enough, so I rang the ACCC Scam Watch Infoline (1300 302 502) and had a chat with one of their staff.
It turned out that these low lives don’t actually want your car/trailer/caravan/whatever. (I didn’t know this bit)
This is how it works (for those who may not know):
1 You e-mail the prospective buyer your PayPal details for your car/whatever worth (say) $10,000
2 They forge a dummy PayPal website that LOOKS like they’ve paid your asking price ($10000) plus some extra (say another $1000 - see below)
3 They send you an e-mail with the dummy PayPal website link (to show you the $10,000 has been ‘paid’) and tell you to send the extra money (the $1000) via Western Union (or similar) to a courier company ASAP who will then come and pick up the goods. (There is generally an excuse about why they can’t pay the courier)
4 If you do what they ask in step 3, you’re out $1000 as they all then disappear faster than you can say SCAM..
5 There is no ‘courier company’ and there is no $11,000 in your PayPal account.
I approached PayPal about this and their role in a possible fraudulent activity, but as I do not have a PayPal account, they were not interested. I called their help line (somewhere in the Philippines?) and was asked to send all the e-mails to spoof@paypal.com. In the e-mail I pointed out that I didn’t have a PayPal account, but the scammers certainly did. This is the answer I got:-
We want to help you but we're not able to respond directly to emails sent to this address.
If you have a question about your account, please contact us through our website. Here's how:
1. Go to the PayPal website and log in to your account.
2. Click "Contact Us" at the bottom of any page.
3. Click "Contact Customer Service," and ask your question.
One of our Customer Service agents will reply to your question.
We value your business and want to provide you with the best customer care.
Thanks,
PayPal
So, no PayPal account, no help. The address referred to in ‘not able to respond directly to emails sent to this address’ was the one their agent had told me to send everything to.
As usual, Caveat Emptor.
Sorry if this is a bit long but these mongrel bar stools really cheese me off. :-(
Cheers,
Chris