Scam or not?

Azmyth

Azmyth

Veteran
I got an offer to buy my camera from a user on these forums who was doing so for a friend of his. The friend lives in South Africa, and was to contact me today.. which he did. I want to believe this isn't a scam because the user has over 100 postings on the forums, and I'm not trying to call him or the person wanting to purchase out.. or lose the sale... but for my own safety and with all the "Scams" happening out of South Africa I thought I'd be cautious and see what you guys think. So far it screams scam.

here's the email I got...

Good morning

I would like to buy your camera for $<insert price>.

I believe my friend <insert dvxuser> already e-mailed you. I used to
live in xxxxk, Georgia. We live now in South Africa and my
shipping address is:

<Insert South African Address>

I can deposit the $<price> into your bank account or I can send it via
Paypal. Would you please give me the transfer details. Be sure to
include shiping costs.

Kind regards.
<south african name>
If you want to call me dail: <telephone number>
 
This really sounds like a scam. The sad thing is there is no way for you to adequately insure you from a scam dealing with overseas people like this. Paypal can be disputed and bank funds aren't 100% reliable. It's a fairly common practice amongst internet sellers in the U.S. (especially with craigslist and more informal sites) to not deal with people out of country unless they are very well known/respected. It's unfortunate that any legitimate buyers get shafted by a blanket policy like that but it's too hard to protect yourself to make it worth dealing with.

Good luck.
 
Most likely it's scam. All someone has to do is steal a DVXUser id (perhaps because they used the same userid and password on another site that the crooks hacked) then use that to leverage you into trusting them. Ebay accounts are often stolen for this reason.

Insist on using Ebay's Escrow system at https://www.escrow.com. Do not allow them to suggest the escrow service (they will just name a scam front). It will cost more, but it lowers your risk. Might want to read this first too http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078510/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets

You can pretty much bet any funds they send you will be recalled by PayPal or your bank long after you send the camera. And they may try to pull the "I sent you extra, could you just return it to me with the camera" scam as well.

Even with all the protections in the world I don't think it's worth the risk to do non-US sales though.
 
Scam. Without a doubt. If you give them your paypal info, they will just send you a fabricated email that looks similar to the one paypal would send you saying that they had paid x amount. Their hope is that you go ahead and ship the item out quickly (they usually say they need it for a gift or something and time is a factor) and then you end up with no pending Paypal transaction. I would politely decline the offer.
 
I mess with them every now and then and got one of those fake PayPal notices. I checked my account, and of course it doesn't show anything, so I basically told the would-be scammer that I'd decided to keep the "money" and not ship the item. I started getting these hilarious fake notices from PayPal saying that I was in violation and blah, blah, blah, and finally a fake "FBI" notice that I was under investigation! I found it rather humorous.
 
I was so excited to sell the camera, but as soon as I saw "africa" a red flag popped up.. and then once I got the email and they were way too eager to just make the transaction. Sorry, I'm not that quick to trust people I don't know.. especially since I've been burned before.
 
yeah. at best its a 50/50 deal. and thats sad for those good international buyers. but thats just the way it is.
anytime anyone says BANK TRANSFER. thats all the red flag i need.
 
Tough to tell.

My advice is that you go through every process that might make you more comfortable with the sale.

Alternatively - when in doubt, throw it out.
 
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What a small world. I had someone try to pull that paypal scam on me a while back. They sent me a notice from paypal [Service@PayPal.com] and hovering over the link redirected me to a fabricated paypal page that looked almost identical to the real paypal page but the one thing that tipped me off is that I was connecting to a private IP and was being detoured to a domain other than a paypal site.

The way to find out whether the person has sent a legit paypal fund is to be absolutely sure that the email in which you receive a transaction is under [service@paypal.com] no caps at all. One other thing they may try to do is to have the email hidden under a legit "service@paypal.com" email but have the email link to some guy which they claim is their service or customer service rep who would secure the funds until that person receives the item.

In any case, lol to avoid writing a book, this is definitely a scam if I ever saw one. If it is at all possible try to verify the identity of people with other non-related members and see what they claim about the person.
 
Just log into your PayPal account independently. It won't show any pending transaction at all. That's all you need to do.
 
What matters here is that you have the money in your hand before you ship. If it is a scam, that won't happen.

Grant
 
That is a scam. I live in Sweden, and when I was selling my HVX200 someone contacted me from South Afrika and he said that he wanted me to send the camera to Africa, he would send over the money as soon as he get to package.

My brother sold a short while before me his Nokia cellphone, he got the same mail. Checked out the IP adress and it traced him down to Stockholm (capital city of Sweden).

In both cases, we said that he could do something to him self and go to a very hot place.
 
ggrantly said:
What matters here is that you have the money in your hand before you ship. If it is a scam, that won't happen.

Grant
Click to expand...

Do NOT assume this. You can and will get burned by people who give you money that appears fine but later turns out to be fraudulent. It is a well known scam to send checks/money orders (or bank deposit) that will take a long time to cash (foreign banks typically) so the money appears to be in-hand but when the bank finally works out the details the money is not there. This can take several weeks but at the end you will be responsible for paying the bank.

This is so common on craigslist they call out scams like these: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams
 
Come on guys - if someone paypals you the cash, and it shows up in your paypal account, it's not a scam.

The dude said he'd send paypal in the original message. Once it's in your account and CLEARED by paypal, done deal.

My wife's a yoga teacher and the nigerians are cray for scamming yoga teachers now - I know there's all kinds of scams out there. But when the MONEY is in the HAND, I think you're cool.
 
No this isn't exactly correct. I know this from personal experience.

I sold an item to someone on craigslist.. it was for 100.00. I shipped out the item, and the person got it and all was well. I spent the money, etc.

2 months later, the person filed a paypal complaint on me, that I didn't even know about til my bank account was drafted 100.00 and returned to the buyer. He claimed he never got the package. By this time I had tossed out all the tracking info, and had no way of proving otherwise.

I've seen this same thing happen even with tracking info, Paypal can and will take money from your account and award it back to the person complaining if they investigate and decide the buyer is in the right.
 
Well, that's your own fault for not keeping the records. Absolutely anyone can do that, and how else are you going to protect yourself if someone decides to see if they can get a free item unless you met in person and do a cash exchange every single time?
 
Scams are a slippery slope. It's hard to tell who you can and cannot trust. It seems like the more the buyer tries to streamline the process right away, the more warning signs it puts up. My brother and I were selling some photography equipment over CL. The buyer emailed us saying something about sending out a check or money order, and when it clears, we'd send him the item. It had SCAM written all over it.
 
That's really the standard scam - check shows up, bounces. My daughter got a $2k check in the mail from some guy needing a "local assistant", "cash it send $1800 to this address and keep $200 for your trouble" - the thing totally looked like a certified check. Man, did she ever want to believe it was legit... took it to her bank, they checked it, said "it's a dud".

What really gets me PO'd is now the "yoga teacher scam" is so prevalent - someone tried that on my wife. I guess they figure "who would be more trusting than a yoga teacher"? Well, at least not my missus...

(It's funny because when i go to my wife's classes, I call monday night "death march yoga" and wednesday "Spanish inquisition yoga"... nothing really "nice" about all that pain and suffering...)
 
Can someone tell me about Paypal scams? How can I avoid someone challenging the transaction? Is having delivery confirmation paperwork enough?
 
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