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Dodgy Sale?
I have a MTB for sale on a few sites, one of which is Gumtree.
I received two separate texts msgs today asking for more details to reply via email, which I did.
I then received 2 sep emails from two different addresses (names):
No One: From James
Alright Mate,
I am very keen. How i wish i could come for viewing and inspection as am currently out of the country ATM and i want it picked up before i get back, though i will be back in couple of weeks. I would like to pay you using paypal due to my inability to make a bank deposit which is safer for me. Kindly send me a paypal payment invoice or create an account with paypal on www.paypal.com.au if you dont have one. I will make a solid pick up arrangement with my transport agent who will be coming over for pick up once you receive full payment into your paypal account. Have a nice day. Few more photos will be appreciated as well.
James
No 2: From Desmond
Alright Mate,
I am very keen. How i wish i could come for viewing and inspection as am currently overseas at the moment and i want it picked up before i get back. Due to my inability to make a bank deposit, I would be paying via PayPal which is safer for me or bank transfer as well safe. Kindly send me a paypal payment invoice or create an account at www.paypal.com.au if you dont have one or your bank details for me to make payment. I will make a concrete pick up arrangement with my transport agent who will be coming over for pick up once you receive full payment into your PayPal account. Have a nice day.
Cheers and pls inform other buyers you sold it as am ready to purchase it right away.
Looks dodgy to me, has anyone else had something lie this?
Should I be concerned????
I thought PayPal and this sort of stuff was safe??
Your thoughts/guidance would be appreciated.
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If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and walks like a duck then it probably is.
I wouldn't trust either of those "mates" nor the "paypal" links they have generously added for you.
Wait for a genuine buyer, not a scammer
There won't be a 'sale'! In other words, no matter what might happen, no money would get to you.
I'm curious as to how this would play out.
Would they really want the bike, or are they planning on sucking you into transferring your own money via PayPal?
But definitely dodgy; different names same modus operandii.
Sound like dodgy pommys t me ! Alright Mate .Id b sending them a nice little email back declining the offer .
Stay away from those. Dodgy as.
I haven't used paypal but I believe there are loop holes that will leave you without the bike or cash. One way to scam is they pay you via paypal, they organise the pick up and then they say to paypal you never sent the goods. As they organsied the pick up you can't prove you sent it and paypal take the money back out of your account. Even if you have withdrawn/transferred the money from the account and have nothing in your account they can still debit the amount. If this happens, not only will you not have the cash or the bike but your bank will charge you from overdrawing your account.
They get you by generating a false paypal receipt and emailing it to you. They put the purchase price plus the pick-up agents fee on the fake receipt then ask you to pay the pick-up agent the pick up fee. This is where they get the money - you pay them the pick-up fee. You never get to the point of sending or having the item picked up - they just scam a couple of hundred out of you.
Also sometimes thay manage to get access to your paypal account and get your money through there.
I haven't been stung but read online about heaps of these scams.
The paypal link is legit, but the sale sounds dodgy. I would back away, or tell them Direct Bank deposit or cash only
Tell them you're really keen but problems with the tax man mean you can only accept payment in M&Ms.
As a guide you get approx. 709kg/$1000, so work out your price from there.
I was back and forth with a guy in Nigeria and a Sergeant in Iraq when I had a car listed on one of the larger sites a couple of years ago. Don't use your real email addy either, set up a gmail or whatever one.
They'll be back to you and won't give up so just make the demands more outlandish...like purple M&Ms only. Have fun.
This is a dodgy email that'll cost you more than a few hundred bucks.
Firstly, a detail that no one has picked up on yet (unless they noticed it but haven't stated it) is the address hyperlink they have sent you... www.payypal.com.au - looks legit, but look closer... Any Internet transaction that involves a currency exchange has to go through a secure gateway. The hyperlink they should have sent is https://www.paypal.com.au - notice the "s", which denotes secure. The hyperlink they have disclosed does not show the http:// section and is therefore BOGUS. Note that a hyperlink is just a meanless descriptor the route to which it points ie actual destination would be none PayPal legit. It'll look and feel like pay pal and therefore trick you into paying up. Also, as it isn't actually pay pal you won't be covered by the pay pal terms and conditions.
Secondly, the grammar is shocking... Guaranteed it has been written by a non-English speaking person.
Thirdly, you can't generate a pay pal invoice... It's a point-to-point currency transfer system. The invoice you send would be generated out of their bogus hyperlink pay pal site that will ask for your details such as pay pal username and password... Oops, there goes your life savings
Fourthly, you would agree a price without involving pay pal and they would send the money to your nominated pay pal email address. No need for this nonsense "send me an invoice business".
Fith, if you give them your address your bike might just disappear one night from your home before the payment is sent through.
And finally, these emails often contain viruses that can disclose your personal information just be opening th email or clicking on the hyperlink.
Don't do it mate.
As BLKFOZ said they will send you a fake PayPal receipt to say the money has been transfered. Just ignore them or tell them that it has already been sold.
My mate had the same thing from a winning bider on eBay who said they were on an oil rig or something. At least on eBay you can report them, not much you can do on Gumtree.
Thanks guys, this is all a bit scary!
What lengths people will go to, and just for a bike??
I did think that the grammar and spelling was pretty bad, so that made me suspicious straight away but did not think it could be as bad as what has been pointed out.
This sort of stuff just makes me so bloody angry! We try to live an honest life and enjoy stuff like MTB and you get these disgusting people who try to destroy all this?? I just don't get it, what is wrong with people like this, do they have no shame??
Thanks for all your advise, I nearly made a very bad move....
nice job on not falling for it.
I have recieved heaps of these through the years trying to sell lots of stuff.
if you have a bit of spare time have a look at this website, http://www.419eater.com/index.php some awesome scammers on there, taken for HUGE rides. I love it!
I think Brian got closest to it. They organise for someone to come and pick up the bike and then claim non-delivery.
An alternative I'e seen is to pick an address belonging to an elderly dementia sufferer, give you that, then have the courier company (your courier company!) redirect to another address when that fails, which most will do and there is little you can do to stop it. They then claim non-delivery and you are again out of pocket.
the non-secure address will redirect to a secure paypal one, so I don;t think that's it.
This is a common scam. There are ways to scam them back. Here is a collection of some amusing ones associated with Apple laptops
You could do the same with a bike, on a bigger scale. http://oddorama.com/2008/02/11/scamming-the-scam...
I have some bike boxes I'd be keen to get rid of if you're keen. If someone has a roadside pickup Huffy, we could "rebrand" it with a felt marker
Get them to organise the courier. Just don't use your home address as the pickup point.
I came across a really similar message 2 years ago when trying to sell my motorbike online. It started out with a guy claiming to be working at sea on an oil rig. He said that he was buying it as a gift for dad. The freight forwarder crap came through on the second message. The 3rd message from the person said that he could not access his bank account and asked for me to deposit his freight bill into a Western Credit Union account and he would repay me by adding it to the bike's total price via my PayPal account. (yeah right!) each message was really long and complicated to create confusion. I promptly told him that no payments on his behalf would be made by me and the bike was COD. I never heard from him again. I traced the listed address for their Credit Union account back to a university in London. (odd for guy supposedly from Melbourne!) I've heard many other similar stories as everyone else has stated. Beware!
I've had 4 of these text messages in the last couple of months. The fact I get a text from USA saying they want my bike then give me an email address to contact is more than a little suss. I text back congratulating them on buying my $2k bike that I'm sure they can't get in USA and ask how they intend to pick it up. They always reply they can't use text that I must use their email address to communicate. Again, more than a little suss. So then I reply I don't have email but if they give me their flight number from the USA I'll be parked in the white car at the airport and they can pay cash....
They will pay you via Paypal and most likely with no issues. But the scam is "my transport agent", they then get Paypal to refund the money claiming you never shipped the bike to them and as you have no consignment note or paperwork to prove it was delivered to the actual buyer, Paypal just refunds the money.