Have I been scammed? What can I do?

[Pawnless Endgame]

My dad did a cash in hand via Gumtree sale for a Macbook, young chap turned up with the required amount and handed it over.

My dad went to the bank to pay it in and was told it was funny money - he reported it to the Police and they got the CCTV from outside the Sainsburys etc but it the end he had to chalk it up to an expensive lesson.

I think his pride was hurt more than his wallet.

Ouch. I would have fallen for that as it involved what appeared to be hard currency.

I wouldn't have fallen for the OP's Paypal trick though as I know that the buyer can reverse a payment.

For buy/sell outside of eBay, best to use your work's notice board if you have one and it's all above board. My old work did it via the "public folders" section of Outlook where one of the folders was for buy/sell. Another folder would be for rent/let etc. Where I work now, we have an intranet forum where we can post buy/sell adverts.

 

[Akagi]

Whenever I sell anything for a decent amount of cash I count it twice (I've got good at doing this very quickly now ) and then pluck two or three notes out at random to check they're real, then shake hands on it. When I sold my last car I felt like I was conducting a drug deal. The guy handed me the cash, I passed it to a friend and said "Check this for me?" and he took it off into a back room and I stood there in silence until he returned and said it was all good, then I handed the keys over.

 

[sniperone]

Surely a small poo wouldn't go a miss?

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Worth a go, not sure if you could quickly search for his email in Google and Facebook. Did you get a telephone number at all?

OCUK detectives at the ready??

 

[Housey]

There are some good detectives on here, I think within minutes you'll have a home address or phone number

 

[Housey]

At least you got petrol money.

Every cloud and all that

 

[Akagi]

There are some good detectives on here, I think within minutes you'll have a home address or phone number

Or the wrong persons head on a pike, followed by mass panic.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

There are some good detectives on here, I think within minutes you'll have a home address or phone number

Let's do it....OP have you got any information about this person from the payment in PayPal or any other form of method of communication?

 

[Deleted member 651465]

It's probably not a good idea to post personal information on the internet. You'll have half the forum messaging the wrong person because they've given you dodgy info.

 

[CREATIVE!11]

Say bye to your money OP.

You got bait and switched.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

It's probably not a good idea to post personal information on the internet. You'll have half the forum messaging the wrong person because they've given you dodgy info.

Didn't mean post it here. Let's make a group somewhere away from the forum is what I meant.

OCUK forum members have done it before they can do it again.

 

[Resident]

I'm guessing not. Any funds in the account will have been froze already and IIRC you can't remove your card/bank whilst there is an active dispute.

This is why I only add my card for paypal.

Might not be able to remove my card from Paypal but I can remove my card from my bank account by simply reporting it lost.

 

[XeNoN89]

It's hard to feel bad for people who get caught out with things like this when SO many warning signs are completely missed.