Mum selling her car on gumtree, buyer wants to pay using paypal.

Aloreth

Aloreth

Aloreth

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16 Aug 2005
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1,372
Hello all,

Title says it all to be honest. Mum is selling her old car, its a bit of a banger to be honest and has listed it for £995 on gumtree. At my advice, she has requested cash of bank transfer only.

Now someone has offered the asking price (its a fair price) but wants to pay her using paypall. I have a paypal account but have never received money on it, is there anything that I should be aware of? I assume he cant take the car and then claim the funds back? Equally, there's no chance that hes fraudulently using someone elses paypal account?

Any advice would be appreciated!
Thanks
Mike
 
For all you know it could be some poor saps hacked PP account which promptly gets frozen, so cash on collection or gtfo.
 
He picks up car and drives off.
Opens a paypal dispute to say 'goods never received'.
You have no proof of postage (no tracking)
Paypal sides with buyer and issues refund.

Something like that would be my suspicion.


Gumtree = always cash on collection (for both sides).
 
Thanks for the speedy replies. Mum actually forwarded his email on which screams of scam anyway:

> Hello thanks for reply, i am a marine engineer, i am at sea right
> now.I am buying this for my son as a surprise gift. However,does it
> haveany history I should be aware of? and why are you selling if you
> don't mind my asking and I will really appreciate if you can email
> more info and if possible more photos. I can only pay through paypal
> at the moment as i don't have access to my bank account online(i dont
> have internet banking with it), but i have it attached to my paypal
> account, and this is why i insisted on using paypal to pay,all i will
> need is your paypal email address to make the payment, and if you dont
> have a paypal account yet, you can set one it cant take you less than
> 3mins to do that, i will be expecting your paypal email so l can pay
> and your phone number. I have a pick up agent that will come for the
> pick up after payment has been sorted, l will be waiting for your
> reply asap...

He hasn't yet let her know that hes the president of the Nigerian national bank but I assume its only a matter of time.
 
Yeah no chance.

Pretty sure your mum would also incur costs to transfer money out of PayPal.

Or ask him for a name and his company so you can confirm he's legit.

Why doesn't he transfer the funds to his mates PayPal to then give as cash?
 
Reply with:

Unfortunately my paypal account is currently disabled while a fraud team attempts to recover funds from the president of the national bank of Nigeria. I am therefore only able to accept cash on collection at this time. Sorry for any inconvenience.
 
Aloreth said:
Thanks for the speedy replies. Mum actually forwarded his email on which screams of scam anyway:

> Hello thanks for reply, i am a marine engineer, i am at sea right
> now.I am buying this for my son as a surprise gift. However,does it
> haveany history I should be aware of? and why are you selling if you
> don't mind my asking and I will really appreciate if you can email
> more info and if possible more photos. I can only pay through paypal
> at the moment as i don't have access to my bank account online(i dont
> have internet banking with it), but i have it attached to my paypal
> account, and this is why i insisted on using paypal to pay,all i will
> need is your paypal email address to make the payment, and if you dont
> have a paypal account yet, you can set one it cant take you less than
> 3mins to do that, i will be expecting your paypal email so l can pay
> and your phone number. I have a pick up agent that will come for the
> pick up after payment has been sorted, l will be waiting for your
> reply asap...

He hasn't yet let her know that hes the president of the Nigerian national bank but I assume its only a matter of time.
Click to expand...

awww hell no.
 
I'm with you guys and advising he steer well clear, but with paypal nowadays, money is instantly transferred. Can't you whip the money out instantly and remove your payment options from paypal so they have no way of accessing your money?
 
div0 said:
Reply with:

Unfortunately my paypal account is currently disabled while a fraud team attempts to recover funds from the president of the national bank of Nigeria. I am therefore only able to accept cash on collection at this time. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Click to expand...

Haha, So this..

Scam email though i had similar selling a laptop.
Go on 419 eater if u want to see some of these common scams to look out for. Those people just intentionally lore them and make them do stupid stuff though
 
robfosters said:
I'm with you guys and advising he steer well clear, but with paypal nowadays, money is instantly transferred. Can't you whip the money out instantly and remove your payment options from paypal so they have no way of accessing your money?
Click to expand...

Sorry to double post but.. no

U can get the cash out but then its frozen account u go into a negative balance and paypal chases YOU. not the person who sent it
 
Unicorn said:
Sorry to double post but.. no

U can get the cash out but then its frozen account u go into a negative balance and paypal chases YOU. not the person who sent it
Click to expand...

There has to be a way round that. Both then I suppose paypal are the ones being cheated and that's hardly fair.
 
div0 said:
Reply with:

Unfortunately my paypal account is currently disabled while a fraud team attempts to recover funds from the president of the national bank of Nigeria. I am therefore only able to accept cash on collection at this time. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Click to expand...

Would like to be a fly on the wall when they receive that. :D
 
That looks like the exact email I received when I was trying to sell my car 2 years ago. Tell him to do one. Defiantly a scam
 
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