| Author | Message | ||
     Sifo |
So I'm selling our Sportster on Craigslist. A potential buyer sent me this email...
It sounds plausible. Is there anyway he can stop the payment after the PayPal payment has cleared? | ||
| Eboos |
Sounds shady to me. Sounds a little too pushy or desperate to be legitimate. | ||
| Daveswan |
Check directly on the PayPal site. There's a lot of information that might directly answer your concerns. Look on the site map and if you don't see something specific just contact them directly. I'm not sure about the part of giving someone "your" paypal address. I've only dealt with paypal with ebay transaction. I know there's a two or three day lag when you make a transaction and the pending money posts to your account. I think someone could cancel up until the funds actually post. Once the funds become actually available you can transfer them right to your bank account. Same lag time - a day or two or three before you can access your money. But again, I've never asked for or received someones Paypal account info to payment... either paid through ebay, or on some site that had the paypal option. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
tell him you would like to do a cash only sales or cashiers check only. (Message edited by nevrenuf on September 04, 2010) | ||
| F_skinner |
It is a scam http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201 00519065104AAB8l00 | ||
| Sifo |
I'm not sure about the part of giving someone "your" paypal address. I've only dealt with paypal with ebay transaction. That's just an email address that your PayPal account is linked to. All they can do with that is send money to that account. No question the bike & title would stay with me until funds have cleared. tell him you would like to do a cash only sales or cashiers check only. i would think that paypal would take a good bit of that for their fees for one thing. The PayPal fee would be about $200. The price would be adjusted accordingly. This guy is making the deal sound just a bit to easy, but I've known people to do legitimate purchases like this just as easily, sight unseen. I'm really wondering if anyone knows of a way to scam the seller AFTER the funds have cleared. | ||
| Sifo |
Thanks F_skinner! | ||
| Froggy |
The thing is, it never truly clears. Paypal is a great for buyers, but it can easily screw over sellers. Ask Court about how Paypal took a grand out of bis bank account. You would need to hold the title for several months for all the buyer protections to expire. | ||
| Oddalloy |
I received the same reply to my Craigslist XB add a few months ago. Sounded fishy too so I never responded to it. I'm not sure how PayPal settles disputes but I imagined something like this: You give the Buyer your PayPal email address and he transfers the money to your PayPal account. An "agent" then comes to collect the bike and leaves with it. Sometime later, buyer reports to PayPal that he never received the bike. Maybe he say's the "agent" was not HIS agent and so someone else must have stolen the Seller's bike. Buyer has no bike and no money and wants his money back... PayPal obliges. Now the Seller has no bike and no money. Not sure if that's plausible or not. Remember, while there are a lot of good folks out there, there are legions of people out there whose sole intent is to separate your money and possessions from you. Take care. | ||
| Sifo |
F_skinners link had this known scam...
Way too close to my buyer's email to ever start a transaction. Good to know BadWebers have each other's backs! BTW, I have a Sporty that's still for sale... http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/mcy/1935635900.h tml  | ||
| Iman501 |
i tend to send these people reply emails calling them out and telling them off to go get a real job and such....i never hear from them again! | ||
| Whatever |
My reply to that is to give them my phone number to discuss, and to tell them I am checking with my attorney, should get rid of them pretty quick... I got really pissed at this one... because this came in from a very dear friend of mine's e-mail address... Hi this is ABC Sorry I didn't tell you of my trip to London. I am having a crisis because I lost my wallet and they are holding my passport at the XYZ Hotel. Please send me $600 at the XYZ Western Union office. First I sent an e-mail to him (them) and they had re-routed it to a different account. They replied with some more bullshit. Then I tried to track down my friend who had moved to a new city and I had no phone number for- unsuccessfully. Then I called the hotel in London (which was a real hotel) and they said they had no record of my friend. Which took some time because the cell was not set up for international calls. So I sent them a few e-mails telling then to f-off and reported them to the FBP Internet Crime Bureau. If you think it is a scam it probably is. My friend showed up on-line a day later and I was not the only person who put a bunch of effort into making sure he was ok. I was really pissed. Now, if something seems fishy I just tell them to f-off at the start. | ||
| Britchri10 |
Whatever: The rugby fraternity in England, Australia , Hong Kong & New Zealand have all received what is in essence the same e-mail regarding a rugby player marooned abroad. Suffice to say, most have ignored it. Some have responded and led the sender on a merry dance until he/she twigged that they were having the P*** taken out of them. All the e-mails came from the real e-mail addresses of friends/players | ||
| Whatever |
That is what was creepy, they hacked into the friends e-mail to send it so it looked legit... Next time I will just hit reply and know it is a farce... | ||
| F_skinner |
Good luck with you sale Sifo. I sold Lynn's 95 Sporty on Craigslist but it took a while. I got many lowball offers, spam and a few tire kickers. What I do these days is list my cellphone number and state that email is no good. That usually narrows the playing field to only people that are serious. If they want it they will call. I am very careful about giving out my address and usually offer to meet the person at a neutral location like a dealership or store/mall parking lot.... That has dangers as well and that is when a concealed carry permit comes in handy. I know I sound paranoid and most people are ok but there is that small percentage that are out to get something for nothing. Good looking Sporty | ||
| Stirz007 |
Probably a scam. I see these ads from time to time, usually about $3900 for a nice bike. You make contact, and the seller is either in some far away place, or for some reason you can't see the bike. An example of a reply I have gotten more than once - something like: "It was my husband/son/brother's bike. He was killed in Iraq and I have moved back to Atlanta (I live in UT) with the bike. Send the money and I will help ship, etc..." The way I usually vet whether it's legit is to reply with something like: "Hey that's great. My brother lives in Atlanta (or wherever). He can swing by cash in hand and take a look at the bike. If everything checks out, we can close the deal on the spot. Let me know when he can come by." I have never gotten a reply when I make this offer.. I hate those guys and usually report them - ad comes down, reappears in some other form later... castration is probably not good enough IMO. | ||
| Greg_e |
If you really want to sell to this guy, tell him to send you a deposit (paypal) with cash on pickup. Then you have opened a small deal with him so you have some certain (however small) rights with Paypal and can start to make some inquiries. Do not under any circumstances allow that deposit to be transferred to your bank account, it MUST remain as your paypal balance, that way if it is a scam and the money needs to be returned, it just transfers back out and paypal won't lock your account. You should also send an email or phone call to paypal about the transaction and explain your concerns, maybe they will check and make sure it is a user in good standing and not a stolen account. Or just tell them to use a credit card to send you the money western union and wait for that to clear. You can do that online just like sending an email. Or finally tell them you are not interested. | ||
| Greg_e |
Never mind, I just reread it and noticed that the pronoun I is not capitalized when used in the middle of the sentence. This suggests that English is not a first language or the person is too dumb to use proper English. There are many applications that will see the period at the end of the previous sentence and automatically change the case of the first letter in the next sentence. Anyone who is a real engineer with English as their primary language would know they need to be more careful with details like this. No disrespect for anyone who is using English as a second or third language, but this type of thing really suggests scam or child fooling around. If the person can't form complete sentences are are not clearly from a different country, then I rule them as scam and move on. Sorry for being this way but it has kept me out of trouble with internet purchases for for more than 10 years. Also strange is that a petroleum engineer would be buying a bike in central USA since most eventually move to either the corporate headquarters or near the oil rigs. If your bike was located closer to offshore drilling, it might not be such a stretch. At this point I would probably just politely refuse and see what happens. | ||
| Froggy |
Greg_e, u just isolated half the 1125r board  | ||
| Tbolt_pilot |
Looks like everyone agrees that it is a scam. I'd like to second that conclusion. I've seen versions of this one since paypal became widely known. Your common sense and gut feelings are one of the best defenses against a phishing scam like this. Computer security should be a big part of computer classes in school and better awareness should be spread throughout the public. You wouldn't believe how many "intelligent" people fall for stuff that is more obvious than this. Good catch Sifo, and thanks to everyone else that jumped on it. Tbolt_pilot Certified Computer Forensics Examiner Certified Info Systems Security Professional | ||
| Sifo |
Before I went out this AM I sent an email back saying I would accept cash from the delivery driver. He declined. SCAM, SCAM, SCAM! or was it SKANK, SKANK, SKANK?  | ||
| Daveswan |
scam it is!  | ||
| Spike240sx |
Just keep this in mind, Paypal is not a banking institution. So therefore they are not held to the same regulations and policies as a bank. You are basically giving a third party your money in exchange for some one elses good or service. Kinda like letting the fat guy hold the bet money cause he is too slow to get away. But paypal has gotten smart. They are well known for holding transactions that are out of the ordinary for a member. Hell i had 3k held up for over 6 months because of them. Nothing is guaranteed anymore. Id say cashiers check is still the safest way. | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Sifo, of course, that was an obvious scam, as you know by know. Pay Pal is not safe for sellers. They can attach your account for no reason at all. One of the reasons that eBay sales are suffering is that people selling high ticket items don't want to expose themselves to Pay Pal. For the best of reasons. | ||
| Jwblue |
I've been told by my bank that it's not all that uncommon nowadays for a cashier's check to be counterfeit. Banks can put a hold on a cashier's check to give them time to check its authenticity. And if I were accepting one for payment I would encourage my bank to put a hold on it and I would not give up my motorcycle until my bank proved the check was authentic. The hold takes about a week, give or take. (Message edited by JWBlue on September 04, 2010) | ||
| Ourdee |
I always tell them I need cash in ones fives and tens brought to my location by their agent. I also double the price in my response. | ||
| Bo_sox |
SCAM! SCAM! SCAM! - I list quite a bit of stuff from time to time on Seattle CL and have gotten several VERY SIMILAR replies. I've NEVER took them up on any offer and always reply with a very smartass, No Thank You now go cram it! Never hear back from them. Cash is King and meet in person or NO Deal! Also, on all my smaller items (anything that can reasonably fit in truck) I always meet publically & locally - never at my residence. I even state that comment in the add. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
wasnt off shore drilling halted for six months ? smells like oily fish | ||
| Sifo |
I'm beginning to wish I had taken him up on his offer. Take the payment and give him a bogus address to go find the bike. It would only tie up his funds for a while, until he got reimbursed, but it would be funny to scam the scammer. I would of course never do that because some bureaucratic idiot would probably force me to give the bike to his agent and force me into the scam under penalty of law. | ||
| Midknyte |
It would only tie up his funds for a while you're assuming it's his own funds. in a scam it never will be. they will use a hijacked account. you will be the only one with skin in the game, and a lot of it. |
