12 replies to this topic

[Tritty]

Hi Everyone
Not too long ago Brett and I were trying to sell one of our cars on Gumtree. We received a very strange email almost immediately from someone who was strangely working at sea who wanted the car for his dad as a gift and could not make payment any way except through Paypal. They did not care about inspecting the vehicle and said they would have a truck driver come pick it up. Seemed very suss, as we already had a paypal account we did not click the link to see where it went, if it is an actual link to paypal or not I don’t know. Anyway after trying to correspond to this person it went nowhere. We were not affected in any way other than wasting out time.

My dad just listed a Camper on Autotrader and put my mobile as a contact as he is seldom by the phone. I got 2 sms messages saying to email them with the camper details and price which I thought was strange. One of the numbers was a bit odd too being 0000000000 very unusual.
I emailed them accordingly.
I got a reply this morning from Paul Wolf [sunrise19631@hotmail.com], the name seems like its made up, I guess there might be a paul wolf out there. Lol
This was his reply
“I am very keen,Let me know the actual asking price. How i wish i could come and view what am buying from you.but am currently overseas at the moment and i want it picked up before i get back, though i will be back in couple of weeks. Due to my inability to make a bank deposit, I would be paying via PayPal which is safer for me. Kindly send me a paypal payment invoice or create an account at www.paypal.com.au if you dont have one. 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. Few more photos will be appreciated as well.
Have a nice day.
Paul”

Sounds very much like the email we got before, they are conveniently overseas or at sea or somewhere they cant make payment any way apart from paypal, don’t care about seeing the car, have no idea about the price of the vehicle, Will arrange transport to pick up and no other contact details for this person.

The other email was 'kenwillis004@gmail.com'

I did a bit of a search online and found other people posting up on sites the same thing has happened to them.
http://www.suite101....-paypal-a215956
http://forums.whirlp...archive/1340763
or search google if you want to find for yourself.

Anyway just thought Id give the heads up that this is circulating. As far as I know there has been nothing bad happen other than wasting time but best to be safe than sorry.
It may not just apply to vehicles but that is all I have experienced.

A friend said they had the same thing happen to them recently...
"When I refused to continue with the deal they said that they were going to commence proceedings against me unless I paid.

I reported them to Paypal."

Maybe that is how the scam works, trying to scare people into paying for withdrawing on the sale. She is a lawyer so it didnt work with her.

[Ten Four]

If you look at my corolla ad on gumtree, I just put no paypal. Saves all the headfuck.

[Mish]

Thanks for the tip! i got one of them the other day. i deleted it because i dont want to sell a car without meeting the person!

[Tritty]

I guess listing No paybal might work, but it seems that these people dont actually read the adds since they never had a clue as to what price the vehicle was advertised for and often offered excessive amounts for the vehicle.

Good move in deleting it.

[Ten Four]

I guess listing No paybal might work, but it seems that these people dont actually read the adds since they never had a clue as to what price the vehicle was advertised for and often offered excessive amounts for the vehicle.

Good move in deleting it.

Since I've put the "NO PAYPAL" thing up, I've had no more of these texts/emails.

[NA_Goodness]

Tab was saying she had the same thing. Although y mate has sold 5 or 6 cars on Gumtree this year alone and hasn't had anything like this yet. I'll have to warn him, thanks for the headsup

[94GTRR32]

I have never had it, but apparantly its common on carsales as well. When i was looking to buy a GTR at the beginning of the year, one guy said that he may have already had a buyer, but he was overseas. i told him straight away it was a scam and be very careful. Anyway, 2 weeks later i called again it turned out it was a scam and the car was still for sale...

My brother in law also got similar emails...

[Tritty]

Well just found out this is not just for cars, I am selling a Saddle on Cavalletti Classifieds and I got a message on there too. Might alter my description and add NO PAYPAL!

[Char]

i hear about this all the time.

about 7yrs ago i saw an incredibly cheap R34 GTR for sale fully built/worked on gum tree for 34k i typed the specs into google n found the realy guy selling it on boostcruising.com for 120k. i emailed them both.
the real owner got the add taken down, but the reply from the scammer was something like "im in india i was a student i just need to sell it, fwd me $4500 deposit and i will organise a time for you to pick it up"

think i'll also mention, they also operate those "wanna make $200 today!?" sites, so idiots in australia get told to make $200 all they have to do is go to someones house pick up the guitar/item *which has already been paid for-thru pay pall and others* ship the item off, when they recieve the item u get paid.
which of course you dont and the cops are now chassing after you for stealing ppl's stuff.

instead of writing no paypal you should write "if your one of those international buyers plz email me so i can trace where u live and pay u a visit, hopefully u live in one of those 3rd world countries where they sell AK47s on every corner, cheers"

[Tritty]

I had no idea there is so much scamming going on.

[Char]

hrmm i just had some bloke come banging on my door, indian guy, asking me for money for some starving kids charity threw a pamphlet in my hand and he had a couple of tickets, usually i'll give them a couple bucks but all i could think of was this is a scam..
i said no, he kept asking me "just a couple bucks" but yeah, see what these scammers have done, the paranoia has set in!

[94GTRR32]

I recently advertised my fairmont on quokka online.... the next day i had 4 email enquiries. 3 looked sus, but i emailed one guy back. His response was similar to Marianne's. overseas.. for my dad... wanting to use paypal...

[Ten Four]

Mums paypal just got hacked and had 9k spent - currently paypal are trying to not pay her back.. will update as it goes along.

This has happened before, but not to us personally.