SCAM - Buyer pretends to be an Army Vet and asks to include a Steam gift card for the birthday gift

[vdchome]

I got an offer on eBay for a bath set I was selling and I got an offer. In the comment section of the offer he requested that if I accept the offer I should text him and he left a number, because he had some questions about the product.

I went along with it knowing that I would not buy or ship anything until I had the money for it in hand. He requested I send an email detailing the agreement for the additional service so that he could send money. I did so, strictly detailing that the order will only be processed, the gift cards purchased and shipped with the order, only once the necessary funds have been received and confirmed for this order.

Then I get an email from a gmail.com  address with a big PayPal banner saying sent $536.00 USD,  "for an item and a steam wallet gift card of $400 and the shipping." Payment Approved ... so on and so on. I must say, the top portion looked like it could have been authentic. Until you scroll down and see the following:

"Important note: it may take a little while for this payment to appear in the Activity section of your account.Until you email us the picture of the eBay gift card and receipt for verification so that we can credit your PayPal account.The transaction can't be cancelled based on the fact that the payment was made via PayPal advanced method, the money can't be refunded  back to the buyer because it has already been ordered to your PayPal account. Thanks for using PayPal"

He asked if I got the confirmation, I replied that I got an email. I said I would wait to see it in my PayPal activity. He said, but didn't you see the bottom part of the email. I told him I agreed to do it when money was received and confirmed, I did not receive money only and email.

Suddenly, I get another email from the gmail address with the subject line *** LEGAL ACTION ***, with crude graphics and text saying they have forwarded my name and address to the police. There where crude payment buttons splattered all over the place and pictures of dudes being perp walked, LOL.

I responded back saying I am going to post about this everywhere on eBay, PayPal and Google, you may need to change your email address and get all new accounts. 

He responded back with another statement.

At this point I just blocked him and put him into my spam folder.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE GUYS. NO MONEY - NO PRODUCT/SERVICE ... remember that.

[southern*sweet*tea]

Legal action...I just choked on my tea! That's rich.

The sad thing is, there's no real way to stop these people, because they have many throw away accounts, and they just keep sending these out until some poor soul falls for it. There is no recourse when someone gets scammed, because the vast majority of these scammers are on VPN somewhere in an internet cafe overseas.

[coffeebean832]

PayPal and eBay will never use a Gmail domain to send messages. Please report this to Google. You can file a report for each e-mail they sent- it's a short and quick form to fill out.

https://support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse?hl=en

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

Oh that's GOLD! Boy, you sure had that slime scammer fuming! 😆...Should have told them " Wait, my brother works at corporate in San Jose for PayPal, let me just text him real quick!" 😆 very smart of you! Thanks for posting ( I too almost choked drinking my water!)

[nkmipgolf]

Legal action and Police knocking on your door if you don't pay?    That's funny, good one. Tell him the European Police will be knocking on his door.

[luckythewinner]

Good on you using common sense and recognizing an obvious scam. 

[mtgraves7984]

Yippee for you and thanks for sharing! Continued good luck...

[stumblebumble]

Thank you for your well-documented post.    This scammer would have been had at the words "send gift card" and blocked immediately.   Glad you were sharp in catching the fact that emails don't cut it.       I hope I never get one of them. 

[ittybitnot]

 In the comment section of the offer he requested that if I accept the offer I should text him and he left a number,

Lucky for you that this guy played his hand early and put the "text me" scammer stuff in the offer so you could decline without a problem. 

Do not text, call, or EMAIL these people even if you are not going to fall for the scam. 

[itsjustasprain]

---

@stumblebumble wrote:

Thank you for your well-documented post.    This scammer would have been had at the words "send gift card" and blocked immediately.   Glad you were sharp in catching the fact that emails don't cut it.       I hope I never get one of them. 

---

Sometimes they are fun to get as long as you recognize that its a scam up front and dont give out any info that they dont already have. 

My favorite was a spam (not on Ebay) where somebody writes to you to say that they have a contract from some enemy of mine to kill you but they will not go through with it if you pay them more than what they were getting from the other person. I had some fun with the guy by daring him to find me and telling him that he was not even looking in the right country to find me. I was also supposed to wire money to a certain account but kept him going by carefully mistyping the account number - getting the name wrong - ect. He was pretty mad but gave up after a few messages back and forth. Too bad they are not all that entertaining.

[toysaver]

Usually they claim to be active members of the military, being a veteran is new.  Being a veteran does not make him / her incapable of everything they wanted you to do.  

[bargainnation]

You are a brave person; I wouldn't have even sent a text to this scammer. I would have immediately place them on the BBL.

These scam buyers just never stop. Your post was educational and I hope it helps other new and/or inexperienced sellers to avoid falling for this and other scams.

[donsdetour]

thanks for working the scammer takes up their time.....

The internets got to love the drama.

[kh-gary]

Hi everyone,

If you believe that you or someone you know was scammed into buying eBay Gift Cards, visit our gift card page to contact customer service and find additional information related to gift card scams.

Thank you.

[dethom-771]

A very similar thing just happened to me....only I didn't let it get as far.  Thank you for posting this because it sounded strange and I told the buyer I wouldn't send the gift card it was for the item on here only....but when I read this I knew it was a scam and I blocked him and reported it to eBay