Scam?

[iart]

I haven't run across this before. Buyer wants me to invoice them directly through Paypal saying they have problems with making payments through ebay. They claim that ebay sent them a note saying this was ok. It's a fairly expensive sale, around $400. The note looks fishy as heck. What do you all think?

[jason_incognito · Accepted solution]

They want your email address so that they can send you a fake notice that you got paid and it is safe to ship.

[jason_incognito]

read that email and pay attention to the english used.

english is not that writers first language.

[dhbookds]

lol...............do you really think ebay would allow a rep to use "God Bless"............

[mczombies]

Don't do it--clearly a scam, and a sorry excuse for an "official" letter too.

And report what happened to eBay--glad that you posted this here so others will be aware.

And God Bless. (oh, this makes me laugh)

[fern*wood]

Unfortunately, I bet many sellers have fallen for that letter.  It needs to be brought to the attention of ebay---maybe they will do something about the buyer since they are trying to impersonate an ebay employee.

[sharingtheland]

Really, truly, honestly you posted that with a giggle and a wink, right?

Because no one who has been here as long as you have would ever think that message came from ebay.  I'm sure you had laughed yourself silly even before you got to "god bless."

Good one.

[stickboy1974]

It is scary though how the English is improving in the fake letters . I use to get some that were very badly written. Of course I have also seen letters from English speaking people that were also very badly written.

[a_c_green]

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@mczombies wrote:

Don't do it--clearly a scam, and a sorry excuse for an "official" letter too.

And report what happened to eBay--glad that you posted this here so others will be aware.

And God Bless. (oh, this makes me laugh)

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Yes, 100% scam. The request for a PayPal invoice is the giveaway, as that is how the scammer plans to get the seller's off-eBay email address, after which he can then move on to sending various bogus messages that neither PayPal nor eBay will be able to see and screen.

I have to say, though, that on those rare occasions when I actually got an email from CS about something or other, I could always tell which few sentences were actually hand-typed by a CS rep, as opposed to the majority of the note being copy-and-paste from boilerplate paragraph choices, because the CS rep's text was usually somewhere between awkward and painful to read .  Their writing efforts were rarely perfect in either spelling or grammar.

[ohnojoey]

Scam!

File a non-payment claim to close this and forward this spoof email to;

spoof@ebay.com

[pauls-parts]

Punt.

[thenobletuckylife]

Evening,

What a nice scammer...even to include the God Bless.

It sure beats getting the same old phone calls such as:

Hi this is Rachael, there's nothing wrong with your credit card account...don't hang up...

Hi this is Kevin, I am returning a call because you inquired about how you could lower your electric bill...

Or

Hi...Robert?..this is Brian. We are kicking off our Troopers fundraiser that is supported by your local law enforcement...

Mr C

[texas.star]

I hope you reported this person.  Clearly, they have gone to some trouble putting this together, however, the poor sentence structure and grammar is a red flag.  I've had customers needing an invoice through Paypal, and initially I was suspicious.  But, they needed to pay using more than one credit card, and Paypal invoicing allows customers to make multiple payments.  However, this is definitely not that!  Thanks for sharing, and good luck!

[pajahl]

I also encountered a similar situation. put up a product for sale and within a short time received a message from the "buyer" with a request to send him a direct request for money through PayPal. Almost immediately, I realized that this looked like a scam, I studied the forums and became convinced of my suspicions.
But I can’t understand one thing:
 Are people to whom scammers send fake letters with confirmation of payment send the goods before they see the actual replenishment of their account in the PayPal account?
However, even in this case, the goods should not be sent, since the fake buyer will be able to say that he has not received the goods and will request money back through the paypal.

Sell ​​only through the EBAY website, this will ensure the security of the transaction, which is why EBAY keeps its commission.

[a_c_green]

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@pajahl wrote:

But I can’t understand one thing:
 Are people to whom scammers send fake letters with confirmation of payment send[ing] the goods before they see the actual replenishment of their account in the PayPal account?

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Yes, the fake PayPal payment confirmation messages state that the seller must ship the item and upload the tracking number (someplace) before the funds will be deposited in his account. Obviously no money ever appears, but by then the package is already on its way.

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@pajahl wrote:

However, even in this case, the goods should not be sent, since the fake buyer will be able to say that he has not received the goods and will request money back through the paypal.

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Well, he is not likely to do that, as there was never any real payment made in the first place, so there is no refund to be made. He will simply disappear with his stolen item.