Too good to be true?

mary671

Toshiba NB305 10F

Found one of these on a free ads site, 7 months old asking for £150 including postage (courier).

Seller wants me to make payment by bank transfer before 3pm and then she will post next day delivery.

I'm tempted of course - it's a great price, but very concerned about whether this method of payment is safe. Can anyone please advise?

Browntoa

no, bank transfer is not safe.....they have your money today

mary671

Thanks for the reply. Do you know if there is a method of payment I could suggest that would be safe? Seller is in Scotland, I'm in the Midlands so collection not possible.

gonzo127

maybe look into paypal?

davester

Paypal is used my ebay for the security reason that you can claim the money back

fwor

mary671 wrote: »

Seller is in Scotland, I'm in the Midlands so collection not possible.

Scammers on Gumtree and similar sites use this technique all the time. One test that you might want to try is to tell the seller that you have a relative living nearby in Scotland, and would it be Ok for them to collect and pay cash. If scamming, they will always come up with some reason why not, and you know for sure what they are up to.

I wouldn't touch it, even with PayPal's so-called "protection".

fiddiwebb

Oh God! not bank transfer, most unsafe method of payment for buyers.

If you are buying something like that you really need to see it in person, just had a quick look and noticed one on gumtree being advertised in different areas for £150 ono 5 months old (yeah, that sounds to good to be true as well!)

CHR15

Oh Lord! Is it really that easy to scam people??

esuhl

davester wrote: »

Paypal is used my ebay for the security reason that you can claim the money back

When buying from eBay I think you get more protection than if you simply transfer some funds through PayPal which aren't (as far as PayPal knows) associated with a sale.

Maybe the T&Cs have changed, though...

John_Gray

As above! Would you trust £150 to someone you've never met and know nothing about, in the hope that they may post to you a day later a laptop which may or may not work, may or may not be in good condition, and may or may not have the specification you were led to believe it had?

Some time back the local paper reported that someone bought a laptop in the street from someone they'd never seen before, took the package home to open it, only to find the (identical) package contained two bricks...

aarrgghh

John_Gray wrote: »

Some time back the local paper reported that someone bought a laptop in the street from someone they'd never seen before, took the package home to open it, only to find the (identical) package contained two bricks...

They must have been very thin bricks.