Cyber crime PayPal help

Nicfw

Hi everyone
I have fallen foul to someone who employed me as a virtual assistant using a website for freelancers. He lured me away from the site and said email communication was better. I was new to freelancing so trusted him. He explained he wanted to sell in eBay but because he was new to it he had no feedback and PayPal held money for 21 days so I foolishly agreed to list his items on my own eBay account. To cut a long story, I sold £7000 worth of goods in three days. As my selling activity dramatically changed (previously I occasionally sold the odd car boot type stuff) PayPal froze my account. The guy I was working for hasn't delivered the items. Sadly I had already withdrawn £5k and then directly sent it to him. Of course he hasn't refunded me and I doubt the info I have for him such as name and address are real. I feel so stupid. My PayPal now has a negative account balance of £5k and I cried down the phone to them and they said I'm liable to repay it and to contact the police which I did and now it has been reported to action fraud. It's unlikely he will be found and there's no way I can pay back £5k. I'm worried they will harm my rating or send bailiffs. Any advice is appreciated. I have the entire email trail between my self and the 'employer' as evidence I gave it straight to him.

pvt

Hi,

I'm sorry but it sounds as if you have fallen for one of the oldest scams in the book.

There's no easy way to put this, but you have lost £5k.

PayPal will have to refund the money they received to the people who don't receive their items. They bought those items off you (your eBay account & your PayPal account), so why should you receive any money for them.

You sent £5k to someone you didn't know, and hadn't met, and who had no eBay feedback.

How did you send the £5k to the scammer?

Nicfw

I sent it via BACS transfer so I have supplied the police with his bank details and payment references. When paypal are chasing me for the money, will they not take into account that I was duped if I show them the bank statement which shows I sent it directly on along with the email trail between myself and the scammer where he tells me which bank account to send it to?

National_Debtline

Hi Nicfw,


This is such a sad situation, and you have done the right thing by reporting it to the police and Action Fraud, but unfortunately, pvt is right and I am afraid you are now liable to repay this money because the money was sent to you from the 'buyers'. You can write to PayPal/ Ebay and ask them to write the debt off based on the circumstances but this is at their discretion.


If they won't do this and if you can't pay this in a lump sum then you can only offer what you can afford. Start with a SOA and work out what you can afford to pay per week/month and then write to PayPal with your offer. It is possible they will mark your credit file and that this could have a negative impact. They can use debt collectors or the county court to chase the debt but they cannot use a bailiff unless there is a CCJ you do not pay (as the court asks you to). I know this will all be a bit of a shock and if you have other debts then you may need more advice about how this debt might affect the others. Good luck,


Laura
@natdebtline

Ben8282

If you transferred this money to a UK bank account then the police may be able to do something especially if you are persistent. This will not necessarily get you your money back but may get the offender prosecuted.

Candyapple

Do you still have access to the original site? Can you contact other freelancers and see if they fell foul to the same scam? If so, you might have a better case for the police to look at as a group fraud with multiple amounts of money stolen as opposed to a singular person falling for a scam.

soolin

I recently posted a warning on the eBay board here on MSE as this scam was beginning to show up on various Facebook selling pages and the scumbag scammers were getting a lot of people interested. I suspect that 99.9% of people will see it for a scam, but even if only 0.01% of people fall for it these scammers must be making thousands.

Unfortunately on Facebook many of the admin on selling groups formally warned me that I would be deleted from their groups if I scaremongered by calling this a scam- so please make sure that less savvy friends are relatives hear of this story and learn to take care.

Brooker_Dave

Nicfw wrote: »

My PayPal now has a negative account balance of £5k and I cried down the phone to them and they said I'm liable to repay it and to contact the police which I did and now it has been reported to action fraud. It's unlikely he will be found and there's no way I can pay back £5k. I'm worried they will harm my rating or send bailiffs.

Paypal can only send bailiffs or harm your credit rating if they take you to court.

But given that Paypal offshored to avoid UK legislation and taxation, they just tend to use debt collectors to try to harass you into paying the money back.

Best option is to sit tight and see what happens, but expect a million debt collection phone calls, but sooner or later they do give up.

paulc333

National_Debtline wrote: »

It is possible they will mark your credit file and that this could have a negative impact. They can use debt collectors or the county court to chase the debt but they cannot use a bailiff unless there is a CCJ you do not pay (as the court asks you to). I know this will all be a bit of a shock and if you have other debts then you may need more advice about how this debt might affect the others. Good luck,


Laura
@natdebtline

I'm pretty sure they cannot "Mark your credit file" unless they have been to court, and been awarded a CCJ. (this is very unlikely)

Assuming you just have a personal account then in essence with paypal there is no credit agreement, they are a service provider, they don't credit check to open account and therefore have no recourse through that channel if debt is left.

Paypal will send the debt to debt collectors, who will increasingly contact and threaten action etc, there are little or no reports of paypal ever taking anyone to court for debt.

However they will stop you using paypal and make it near impossible to use Ebay again until the debt is cleared.

For the OP continue with the police and action fraud and at this point maintain communication with paypal that you have been a victim of a crime, keep it factual, no need to plead or beg they are not going to respond to that.

As someone else said seeing if others have been scammed in the same way could help with a group case.

Sadly as someone else said this is now a common and growing scam. You are left in the firing line as it's your ebay account and your paypal account that did the selling and received the money.

eddddy

Nicfw wrote: »

I sent it via BACS transfer so I have supplied the police with his bank details and payment references.

Presumably you have also told your bank. If there is any money left in the destination account, they may be able to get it back.

Although fraudsters normally empty the account immediately to prevent this - and it sounds like all this happened a while ago anyway.