Looks like I've been the victim of an elaborate fraud on Gumtree

michaelm

I saw an item for sale on Gumtree which I was interested in buying. It was expensive and not priced so low as too alert my suspicions. I agreed a price with the seller, who provided me with a copy of his driving licence, passport and a bank statement from Barclays. Looking back on it, I probably should have been suspicious then as the account details on the statement were blacked out and so I had no way of checking the account details he later gave me matched the ones on the statement. So as far as I was concerned, everything looked to be totally above board. The last I was in contact with the seller was yesterday when he emailed me to say the item had been shipped with DHL through a work account, and that it was to be delivered this Friday. I asked for a tracking number and he assured me that he had the tracking number and would email me it when he got home from work. I never received the promised email.

So today, I received a number of emails from Gumtree saying:

It has been flagged/reported that the user who posted that ad may be involved in suspicious activity and/or in breaching the Gumtree Terms of Use. We are investigating this matter, but want you to be safe in the meantime. If you are still in contact with the user, we recommend that you consider the advice below:

• If you have not shared any personal information with this user, you don't need to do anything. Your email address is protected by Gumtree and they won't be able to contact you.
• If you have sent any personal information to this user, like your bank details or date of birth, you could be at risk.
• If you have sent an item or money to this user please contact us on [EMAIL="help@gumtree.com"]help@gumtree.com[/EMAIL]

So, of course, I fall into the last category. I can't believe I was stupid enough to fall for this. But what could I have done to ensure he was genuine or not? He supplied what I thought were very good, convincing credentials. Ok, so I never got a phone number. But even if I did, I don't think it would've made any difference.


So what do I do now? I've replied to Gumtree's emails so they will do what they need to at their end. But I would like to speak to Barclays as well, to see if the account is legit or not. But I'm pretty sure that the account details he supplied were not for Barclays, probably not even in this country.


I feel a real pillock.

pinkshoes

There is nothing you can do. If you paid by bank transfer, then the money is gone.

Gumtree is for face to face transactions where the buyer views the goods then pays cash.

How much is a lot of money?

michaelm

pinkshoes wrote: »

There is nothing you can do. If you paid by bank transfer, then the money is gone.

Gumtree is for face to face transactions where the buyer views the goods then pays cash.

How much is a lot of money?

Over £700.

theonlywayisup

pinkshoes wrote: »

There is nothing you can do. If you paid by bank transfer, then the money is gone.

Gumtree is for face to face transactions where the buyer views the goods then pays cash.

How much is a lot of money?

This.

Face to face means exactly that, as you've now learned first hand.

michaelm

pinkshoes wrote: »

There is nothing you can do. If you paid by bank transfer, then the money is gone.

Gumtree is for face to face transactions where the buyer views the goods then pays cash.

How much is a lot of money?

I spoke to my bank, Scamtander, and they have already explained it all to me. The account I paid the money into is a bonafide Barclays account. Thats what is most surprising about all of this. If it were me, I'd have given offshore or foreign bank account details for scamming people through.

They said they will contact Barclays and have the account locked, and any available money in the account will be divided among any people he has scammed. So I have , according to them, a chance of getting all, some or none of my money back. Hmmm. They also said to put it behind me and to console myself that it wasn't a hell of a lot more. That I never gave any other details other than my name and address was a bonus as well.

theonlywayisup

I'm taking it you did pay by BT.

Your only avenue now is Gumtree (pointless) and Action Fraud (slightly less so) but at least the latter may give you some hope that any previous/future frauds may be linked and something may be prosecuted. Unfortunately your money is long gone and not retrievable.

soolin

michaelm wrote: »

I spoke to my bank, Scamtander, and they have already explained it all to me. The account I paid the money into is a bonafide Barclays account. Thats what is most surprising about all of this. If it were me, I'd have given offshore or foreign bank account details for scamming people through.

They said they will contact Barclays and have the account locked, and any available money in the account will be divided among any people he has scammed. So I have , according to them, a chance of getting all, some or none of my money back. Hmmm. They also said to put it behind me and to console myself that it wasn't a hell of a lot more. That I never gave any other details other than my name and address was a bonus as well.

I'm surprised at what Santander told you as they have no ability to persuade Barclays to lock any account. In fact Barclays will struggle to do anything as you sent the money willingly so until fraud is proved the account is safe from interference.

bxboards

Unfortunately fraudulent sales on work Gumtree only work if you ignore the warnings plastered over every Gumtree ad.

Each ad. has a stay safe box, for example:

'Stay Safe

"Meet face to face, never send payment for items you've not seen"'

or

'Stay Safe

"Meet face to face, never send payment for items you've not seen"'


The long and the short of it, and sorry to be blunt, is that you have essentially enabled this fraud by failing to heed the warnings. Your money is lost. You wouldn't hand 700 pounds to a stranger in the street, yet sadly people seem bend over backwards to do this online. I am not sure why.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but to my mind, you actions are rather like crossing a road with your eyes shut then wondering why you got knocked down.

I_have_spoken

Also report to Action Fraud - http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/contact-us

An expensive lesson

soolin

I am extremely sorry for the OP and think that this sort of story needs to be seen prominently in places like MSE where other people, perhaps new to the internet, or not sure about safety issues, can see it and perhaps be warned to be more cautious when parting with money.

The thread title though is misleading, this is not an elaborate fraud, in fact it is the most common of all and one that 99.9% of people would recognise instantly as a scam. It's been around since the old days of postal orders , then Western Union, via paypal to bank transfers- it is covered over and over again in main stream newspapers and online chat rooms.

I hate the sort of person that scams like this, I believe them to be the lowest of the low and I hope karma comes back and bites them- ultimately though we owe it to ourselves to stay safe, if we all were fully aware of money safety then these scumbag scammers would soon go out of business .

bxboards

soolin wrote: »

I am extremely sorry for the OP and think that this sort of story needs to be seen prominently in places like MSE where other people, perhaps new to the internet, or not sure about safety issues, can see it and perhaps be warned to be more cautious when parting with money .

I agree with the sentiment but I don't think it would work.

If they ignore the warnings on the site they are trying to purchase from, I think we can assume they would also ignore warnings elsewhere.

I think there is only so much handholding that can be done.

It would help if Action Fraud acutally acted or financial fraud was taken seriously, but sadly it will not be investigated. I would like to see prosecutions, jail sentences, and proceeds of crime confiscations, but it seems nobody has the will to enforce the law in this country anymore, and sadly like pyramid schemes, time share, binary trading and other scams, people will always ignore warnings and think 'it can't happen to me'....