Selling my car, am I being scammed?

kmb500

I am selling my car and today I put some adverts up on ebay, autotrader and gumtree.
Soon after, I got a text from someone saying they saw my gumtree advert and were querying the price, so could I email them. I did so and got the following response:

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my email. Please understand that I can't come around to inspect or see for myself as I am partially disabled and in a wheelchair for now due to an accident I had some time ago which also affected my hearing hence my reason for not calling you. I have good internet access, though. I am trying to buy this for a family member who is out of town. I am okay with your asking price, just wanted to be sure it's not going higher than it is.

Now If you don't mind, I can only pay with PayPal at the moment because I have very limited access to my bank and because it's the most secure way to make or receive payment online making it my preferred payment method. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries. Getting one is fast and free and I assure you it is safe and secure. I have gone through the ad but have a few questions.

What's your reason for selling? Are you the original owner? How long have you owned it? Any other thing you think I should know? Do you mind sharing a few close-up pictures with me?

I hope you consider my offer and if you do, you can pause negotiations with any other person as I am ready to buy now to make it a quick sale and hopefully it is completed by tomorrow. We can schedule pick up at your convenience after you have confirmed and received payment via PayPal. Thanks for understanding, hope to read from you soon.




--


Lara


Now this looks completely fake to me. They make no reference to my name, the type of car or anything specific about the advert. And half of it sounds like it was typed by a robot.

But I don't understand what a scammer could be trying to do? Because they seem to want to get my paypal account, but I'm pretty sure if you give someone your paypal info they can't do anything except pay you.

I'm just a bit confused, anyone have any thoughts?

waamo

You won't get paid. It's a common scam.

jobdone1

Very common scam avoid

EdGasket

They can claim the money back from Paypal.

Just say if they want it come and see it and pay cash or whatever method you are happy with.

kmb500

waamo wrote: »

You won't get paid. It's a common scam.

Thanks, as I thought. I was just kind of confused what they hope to get out of it? Given that I would have to see the money in my paypal account in order to give them the car. And they can't get any of my details just from my email address for paypal.

forgotmyname

Give them a fake email address and when they say they are ready to collect the car just say what are you on about you have already collected it. Guy picked it up 2 hours ago.

Then blank them. The intial contact was a phishing one to get your email address. You were likely to receive a paypal funds received email.

Don't reply to dodgy requests on gumtree or any other site for that matter.

waamo

kmb500 wrote: »

Thanks, as I thought. I was just kind of confused what they hope to get out of it? Given that I would have to see the money in my paypal account in order to give them the car. And they can't get any of my details just from my email address for paypal.

What they get is your car for free. They ask for it to shipped to a destination and it looks like you've received the payment from PayPal.

Shortly after you find there is no money and no car.

parking_question_chap

Yes, please have some fun with them.

Say you need to sell the car fast and send them to a car park to collect.

Make them have some financial expense.

Mr.Generous

For an information pack n how to avoid being scammed please send your name, address and full bank details to the person enquiring about your car.

takman

You should just go along with them and see what happens if your interested.




What will likely happen is that they will send you an email which looks like it has come from PayPal saying that you have received the money and they hope that you will not look in your account and just agree to let them collect the car.


They may also put something in the email saying the money is being held by PayPal until the good are confirmed to be delivered to explain why you can't see the money in your account.

takman

EdGasket wrote: »

They can claim the money back from Paypal.

Just say if they want it come and see it and pay cash or whatever method you are happy with.

They won't actually pay any money because cars sales arn't covered by PayPal protection so they wouldn't be able to claim the money back.