Paypal Scam - How to report

jjpmaia

Good Afternoon,

Sorry if this is not the correct sub-forum but I could find another one.
Basically I have put something up for sale on gumtree and was contacted by someone interested. The person is out of the country and can’t use the online banking so he needs to pay by paypal. I have received (on my spam inbox) and email regarding the funds and they will be released on my paypal account as soon as I present proof of postage.

I know this is a scam, but my question here is: is it worth reporting? The phone number where he contacted me from can be replaced, but I was given the address for postage and saw it on google maps and it’s an house, so surely he lives there? If not, what’s the trick??
I immediately recognized the spam, but would like to report so others can avoid falling on it… (and this kind of people deserve to be reported).

Thank you for your help.

unholyangel

Certainly worth reporting to action fraud and if they've sent an email that pretends to be from paypal, forward it on to spoof@paypal.co.uk

Whether the police have the resources to actually look into it is another matter.

BillTrac

You providing proof of postage before funds are released means that you send the item but never see any money.

AndyMc.....

unholyangel wrote: »

Certainly worth reporting to action fraud and if they've sent an email that pretends to be from paypal, forward it on to spoof@paypal.co.uk

Whether the police have the resources to actually look into it is another matter.

Unless the fraudsters location is known and within their force area the police will not record the offence and will tell you to contact action fraud.

unholyangel

AndyMc..... wrote: »

Unless the fraudsters location is known and within their force area the police will not record the offence and will tell you to contact action fraud.

Which is why (in the post you quoted) I told OP to report it to action fraud and not their local police force.....

AndyMc.....

unholyangel wrote: »

Which is why (in the post you quoted) I told OP to report it to action fraud and not their local police force.....

So why mention the police and their resources? Home Office recording rules have nothing to do with it.

unholyangel

AndyMc..... wrote: »

So why mention the police and their resources? Home Office recording rules have nothing to do with it.

Who do you think runs action fraud?

AndyMc.....

unholyangel wrote: »

Who do you think runs action fraud?

The chances of them living in that area and it's over seen rather than run by them.

But I'd guess you've dealt with them more that I have.

unholyangel

AndyMc..... wrote: »

The chances of them living in that area and it's over seen rather than run by them.

But I'd guess you've dealt with them more that I have.

The service is run by the city of london police.

The chances they're going to devote any resources to this particular case when they'll have thousands of new cases every day is highly unlikely though. The police struggled to keep up before cyber crimes, now they're positively drowning.

AndyMc.....

unholyangel wrote: »

The service is run by the city of london police.

The chances they're going to devote any resources to this particular case when they'll have thousands of new cases every day is highly unlikely though. The police struggled to keep up before cyber crimes, now they're positively drowning.

Who do you mean by they? Very little of their stuff is seen by The City of London Police.

It's assessed by civilian analysts and most is binned at source as it's not got enough points to warrant investigation.

No it it has anything to do with police resources or workload.