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Gumtree scam very active this week!

soolin Posts: 73,909 Ambassador

29 January 2019 at 3:07PM in Ebay, auctions, car boot sales, post & parcels

My son is selling some furniture on Gumtree and called me as he thought it sounded scammy and wanted to double check before he started calling the 'buyer' a scammer.

It's the common scam , disabled buyer can't collect the item and van courier won't take anything other than cash so buyer will send a payment via paypal escrow , seller then takes £50 (or whatever) of that to pay courier, and keeps the rest. 'Courier' then turns up in a van, takes the £50 and the furniture and disappears.

Scam relies on seller believing the fake paypal payment email saying money will be held until courier collects .

So far in 2 days two different buyers with near identical stories have tried this on my son - so the scammers are obviously busy out there, so please watch out and warn any vulnerable friends or relatives you may have that you know use Gumtree to sell. It's probably not limited to Gumtree, but so far that is the only site that my son has had these scammers approach him through.

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Gumtree scam very active this week!

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