Scammed - Desperatley need help

tempus_fugit

dstill said:

Hi, I am hoping someone may be able to guide me as I believe I've have been scammed. I'll keep this as brief as possible for the time being.

I placed a wanted ad on Gumtree for kids toys, a private seller responded and we agreed a price.  The next day they said they had other toys I may be interested in, after seeing photos of the items we agreed additional monies.  They contacted me a third time and the same thing, more toys and we agreed a total price for everything.  When the seller said they had dispatched the items I asked for the tracking details which they had promised they would provide me when we were negotiating. After many requests they have basically fobbed me off and as such I have no tracking info.

The seller asked me to pay with Paypal friends and family which I now realise I shouldn't have done although I was naïve about this at the time of paying.  I've contacted my bank, they say I need to wait 14 days before they can look into it.  I've contacted Paypal and they cant do anything, I've also contacted Gumtree and they can only restrict the sellers account and finally I've logged this with the online Fraud / Police website and now have a crime number.  Not sure what to do next??

  

jon81uk

I've always thought of Gumtree as being like the classified ads in the back of a newspaper. Buy in person, with cash. Anything sent via Paypal might be a scam. For buying goods online eBay is far better.

lincroft1710

jon81uk said:

I've always thought of Gumtree as being like the classified ads in the back of a newspaper. Buy in person, with cash. Anything sent via Paypal might be a scam. For buying goods online eBay is far better.

Their TV ads seem to imply collect in person.

donnac2558

Yes, Gumtree has always been face to face buying.   But people ignore and that is how the scammers make money.

JMKelley

Gumtree has unfortunately attracted a lot of scams over the past year. As others have said, buy in-person.