Paypal fraud by buyer on Gumtree website

Sab2020

I recieved another fake email yesterday that he tried to look like it was from Paypal as per below, but I am not selling anything to him anymore!!!:

service@paypal.co.uk <safepay_onlineservices@accountant.com>

To:xxx

Wed, 6 May at 14:27

 

  Hello XXX,

We truly Apologize for our late response regards to your recent Transaction as we have been encountering a Technical Error recently. We are contacting you to let you know that an additional payment of £270.00 GBP has been added to your Pending Payment, so the total amount of £710.00 GBP is available to be credited to your Account.

 Perhaps We want you to know that the money has already been deducted from the buyer account but we pended it from reflecting from your account due to the additional fees that was added, once you send the amount of £270.00 GBP to the Buyer Lawyer's details and get back to us with the Bank Transfer receipt, we shall activate your account without any delay.

The transaction has been screened and has proven to be 100% legal and real. You are hereby advised to go ahead with the transaction and wire out the said fee to the bearer, For security reasons email the Bank Transfer payment receipt to PayPal only and wait till your account is being credited before emailing the receipt to the buyer, therefore you can go ahead with the transaction.

Here is the status of this transaction...

Transfer On Pending...

Transfer Current Percentage Done:    99%

We need your full understanding and cooperation for us to complete the transfer and we look forward to serve you better. 

Sincerely,

The PayPal Team.

Aylesbury_Duck

The grammar in that is laughable...

Just ignore it.

Sab2020

Yes, obviously I am going to ignore this.

shaun_from_Africa

Sab2020 said:

davidmcn said:

Sab2020 said:

I cannot get through to Paypal Customer support to block the fraudster's Paypal account 

Nothing you've told us suggests that they've even got a Paypal account. This has nothing to do with Paypal.

He does have a Paypal account. I have checked.

Just because there is a Paypal account in the name that the scammer used doesn't mean that it is his account.
He may have simply made up a name at random or picked a name to which he knows that there is a Paypal account linked to just in case you checked.
Even if he does have a valid Paypal account in his name, apart from the scammer making false e-mails, no part of the Paypal service has actually been used to perpetrate the scam so they may well not be too interested.

soolin

Sab2020 said:

davidmcn said:

Sab2020 said:

I cannot get through to Paypal Customer support to block the fraudster's Paypal account 

Nothing you've told us suggests that they've even got a Paypal account. This has nothing to do with Paypal.

He does have a Paypal account. I have checked.

I’m struggling to see how you can link this scumbag scammer to a PayPal account, and since it is absolutely nothing at all whatsoever to do with PayPal there is no point in talking to PayPal. The idea that a stranger calls PayPal and says person x is a scammer please block them is rather naive. 

Also I am not surprised scammer is trying a new scam, unfortunately people that fall for an obvious scam are often marked down as gullible and there is always the hope, as far as they are concerned, that you will fall for another one. There is also a chance if this is a professional scammer that your details will be sold on.to others to try different scams. So please watch everything, always understand how to stay safe, question everything and if you are not sure about something come back and ask.  

mikb

Aylesbury_Duck said:

The grammar in that is laughable...

Just ignore it.

"If you think you've received a phishing email, forward it to spoofpaypal.co.uk (so we can investigate) and then delete the fake email from your mailbox."

452

mikb said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

The grammar in that is laughable...

Just ignore it.

"If you think you've received a phishing email, forward it to spoofpaypal.co.uk (so we can investigate) and then delete the fake email from your mailbox."

Isn't there a new government site for fake sites and phishing emails?

George_Michael

452 said:

Isn't there a new government site for fake sites and phishing emails?

This is probably what you are thinking of:
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/report-suspicious-emails
What the OP received isn't a phishing email as such as there doesn't appear to have been any attempt to get they to reveal and passwords or other personal data. It's simply a scam email trying (and succeeding) to defraud them.ip

soolin

mikb said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

The grammar in that is laughable...

Just ignore it.

"If you think you've received a phishing email, forward it to spoofpaypal.co.uk (so we can investigate) and then delete the fake email from your mailbox."

This isn’t a phish, it’s just a rather old common scam . Scumbags are not trying to hack anything, just get gullible people to send goods without paying. 

mikb

soolin said:

mikb said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

The grammar in that is laughable...

Just ignore it.

"If you think you've received a phishing email, forward it to spoofpaypal.co.uk (so we can investigate) and then delete the fake email from your mailbox."

This isn’t a phish, it’s just a rather old common scam . Scumbags are not trying to hack anything, just get gullible people to send goods without paying. 

I didn't say it was a phish, or that anyone was being hacked, I was quoting the contact details for PayPal to report such things (Rather than "just ignore it") -- they actually DO like to know when some chancer is forging emails to appear from them as part of scams/frauds, old or new. Just because a crime is old and common, doesn't preclude it being reported.