Scammer or just confused?

soolin

Short story version - and this is Facebook marketplace. 

mrs X buys my item and we agree a price of £10 with postage. I offer PayPal Mrs X wants to do a bank transfer, so I get the £10 and I post. Later that evening Mrs X wants to buy a different item , we agree a price of £20 and again she pays by bank transfer (her choice).
An hour later Mr Y contacts me on the same account and says he is Mrs Xs son and his mother has mistakenly bought two things from me so can she cancel the second sale and have a refund. He gives me the bank account details for refund, and I refund the £20, and confirm I have done so. 

A week later, today, Mrs X PMs me and asks where her items are , I reply that her parcel was sent on xx day and in response I get just a question mark -?  I respond by reminding her that she cancelled the second item and I decide to check the tracking on the first parcel. Before I can send the delivery confirmation details she PMs again and says as she cancelled her second item why didn’t I refund her, and would I do it immediately. I pm again, this time pointing out that refund was made and finalised last week, and she responds denying getting any refund. I also send her tracking details and delivery confirmation and she says she hasn’t had the parcel .

I’m beginning to think there is some elaborate scam now so answer a bit sharpish asking whether she is claiming that she hasn’t received either the parcel or the refund and she replies to say she has now suddenly got the refund. She asks again about the parcel and asks whether I have tracking, and I send her the details again and suggest she contacts her delivery office if she still can’t find it. 

I can’t see what’s going on here it’s all rather odd. It can’t be much of a scam as buyer asked to pay by BT and declined PayPal , it’s all gone quiet now so I wonder if rather than a scam it is someone very confused. My OH has read the various messages and pointed out that ‘the son’ writes in an identical manner to Mrs X and is almost certainly the same person. 

forgotmyname

I would say they are testing the waters and found the wrong seller.  Your tracking had them stumped, they do not know
what direction to take next.

Declined Paypal, OK not everyone wants or knows about it, but I wonder if they have abused that enough
to have lost buyer protection?

Can you tell if you were paid and refunded to the same account? Maybe it is all just a mixup he/she had the money
refunded to a different account which confused them. But why ask for tracking if they cancelled?

I would certainly be cautious and keep the messages short and as plain as possible in case its a language issue.

soolin

No updates this morning , no more messages so I’ll sit and wait and see what happens next. I’m going to see if she has any kind of profile on Facebook marketplace.

[Deleted User]

I’ve often found when someone changes their mind they get someone else into the conversation or involved (the son), who turns out to be just the original person.