Facebook Marketplace scam - Buyer breached the contract

Seaglasscollecter88

Hello! Looking for some legal advice/any advice really. My sister sold her iPad on Facebook marketplace yesterday for £300 and (stupidly) agreed to post it to the buyer. They said they have transferred but NO money has been received and they keep insisting they are going to the bank to make sure it goes through. But unfortunately my sister has already posted the iPad first class with Royal Mail before she received the payment and Royal Mail are unable to intervene and stop the package from being delivered. She's worked out this is obviously a scam and they aren't likely to pay her, but I know this is a breach of the buyers contract as they did not pay for their goods. Is this something we could pursue with the police as a fraud case? And what could we expect to receive if we did take it to the small claims court? Any help is appreciated!

user1977

Not necessarily fraud, just a debt, the police aren't going to be interested. Small claims for the amount due (assuming it's a real name and address, which it may well not be).

Aylesbury_Duck

As above, if payment isn't forthcoming, small claims is her only route but for that she'll need the name and address of the person she's taking action against.

Where has it been sent to?  Worth visiting to ask for payment?  Without putting herself in danger, of course.

Sandtree

user1977 said:

Not necessarily fraud, just a debt, the police aren't going to be interested. Small claims for the amount due (assuming it's a real name and address, which it may well not be).

No intent to pay is fraud, or at least in the financial services world its treated as such and results in CIFAS loadings etc. 

They can report it to Action Fraud if they want but its unlikely to result in much action and any action that does occur is more about stopping it happening to someone else.

The route to getting the money is to go to the county court but that will require that you were given a genuine name and address else you are adding to your losses. In theory you can do both but if you have a genuine name you may well find those who are arrested etc have less resources to pay claims etc. 

user1977

Sandtree said:

user1977 said:

Not necessarily fraud, just a debt, the police aren't going to be interested. Small claims for the amount due (assuming it's a real name and address, which it may well not be).

No intent to pay is fraud

Yes, but (as far as we can tell) there's no evidence of that, let alone anything provable beyond reasonable doubt. They just haven't paid yet.

Seaglasscollecter88

They basically made this whole transfer system up and my sister believed it because she's quite young. But they said they'd sent the money to 'Natwest' to hold the money and then provided us with a fake email for 'Natwest' and said to email 'Natwest' the proof of postage and then Natwest would issue the payment to her. We have their postage address and name but whether this is real we don't know. Unfortunately it's a Manchester address and we're near London so we aren't really able to chase them down. 

JJ_Egan

What sort of premises ?.

A lot of these Facebook type scams are to non residential .Have you looked on Google maps ?

Seaglasscollecter88

JJ_Egan said:

What sort of premises ?.

A lot of these Facebook type scams are to non residential .Have you looked on Google maps ?

Yeah you're right it looks like a park space but it's near a block of flats. Just wondering whether its worth pursuing in the small claims court or not as its likely the name and address were probably fake.

y3sitsm3

Seaglasscollecter88 said:

JJ_Egan said:

What sort of premises ?.

A lot of these Facebook type scams are to non residential .Have you looked on Google maps ?

Yeah you're right it looks like a park space but it's near a block of flats. Just wondering whether its worth pursuing in the small claims court or not as its likely the name and address were probably fake.

Well if the name and address are indeed fake you're flushing money down the toilet. If they're not fake you'd still have to win and enforce the debt, which depending on how clued up the individual is could be an expensive and fruitless exercise.

It's highly unlikely the details are real. If it were me I wouldn't bother, as annoying as that might be.