Help. I think buyer is trying to scam me using fake Bidpay email!

comdw

Somebody used buy it now on a mobile phone I had on ebay. They emailed me saying they'd like me to ship to Nigeria as it was for a birthday present. I sent them back details of the postage cost for Nigeria and they said they would pay by postal order if I gave my address.

Now I've received an e-mail supposedly from Bidpay telling me that my postal order is ready and I must now send the item and give them the tracking number before they release the postal order to me. Its so obviously a fake - full of spelling mistakes and comes from a strange email address.

I just want to know how to handle this what I should do next - is it even worth e-mailing the buyer again or should I go straight to ebay?

I've pasted the email below as a warning to others, and in case anyone's interested (I've blanked out some of my details with ****s):

From: Bid pay [postal_order_uk@mail2Consultant.com]
Sent: 27 August 2005 01:59
To: ********@yahoo.co.uk

<BIDPAY BANNER IMAGE>

BIDPAY IN CONJUNCTION

WITH
<EBAY LOGO>

Dear Martin *****,
Thanks for using BidPay®,well,this is the right BidPay®,your money is £62.91pounds,for ebay item#6427421081,and the money is paid in by Ashley Rose.Due to the fact that most sellers don't send the item despite the fact that buyers have paid for the item,so we made the policy that sellers must ship out items withing 24 hours of payment and send us the tracking number for verification.
You are not expected in any circumstances to send the tracking number to the buyer.
Below is the address where the postal order will be sent to.if the address is correct pls mail us back.

Martin ****
****** Court,
Bath Road,
Maidenhead,
Berkshire,
SL6 ***
United Kigdom.


This is the sample of the postal order that will be deliver to you after we have receive the shipment tracking number from you.

<Picture of postal order>

If we did not hear from you the payment will be retune back to the buyer,and we are waiting for you to ship the item and mail us the shipment tracking number so that we can send out your payment.
Thank you for using BidPay®. We look forward to serving your online
auction payment needs in the future.
Sincerely,
BidPay®

---

REPLY TO THIS EMAIL. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS PLEASE
postal_order_uk@mail2consulatant.com

sfboy

Report it as a non-paying buyer, same happened to me, I never ship items outside the UK. ebay will refund your fees, just report it as item not payed and under the action you wish to take click 'do not wish to communicate with buyer further' they will receive a NPB strike (3 of these and they get kicked of ebay) you will receive all your Final value fees back. Atmitedly I don't know if you get you listings fees back.

bleugh

you will only get final value fees back, ebay makes a lot of profit from scammers!

play along with the nigerian a little, they'll offer up a prepaid fed-ex label
- ring fedex to check that the account number is genuine (it often isn't), and then pester the buyer for a genuine account number, once you get a genuine one, ship 'em a brick or something, they have to pay the post and the customs fees!

comdw

sfboy wrote:

Report it as a non-paying buyer, same happened to me, I never ship items outside the UK. ebay will refund your fees, just report it as item not payed and under the action you wish to take click 'do not wish to communicate with buyer further' they will receive a NPB strike (3 of these and they get kicked of ebay) you will receive all your Final value fees back. Atmitedly I don't know if you get you listings fees back.

The buyer has now been negged by another seller for the same reasons.

However I can't open an UPI dispute until 7 days after the transaction, even though ebays page on the process says there is an exception to that rule if the buyer wanted shipping to another country when I said UK only. Am I doing something wrong?

s30jok

Stick a couple of phone books in a box and send it off pay the minimum to send it and on the customs declaration put high value worth $500 so at the other end he has to pay lots of tax and then in 2 weeks time have a little snigger to your self knowing he has just forked out alot of money for some nice english phone books!!! He HEE