Gumtree Scam

my teenage daughter listed a wristwatch on gumtree for £35 (it's worth about £80 but has never been worn)....

she got a response from a person who wished to purchase it

the person wanted to pay via paypal .... I told my daughter to tell her to post postal orders to the value, (uncrossed and made out in her name) and sent via signed for/special delivery post .... you then have to produce photo id over the counter to instantly receive the cash ....

if the postal orders are crossed, you have to deposit them into your banking account and wait 5 working days for clearance

she received an email from the person involved sataing they have sent the postal orders, then she received an email 'supposidly' from gumtree .... I have used XXXX in the places with the details of my daughter and the recipeint

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[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif] [/FONT]

Dear[FONT=Arial, Verdana][/FONT]xxxxx,
[FONT=Arial, Verdana][/FONT]
Thanks for using Royal mail®,well this is the right payment for your gumtree.com item,has been approved and will be sent to you by the close of the next business day,after we receive the shipment tracking number from you. 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. As soon as this is done,your payment will be sent immediately.
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 not correct please mail us back.
[FONT=Arial, Verdana][FONT=Arial, Verdana][FONT=Arial, Verdana][FONT=Arial, Verdana]
Name : xxxx
xxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxx
United kingdom.

[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
Order Details
***********************************************************
Auction Item Amount £35.00
Shipping and handling £5.00
Royalmail® Service Fees: £ 3.99
Payment Delivery Fees: £ 0.40
Upon approval, a postal order delivered via
First Class® Mail will be received in
approximately 1-2 business days.

Total Charges: £40.00

Amount Due Seller £40.00
***********************************************************

Buyer Shipping Address:


xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx

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

THE EASY AND SAFE WAY TO SEND YOUR SUBSCRIPTION MONEY,IMMEDIATELY YOU SEE THIS MAIL THAT SHOWS THE SAMPLE OF POSTAL ORDER PAID BY A BUYER (xxx xxxx) JUST SHIP THE ITEM AND SEND US THE TRACKING NUMBER.
We are waiting for you to ship out the item and email us the shipment tracking number so that we can send out your payment.

Thank you for using Royalmail® .We look forward to serving your online auction payment needs in the future.
Sincerely,
Royalmail®
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REPLY TO THIS EMAIL. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS PLEASE:[email protected]


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my daughter was in the process of wrapping up the item and was going to take it to the post office .... I asked her what she was doing, and stopped her just in time ....

royal mail tracking numbers consist of 13 digits .... I used to sell full time on ebay and have come accross many scams .... sad that they can conn the very young and the elderly and get away with it

anyway, I sent the person an email from my daughters email account stating that I am her father, and work for the Cambridge constabulary, and will ship the item once the cash cash been exchanged

(I was temped to send a fresh dog turd)

 

Why wouldn't you use paypal?

 

Could be construed as impersonating a Police Officer. Say hello to a few years in the pokey!

In all seriousness Gumtree is full of scammers. There's a crew referred to as the Lichfield Scammers or the Ainsworth Clan who have been raking in up to £20,000 a week by selling iPhones which don't exist. Current advice is not to buy a phone from Gumtree until their trial is over in June.

 

the only time you have protection from paypal is if you buy through ebay

the buyer recieves the item and does a chargeback .... you really struggle to get refunded

i.e. paypal sucks when not buying on ebay

but, buy or sell off ebay, and you are safe .... other to that, I avoid paypal at all costs

http://blog.gumtree.com/paypal-scam-alert/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110321151130AAs6gcH

 

I've reported the transaction to gumtree ... they have already come back to me and have said they are investigating

reason I said I was in the police is that my daughter keeps on getting text messages from the person on her phone

since my mail, that has stopped

 

Did the person really write,like,this? Such a give away!

 

looks convincing if you are a teenager .... funny thing is though, the address where the item is supposed to be sent is in the UK and it's a home address and not a P.O. box number ....

thats what baffled my daughter .... she asked why would the person give his/her home address if they were scamming

 

it has been confirmed by via email by gumtree that this is indeed a scam .... royal mail has also said it is a scam and are investigating

quote:

Hello,

Thank you for your email reporting this to us.

The information you have shared with us does, in our experience, show hallmarks of fraudulent activity and I would strongly advise you to not follow their instructions and end contact with them immediately. Please also simply ignore any demands they are making to send the item.

We take all reports of this nature very seriously. I have used the information that you have supplied to protect others and prevent this person from using Gumtree again.

If you haven’t seen it already you might want to take a look at the safety advice on our Stay Safe pages: http://www.gumtree.com/help/stay_safe. You will also find information on what we are doing to ensure a safe and successful experience on Gumtree.

I am sorry that you had to come across this but thank you very much for taking the time to report it to us so that we can take action and protect others. Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.

 

This is not always the case.You only get a refund if the seller has enough money in their paypal account! We learnt that the hard way when we paid via paypal for a flat screen tv and the seller ( a business with a good reputation) went bust. We lost all our money. :(

 

I have not sold on ebay for the past 3 years, but 3 years ago, a buyer had 45 days to do a chargeback (when buying an item off ebay)

as far as I was aware, as a buyer, you were guaranteed a full refund if the item was not received or 'not as described', or damaged during transit ... irrespective if the seller had any funds in his account ....

and, if the seller did not have funds in his account, paypal would still refund you in full, then prosecute the seller

I may be wrong, but that is the way I understood it, and things may have changed recently

however, it worked different when buying elsewhere and not on ebay .... was a lot harder getting your money back if things went pear shaped

 

The purchase was through Ebay. We lost a lot of money, believe me if there was a way to get it back we would have done it. As it was there was no way.
We've bought and sold a lot of things on Ebay with paypal and this was the only time we lost out.

 

Possibly a house that's been converted into flats, ie with shared front door and porch. Posties just take it to the address, and either just post it (and then it gets pinched) or get anyone to sign for it, and then it gets pinched. Then if anyone comes along asking questions, suddenly nobody knows anything about it.

 

sad .... there's lots of disgruntled people on the internet complaining about paypal ...

it's even worse when you are a seller .... someone leaves you poor feedback, and ebay suspends you for 30 days .... rough if you use ebay as your main source of income

I was pretty lucky (sold in excess of 3000 items) .... out of every hundred, 1-2 used to go pear shaped ....

I've been scammed many times but soon learned the tricks ... the last one was where a guy in the US bought an expensive antique mantle clock .... it had been working perfect for more than 10 days in my own home

he recieved the item and stated it would not work ... I refunded in full plus paid the £45 to have it returned from the USA via Fedex

took it to a clock shop in London, and the guy said there is no way it could work, as it did not have the balance spring

checked the guy's feedback .... he had bought a similar clock several months earlier that was sold without a balance spring, and was sold for repairs/broken

in the beginning, I also had several people complaining that they never received the item .... soon after that, all items were sent via special delivery (people had to sign for the item)

 

That's pretty much correct if you don't get your item or if it's not correct etc then you will receive a full refund from paypal (after a number of days of a case being open) if the seller doesent have enough funds available in there paypal account then paypal will pursue the seller via a debt collection agency