Car selling paypal fraud?

Hi, i am currently selling my vehicle threw numerous websites, and i got a reply from a 'David Grey' wanting to purchase my vehicle. and it seemed allitle to good to be true. so what do you guys think? here is the message:

Hello Isaiah,

Great reading from you. I am interested in the immediate purchase. I will take it for the price you've mentioned and I will gladly cover PayPal charges from my end.

I can only make the payment via paypal because it's very safe and secure for both of us. In case you don't have a paypal account I'll advice you to register for one at www.paypal.com. I have a private pick-up agent that will contact you in-order to handle the pick-up at any location of your choice once the payment is completed.

Question: I'll like you to tell me more about the present mechanical condition, how often do you service it, mechanical history, have you ever experience any mechanical problem with it before and why are you selling it?

Do you have a linkedin id?
Look forward to reading from you at your earliest convinience.

Best Regards,
David

It's a scam.

The scammer plans to tell you he will pay you for the car plus the shipping. He will tell you that you need to forward the extra money to the "shipper" by Western Union or Moneygram. He will send a fake paypal email stating that you have been paid, but that the money is on hold until you have made the payment to the shipper (which is really a knowing or unknowing accomplice to the scammer who will collect the money and forward most of it to the scammer.)

In reality, of course, no money has been sent, and any money you transfer will be your own. The scammer has no interest in the car, only the cash he wants to steal from you.

Paypal does not have an escrow service. They will not hold money unti something has been shipped--and even when money is on hold (which doesn't happen often) you can still log into paypal and see it in your account--you simply can't withdraw it.

It's been some time since I posted here, but here goes. I got burned last year to the tune of 1700 CDN or so by trying to sell a 3/4 truck online. The buyer said he'd pay via Paypal. At first I thought nothing was wrong as people use paypal all the time to buy things. After he said "Nigeria" in an email I knew it was a hoax. There are no legit emails from Africa, and especially from Nigeria. This ring of scammers uses names like Dane Walker, Robert Williams and Amber Martins. The usual email is as follows, dear seller, I am buying this vehicle for x,y,z relative, funds will be paid by payplal by x amount, as it is safest, x or y pickup agent will pick up the vehicle, due to the nature of my work I am at sea on an "oil rig/ barge/ container ship or other". When you see Pay pal run like hell. Don't try selling vehicles on Craigslist, Kijiji or Autotrader fro past experiences.

Hello everyone, heres a new scam involving paypal moneygram from Sharon Matt Luke [email protected]
267-579-1157

I had a car for sale on craigslist. He wanted to purchase it and he sent what appeared to be authentic receipts from paypal and moneygram, though mistakes were made. The emails and receipts said that money had been deposited into moneygram and that I needed to pay $400 to moneygram through some online_secured email to get the 6 or 8 digit reference number for Moneygram, he couldn't deceide if it was a 6 or 8 digit number. The guy also refused to talk directly to me and only communicated through text. Said he would send his shipper to pick up the car once payment transaction was complete.

Moneygram does use an 8 digit number provided to the sender when they pay. For security purposes they need this number to authorize the transaction. If your not sure, Moneygram can lookup transactions under your name, but they still need the reference number.

The problem was that I went to moneygram and they could not find any payments posted under my name and when I contacted him about it he insisted I had to pay $400 dollars to the email to get the reference number. I told him I would gladly pay Moneygram at Walmart if the money was there, but no luck. He just kept insisting I had to pay online and the money was there reguardless of what Moneygram said.

He also listed some imaginary Moneygram Agent in New York, William Folsom at 75 Rowley St. 13642. No one by that name lives there when I checked. I guess he was supposed to recieve the $400 and authorize provide me with the reference number.

In the end I had a little fun with him but I was still disappointed.

Thanks to all you who posted here for saving me from a bad outcome from a response I received on the sale of furniture on Craig's List. This is the email address of the "purchaser" - Kimberly Hoene <[email protected]>. I'd already become suspicious for several reasons. She made no effort to negotiate either the selling pricing or shipping costs (about +/-1000).The sender of the Pay Pal confirmation was [email protected]. And the syntax of the emails was a bit off. When I googled the name of the hauler, the scammer alerts came up. So now I'm just going to mess with her a little.

The following is the "closing" note I received:

hello,

I already made the payment,so i expect you should have gotten an email alert from PayPal for the confirmation. I will suggest you check your PayPal email in-box or spam box for their emails. I need you to help me out cause i got a message from the hauler agent that will come for the pickup that i need to pay a total commission of about $750 to there HQ before the pickup can be registered and it should be paid via western union ONLY and due to the nature of my work It's hard to make a phone calls and visiting of website so i added an extra fee of $750 to the total payment which i need you to help wire the funds to the pick up agent which can only be done via western union . I am sorry i should have informed you but i only got the urgent message from the pick up agent that they will need the funds before they can come to pick up when i was about making payment.So i notified PayPal about the situation of our deal and i was assured accurate security will be put on this transaction that you are required to follow some instructions before the funds will be made available to you which i was told you have been notified with the steps.I also added $100 the western union charges.Please do this favor for me by getting the fee to my pickup agent and get back to me if there's anything you need to know more......Below is the pickup agent information...

William Folsom
75 Rowley str, Gouverneur,
New York 13642.

Put our vehicle up for sale £18,000 but received this scam prior to it even going live as an advert.

The scammers either work at Manheim (Motors.co.uk) or pass on your details to an outsider.

Had a Brian Wilson, same format for scam other than he said he was buying the car for his son who had just graduated and it was to be a gift for his hard work.

Amazing considering my Advert had not even and at this time, still isn't live on their website.

Checked with PayPal and they said they do not offer seller protection and would never recommend that you use their service to receive payment for a car sale.

They said either use cash or direct payment into your account (BACS).

hi, just had a buyer that ticked almost everything that you guys are saying.

"Thanks for getting back to me,I would have loved to call you directly but due to the nature of my work we do not have access to phone at the moment,which is why I contacted you with internet messaging facility

Does it have any faults I should be aware of?

Why are you selling it?
I'll ad an extra $200 if you take the ad down.

I am organizing a courier now,

I will be paying you through PayPal to your nominated bank account or better still is if you have a PayPal account ,please get back to me with your BSB and account details or PayPal account so i can proceed with the payment nd contact the courier agent who will come to pick it up and deliver it in NT for me .Await your reply"

after a few emails, the last email was this:

Hope i can trust you?

I need to inform you about this,I just received an email from my pick up agent headquarter in China...Am most sure i did not include that in my previous email,And they said they won't come for the pick up unless i pay the agent commission fee first in order to be able to schedule a pick up time.I am a Operating Manger as my position on the Rig here,I am so busy and can not pay the agent fees from here as they Requested that i pay them with western union So what i will do here is that i will send the payment in the total amount of $16,800.00 AUD. So once you receive the confirmation of the payment from PayPal,you will deduct the promised amount for the item which is $14,700.00 AUD and the remaining $2,000.00 AUD will be send down to my agent by Western Union.the extra $100 is main for the western union charges.I will like to have your number so i can text you as soon as the payment has been made

^^^^ Thank you for posting. Can you post the email addresses and/or phone numbers they are using in case other victims are searching?

The same person is also using [email protected] as a fake email address. Similar intro email wanting to buy my car and looking to use paypal. Same story but this time working for New Zealand Oil and Gas. I initially googled just the name and nothing came up except a songwriter called Christian Phipps. So then I googled his name, then the New Zealand Oil and gas and then scam and instantly got through to a dedicated site about this guy, which then brought me here.
Maybe goes to show that just googling the name isn't enough. There was too much other info on the email that looked dodgy for me and nobody buys a car unseen and uses the word 'freighters' with regard to pick up and delivery.
I suppose my only concern is that he now has my email address and that makes me a target for further hacking and possible hassle, even if I just ignore him, Time to change those passwords!