Paypal Scam (via Gumtree)

This is one scam I did not fall for but I'll explain how to spot the scam, on account of the scammer wasting precious minutes of my life.



I posted an ad on Gumtree.sg selling a GPS device. Someone who named himself/herself Patrick Martins ([email protected] ) expressed interest via this email:

Hello i am Mr P Martins from United State Of America how are you today and how are
your families ? hope all is good ? well i am interested in buying the item for my daughter in United Kingdom, because it my daughter that need it and i hope she would like it , so kindly get to me with the total
cost of the item including the shipping cost to her address below with post office, i pay through either Paypal or Bank transfer ok reply soon.

First Name :Justina
Middle Name-Patrick
Address : block 6,Garden F North gate House
City : London
Zipcode : SE172BN
Country : United Kingdom

Thanks and have a blessed
day

I then quoted the cost and requested that the scammer pay me through Paypal. The money was to be credited to my friend's Paypal account. And this is what I get:

Hello am happy to tell you that I have made the payment into your paypal account,kindly check your email both inbox,spam and junk email for the payment confirmation from paypal what you have to do now is that you get the item shipped and send the Shipment receipt and Tracking Number to paypal for verification and after paypal verify the Shipment the money will be fully credit into your account thanks reply asap..

The email from "Paypal" apparently ended up in my Gmail spam folder. At first glance, the email address and content seems legit, save for the title. The content included some fancy graphics, including the Paypal logo.

***P Martins Has Paid For An Auction***?(Ship Now).
[email protected] to -friend's email here-, me show details

Dear Valued Customer,
This message is originated from paypal company. We have received an order from our client ([email protected]) making a payment into your paypal account (-friend's email here-)

Description:GOODS

Amount -$394.00 SGD


Buyers Verified Shipping Address
First Name :Justina
Middle Name-Patrick
Address : block 6,Garden F North gate House
City : London
Zipcode : SE172BN
Country : United Kingdom


The payment has been successfully made but due to security reason we have to receive the shipment tracking number before the next 24 hours for the processing of your order.

This a new measure we are taking to protect both our sellers and buyers against fraudulent customers.Once you have shipped the item send us the shipment tracking number for verification after the number has verify your account will be credited instantly.This PayPal® payment has been deducted from the buyer's account and has been "APPROVED" but will not be credited to your account until the shipment reference/tracking number is sent to us for shipment verification so as to secure both the buyer and the seller. Below are the necessary information requested before your account will be credited. Send tracking number to us or email us through this mail [email protected]


**PLEASE NOTE **
Once shipment has been verified and the tracking number sent to us, You will receive a "CONFIRMATION Email" from PayPal® informing you that the Money has been credited.Note: eBay and Paypal will be responsible for the item loss or damage once we recieve the tracking number
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team


PayPal, an eBay company
Copyright‚© 2005-2009 PayPal. All rights reserved.


Copyright © 2005-2007 PayPal. All rights reserved.
PayPal (America) Ltd. is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in the United States as an electronic money institution.
PayPal FSA Register Number: 226056

Have you spotted the clues to a scam yet? The obvious clues:
1. The fact that the email ended up in a spam folder
2. The lousy title. Why do scammers love to use asterisks in the titles? (i.e. ***** TITLE ****** )
3. The poor english
4. [email protected]? Can't Paypal use its own domain?
5. Edited so as to not educate the scammers. It is sufficient to say that you posted the information as you received it. Colors are correct. ~Bubbles
6. Edited so as to not educate the scammers. It is sufficient to say that you posted the information as you received it. ~Bubbles

The not-so-obvious clues:
1. "Paypal" addressed this to both my friend's email and mine. But wait, the Paypal account isn't even mine. How does Paypal know I'm my friend's friend?

2. Upon clicking "show details", this shows up:
from [email protected] [email protected]
-friend's email here-
-my email here-

date Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 2:21 PM
subject ***P Martins Has Paid For An Auction***(Ship Now).
mailed-by gmail.com
signed-by gmail.com

[email protected] isn't even the address at all, it's the NAME of the account. The real address is [email protected].

3. Paypal credits money to the seller INSTANTLY. It's a payment method, not an auction site like eBay which offers buyer/seller protection.

I edited a little bit of information so scammers are not educated and able to improve. If there are questions, PM me. ~Bubbles

Welcome to ScamWarners hxhxhx. Thank you for posting this scam. The person who the item is to be shipped to is often a person who is a victim too. They are called "mules" because they carry part of the scam. Often they do not know they are being used in this way. They have been caught in a different type of scam.

Scammers count on victims not knowing the way the systems work. We do appreciate it when scammers make obvious mistakes and we try not to educate them as to their mistakes. Thank you for helping the fight.

Also we discourage people from messing with scammers who have their real information. I am glad you have stopped with this one.

Hi Bubbles, I don't mind the edit. Thank you for explaining how the scam works too, as this is the first of its kind I have received.

I am only more careful as I have been scammed once in the past (Thankfully not of too much money) and I hope that others will not have to go through the same thing to learn their lesson.

Hi,

I am from Malaysia and I received an email which had raised many questions in my mind. I searched for the recipient's mailing address and I landed here. Thank you for letting me know it is a scam.

Here is the email I received:

Hello i am Mr Ben Willson from United State Of America how are you
today and how are
your families ? hope all is good ? well i am interested in buying the
item for my daughter in United Kingdom, because it my daughter that
need it and i hope she would like it , so kindly get to me with the
total
cost of the item including the shipping cost to her address below with
post office, i pay through either Paypal or Bank transfer ok reply
soon.




First Name :Justina
Middle Name-Patrick
Address : block 6,Garden F North gate House
City : London
Zipcode : SE172BN
Country : United Kingdom

I did reply his email but his second email is much more strange. I will not post it here as not to educate the scammer.

Anyway I do know it is the scam because he is using the same email contents and mailing address as with hxhxhx but different email sender's name. How many father does Justina Patrick has?

Hi Amy, it's definitely the same guy! I'm glad this was of help to you

Hi Amy,

Please do post the second email here. Posting it here won't educate the scammer--he already knows what he wrote. It may help someone else though. What we avoid doing is openly pointing out everything that is wrong with the email--that is how we educate the scammer, because then he fixes those things.

Hi Amy, it's definitely the same guy! I'm glad this was of help to you

Yes, thank you so much for the heads up. I believe many people spotted this scammer but did not realize how it would be a help to others just by spreading the news.

Hi Amy,

Please do post the second email here. Posting it here won't educate the scammer--he already knows what he wrote. It may help someone else though. What we avoid doing is openly pointing out everything that is wrong with the email--that is how we educate the scammer, because then he fixes those things.

Hi Dotti,

Unfortunately I have deleted the second email, but he is using [email protected].

His first email was given a subject title "Red Kebaya".

I replied his first email by quoting the shipping rate and asked for the specific model, colour and size of the item he was interested to purchase.

He replied me with the colour (white this time and not red) and size but without the model and preferred to pay by PayPal. He sounded very urgent and would like to pay immediately.

hxhxhx stated that the scammer tried to get the item sold for free by creating a fake payment notification but I personally think the scammer has a better idea than that. This is because the item he wanted to purchase from me is a woman's garment and if what he wanted was to get something for free, then why did not he target for something better than an outfit?

What I am concern about if he could do a hacking to PayPal or any online banking website. I think what he wanted was the money in the account and not the garment - as for my case.

I never really cross-check the details of my customers but this one sounded very fishy that I felt I need to verify it before giving out my account details.

If the item is jewelry or small electronics (phones, laptops, ipods, etc.) the scammer is often after the item.

For other things, he is not after the item, and he is not hacking your paypal account (this type of scammer doesn't have the hacking skillls). He is running a typical overpayment scam.

His plan is to send a fake paypal notification saying that he sent you money, but it will be MORE than your asking price. For example, if you asking price is $250, you may get a fake paypal notification saying that he transferred $350. He will say that the extra $100 is for his "shipper" with instructions to send the money (by western union or moneygram) to the "shipper." The notification will say that the money has been withdrawn but will only be released to you after you have proof of shipping, i.e. you have paid the "shipper."

The "shipper" is either the scammer himself, or a mule who collects and forwards the money (sometimes thinking he has a legitimate job collecting payments for a company) to the scammer. Nobody will ever show up for the item, because the scammer doesn't want it. All he wanted was the cash.

Of course in reality, paypal does not act as a go-between, and they don't hold money for anyone. A paypal transfer is instant. Paypal would also never send you to Western Union or moneygram, or even instruct you to make bank-to-bank transfers, as these are all competition to paypal. Paypal gets a percentage of every transaction that goes through them--if they send you to someone else, they are losing money--which they aren't going to do.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Now I wonder if this email is a scam as well.

from Rene david [email protected]
date 7 April 2011 20:28
subject Reply: Monitor Komputer
mailed-by mudah.my

Is this still
available and
how much is the
last price?

from rene david [email protected]
date 8 April 2011 01:27
subject Re: Reply: Monitor Komputer
mailed-by gmail.com
Signed by gmail.com

Thanks for you reply,i am located in Remsenburg city in NY,i really
need to buy this and send to my lson outside the state as a gift .I
have been trying to buy this on ebay but its so very stressful buying
on ebay.I will offer you RM 40 so as to close the auction as soon as
possible.I will be paying through PAYPAL because i have a verified
account with paypal.So kindly get back with your paypal email address
so i can make payment into your paypal account.Once payment
clears,shipment will be handled by me through my personal fedex
account,so you dot have to pay for shipment.

Get back to me if my approval is granted.Thanks

--
hello seller, i really like your item and i am ready to buy it ok..i
will love to know the condition of this item...i will love to read
back from you as soon as possible,cheers i would also like to see the
pictures if available.

Rene David

She would like to pay the exact amount of the item's price but prefer to use personal account for FEDEX. I told her I would get back to her with the invoice from PayPal but I never did.

I never register this as a scam (until I read your explanation) as I have shipped an item before using customer's courier account and it was pretty smooth.

However this time around I never get back to this "customer" because I find it quite troublesome to carry two bulky computer monitors to FEDEX station to export them.

I stared blankly to her email thinking how could one purchase heavy bulky items from Malaysia and ship to US when she can get many similar monitors in NY for cheaper price.

If only it was not a computer monitor, I possibly had responded to her.

It's good that you never got back to the customer, because it is definitely a scam. The writing tells me that the person behind that email is African.


There are actually several things that tell me this is a scam, but I will point one out here that you will see often.

hello seller, i really like your item and i am ready to buy it ok.

Notice how that first email could apply to anything from a wedding dress to a computer. The scammer uses "your item" because he is sending this same email to dozens of sellers, all selling different things, and he doesn't want to take the time to type what you are selling in the email. Most buyers are going ask specific questions about the item and will refer to it by name. He's after a lot of things, and it's too much work to do that.

Guys, this link (personal encounter by someone else) is quite useful to find out what the scammer will do after you have fallen for the scam:

http://forums.sgcafe.com/complaints/103 ... scams.html

Apparently he's after money too.

That's how these scammers work.

If you fall for their scam, they see you as an easy target. They will then try to find ways to get even more from you. As I indicated above, the most common way is in the guise of shipping fees, but it can be paypal fees, like that case, or "taxes" that conveniently have to be paid in order to deliver the product. Sometimes they will even email pretending to be customs, and say that you shipped something illegally and have to pay to stay out of trouble. These are just examples--they will come up with other reasons too.

In the end, it is very simple: in many cases, once a scammer gets anything from a victim (item or money), he will invent reasons to get more and more. He will continue this until the victim finally makes a complete break or he moves on to a more profitable situation.

Hi folks,

recently I have posted some furniture for sale and received three offers in one hour. All of them were from the yahoo.com domain. I have responded to two of them and received prity same answers as you posted here:


""""""""""""""""""""
2012/2/12 Mary Bruder <[email protected]>

give me the list of your furniture that is meanrt for sell on gumtree and there prices

From: me
Subject: Regarding furniture on gumtree.
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Date: Saturday, February 11, 2012, 5:02 PM


Could you please specify the furniture you are interested in. I have listed several items.

--- On Sat, 2/11/12, "my email" wrote:


From: my email
Subject: Re: Regarding furniture on gumtree.
To: "Mary Bruder" <[email protected]>
Date: Saturday, February 11, 2012, 5:53 PM

PLease find delow the list of furniture:


"the list of furniture"

If you need any photo let me know.
Thank you.
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
In onother hour I received next reply:

"yes am buying all Just asking about it to make sure its in good condition.so i want you to assure me i will not be disappointed?As am buying this for my family as a surprise and i also want you to please understand that i wont be around for the inspection of it but i have a mover who will be coming for the pickup and check up as well.Im satisfied with your firm/advert price, As im requesting this transaction should be done via paypal so the paypal charges is on me.Payment will be made via paypal only,im presently out of town for some personal reason due to my work.But i also want you to get back to me with some pics for me to see and also please get back to me with the paypal address for me to make the payment asap."

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The other guy responded in onother way:

"Hi,
I will be needing your email with PayPal for the payment,once payment has been completed,i will have it picked up by an international shipping company as i am having it shipped abroad and they have liaisons with local AU companies in every suburb so getting to you shouldn't be a problem
Regards
Grant.."
'""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Than, I realised that it can be some kind of fraud and googled for the fruad in gumtree and found this website.
Thank you guys for posting all the information regarding paypall fraud.
it really helps to ppl.

please find email addresses of this scammers:
[email protected];
[email protected];
[email protected].

Thumbs up for your effort to report here!

Will be a help to those who google for their email addresses when find something suspicious.

Great you did googled too.