Purchase Scam?

[elwood127]

Hey all, there's a scam going on. Here's the request from the purchaser and an explanation of the scam from an AK'er. Beware.


Thanks for your mail and i accept your price..I am a collector..I am into buying and selling..I will arrange for shipping myself..My shippers will pick up the item at your home,so you don't need to worry about shipping..I will be sending you the money for your item with some excess amount...As soon you receive the money,you are to deduct the money of your item and send the rest to my shipping company who will be coming to pick up the item at your home...If you agree to my terms..You are to send me your paypal acoount information and your phone number so that i can order my payment agent to transfer the money into your paypal account and as soon as you receive payment,I will like to know your convinience time for my shippers to pick up the parts thanks and hope to hear from you soon.

AK'er input.

you have a nice piece of gear (say Marantz no 9 amps)
you give the scammer your e-mail address to send PayPal money to
the scammer transfers money from some foreign country
the scammer calls you asking "did you get my money?"
you say "yes"
the scammer say, "hey I got one of my guys in the hood, can they pick up the gear, since they're around?"
you, the nice gullible fellow say "sure, why not"
three seconds after you hang up the door bell rings and a goon with a grin on his face says "here to collect those two marantz model 9 tube amps?, did you get a call?"
you say "SURE DID!!!!!, HERE THEY ARE!!!"
goon with grin takes your prized amps off your hand and calls the scammer to say "boss!, got the shit!!!"
scammer logs onto PayPal and cancels payment claiming a whole bunch of crap.
you log onto PayPal and and seeing the money gone go http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/images/smilies/wtf.gif
you contact PayPal and they say http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/images/smilies/music.gif
next day you check fleabay and a nice pair of model 9s is listed for a cool pricehttp://www.audiokarma.org/forums/images/smilies/banana.gif
good luck getting your gear back after your explanation to the cops that you handed over your 9s for nothing to some goon who showed up at your door and asked for them

[duaneage]

Ebay is having issues with people claiming they got junk and asking for their money back. paypal of course lets them have a refund. You can't even leave negative feedback any longer for these people.

Best to go cash and carry. It's a shame but bad people ruin good things. No longer can you market something worldwide and get top dollar while expecting to be paid.
If paypal and ebay didn't completely take the side of the buyer it would be a different matter. How nice of ebay to offer such customer considerations for items they don't own. If they had a financial stake in it and lost even a small percentage of what an item costs they would have a different opinion.

The new rules about 2 week lockdowns on the funds is an open invitation to fraud too.