Gumtree/ Paypal scam - [email protected]

Hi guys. Same situation. Selling Some music equipment on gumtree and within minutes of posting, received a text saying:

Hi is ur i.t.e.m still up for sale, pls email me on ([email protected]) cheers.

I tried to text back but message failed to send for some reason. These are the emails I received when I replied to Mike Kay's email address:

Great! please consider it sold and cancel every other appointment regarding it,i am buying it as gift for my son that just graduated from the college and i am ready to pay your full asking price, i have gone through your advertisement and i am satisfied with the condition i will be glad if you can get back to me with some pics if available,sadly i won't be able to come for the inspection and pick up due to my present condition now,but i want you to be rest assured as i will arranging for the pick up agent who will be inspecting it and get all thing taken care at your preferred location.
Regarding the payment i can only pay via PayPal at the moment and I will be responsible for all the PayPal fee/charges on this transaction kindly get back to me with your PayPal email and the pick up location so that i can inform the courier agent about it now?
Awaiting your reply soon..

I will need your paypal email address so that i can proceed with the payment

That's perfect!!I've contacted the courier agent so I'm waiting for their response. I will make the payment once i get a response from the agent shortly and i will email you once it has been completed! In order to avoid mistakes could you confirm the exact amount that i need to send into your PayPal account?

Am glad to inform you that i have already made the payment! PayPal said that they have sent you a confirmation email so kindly check the inbox,spam or junk folder of your email as I sometimes get the confirmation there ( My email address ) I had a little issue with the agent they said they can only schedule the pick up date and time after they receive their pick up fee in their head office via money gram,but due to my condition now i'm unable to get to a outlet to send it. I added the #300 they charged for the pick up and #40 for the money gram charges,you will receive the total sum of #1,240.
You'll send #300 to them via money gram today and here is the details needed for the transfer below:

Name : Yanlei
Surname : Wang
Address : 10 ding fu jia yuan
City: Beijing
State : Beijing
Zip Code: 100024
Country : China.

I will need the full address of where it will be picked up now,as my pick up agent will contact you to book a pick up time after they have received payments but they will have to book a time that is convenient for you

The next morning I received a text message saying:

Dear Chris, we've detected unauthorised access to your PayPal account. Please log in at https:// pay palgb .com/ to unlock your account.

Unfortunately I was stupid enough to confirm a load of personal information. I got a little suspicious in second thought and replied to the so called PayPal emails.
The address was [email protected] with the letter R in a circle at the end which transpires is not a real or genuine PayPal address:

Thank you for contacting us regarding your transaction ( Transaction ID: 72W56358RF799193C ),We have checked and gathered that you have a pending transaction, we have already deducted the total sum of £1,240.00 GBP from the buyer's account and the buyer does not have access to the funds at this stage of the transaction so your money is safe and secure with us,you do not have to worry because you are fully protected with PayPal,we are taking these security measures in order to protect both parties involved in this transaction from fraudulent activities and PayPal scam. Kindly go to the nearest Money Gram shop/your local Post office with cash to complete this transaction
We implore you to complete the Money Gram transfer for the sum of £300.00 GBP and get back to us with the details of the transfer as soon as possible so that we can credit your account immediately.Thanks

I called PayPal on their real number and confirmed I was being completely scammed and that they would never encourage customers to use money gram. I went silent a stopped any contact, then received this:

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!! Hi I am beginning to get worried about the transaction, i have already made the payment and the whole money has been deducted from my account which is very vivid on my statement, I have email PayPal about your account accreditation and they let me know that you need to firstly send the courier agent fee to them via money gram money transfer and get back to them with the transfer receipt you use to send the money to the agent via money gram and once they received it they will credit your account with the full payment immediately. you need to understand that PayPal is using the security measure to protect both buyer and seller and that is why you are require to send the money gram details to them alone ,NOT me , so please why are you doing these to me, Put yourself in my shoe, my account have been deducted and i have not heard anything from you if you've send the agent fee or not.. I trusted you that is why i sent the money to you in the first place so please don't let me regret trusting you as im sure you received all the confirmation of payment from PayPal , Ive done my part in other to complete this transaction so please do your part too by getting the agent fee send to the name and address given to you via money gram money transfer and get back to PayPal with the necessary details for them to verify and confirm and they will credit your account with the full payment immediately for withdrawal... Please i need your urgent response...

What happened out for these low lives, I've has other emails from people asking if they can send a courier and I won't touch with a barge poll

Hello,

Sorry to hear about your situation.

The paypal email was fake. If you will take a look at the header you would see that the sent address is different. The scammer made an email account using Paypal as his "name". For example [email protected] <ccisopihs@gmail,yahoo, etc.com>

Domain Name: PAYPALGB.COM
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 48
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com
Name Server: DNS1.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS2.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS3.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS4.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Name Server: DNS5.NAME-SERVICES.COM
Status: clientHold https://icann.org/epp#clientHold
Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 16-aug-2016
Creation Date: 15-aug-2016
Expiration Date: 15-aug-2017

I recently posted an add on gumtree and received 2 emails that were almost identical one from a Lennon Lewis claiming he lives in NT and a Andy Kim from NZ. Now I thought it was strange just the way it was written so I googled the names and this site and a few other stories regarding fraud and these 2 names now both are also musicians and have no ligit Facebook, linked in or anything. So I knew they were scammers so I played them and when finally saying sorry I don't have PayPal or a current bank account and can only accept cash upon pick up I never herd from them again. Lennon went as far as sending me a photo of his drivers license with personal details in which I believe are as real as Lennon and Andy!
Just want to warn people as these people are ruthless heartless criminals that have clearly grown up with no guidance morals or consious!
One day KARMA will return what is owed.
GUMTREE & PAYPAL SCAM

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On 20 Aug 2016 5:16 pm andy kim <[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks for getting back,i'm cool with the price likewise the condition as described on the advert,i work with New Zealand Oil and Gas (NZOG) and we are presently offshore in New Zealand Taranaki Basin on kupe project.We do not have access to phone at the moment and that's why I contacted you with internet messaging facility.Regarding the payment,i will be paying you through PayPal linked up with my westpac bank account,please get back to me with your paypal details so i can process the payment,you can alternatively send your bsb acct name and number if you have no PayPal acct.I have also contacted my courier who will come for pick up and deliver it to my place in Darwin after the whole fund has been cleared into your acct.

Await your reply


please get back to me with your payment details..as soon as the funds is cleared into your account my pickup urgent will contact you to organize a suitable time and date for the picking up

Yup guess who's trying to scam me for the second time this week. Lennon Lewis AKA Paul Manion. This guy should be caught!

We just had the same thing happen but luckily checked here. We're in Australia (VIC) and had some woman pretending to be a mum of her daughter in China who needed the camera gear we were planning on selling as a gift for her child finishing top of the class. She responded almost immediately after we posted, said that she would pay for shipping and pay via Paypal. All seemed like it could've been true but there were a few weird things. She messaged immediately back every time and was ignoring a lot of details that were in the original posting.

When we finally messaged back saying it sounded like a scam, radio silence. Hope we can stop others from getting caught out and thanks again for posting on her. The email was [email protected].

Hey all, I just wanted to add another scammer onto the ever growing list - email address [email protected] but used the name 'Stan' to message me on gumtree.

I posted an ad looking for an iPad Pro in my local area, got a response from the above offering a device for £430 and said he could post due to the 3+hr distance between us. I said I would only pay by PayPal and asked if he would send it through a trackable service - he agreed. After sending (which I can now only guess are stolen) photos of a device I sent the payment.
That was the last I heard from him despite asking for tracking or an update the following days.

Obviously I started getting worried and sent him an email to the above address saying I would take action if I didn't hear back, he responded with 'I never sold a iPad Pro!!!' - I immediately opened a dispute on PayPal, reported him to gumtree and then action fraud.
To my disbelief he had the audacity to respond on PayPal saying I had collected an iPhone days earlier and that that's what the payment was for (despite me referencing the payment with iPad Pro!). After back and fourth with trying to contact PayPal customer service with no help at all, and no way of uploading the emails he sent of him agreeing to post an iPad, I knew he knew how to get away with this scam & after 2 weeks PayPal closed the case in his favour simply because he had said I'd collected - which I hadn't. I sent numerous emails off again to their customer team telling them that this wasn't the usual buyer/seller dispute - he was a scammer. And I opened an appeal.

Days later they asked me to send in all my evidence, which I did over about 3 days. I believe they asked him for the same but he obviously didn't have any evidence as he handnt stuck to his end of the agreement. I've been waiting almost 2 weeks and out of the blue I had an email from PayPal last night saying they are issuing me a refund for the transaction after reviewing the evidence.

I'm elated. I was very disappointed with PayPal's lack of support and lack of investigating before initially closing the case. I'm happy I've managed to get my money back but I know not all are as lucky. These people are scum, have no morals and live off of other people's money, and no doubt by knowing these loopholes they obviously get away with a lot of cash. The nerve of this person was beyond belief! He said he had texts off me, met me in person and that he 'wasn't playing this game' - how they can behave like this after stealing near £500 from someone is shocking.

Now I know how 'popular' these scams are its made me so much more wary online. I'll never send money for goods from gumtree again only cash on collection.
Not sure if having a business account for the last 2-3 years with no disputes/claims/charge backs filed against me came into their decision at all. But it can't have hindered.

If you've been scammed, keep all the messages, screenshot them, save any pictures they may send and go straight to action fraud so you have a crime number. If the claim is closed in their favour before being able to upload documents, appeal the decision and phone PayPal customer services straight away.

AVOID - [email protected] is a scammer!!!!!!