Walter Williams [email protected]

Hello All,

I am trying to understand if an email that i have recieved is a scam or not.

My father is selling a car in Portugal, and was contacted by someone that works at sea, and wants to buy his car, paying with pay pal.
I don´t know if this is a scam, because if he transfers the money, we only give him the car if the money is tranfered to our bank account, with a pay pal tranfer.
Are we at risk if we go on with this deal?? If so how?

The guy gave us his adress, his skype so we can talk, so i am really confused with this.

Can anyone help, please.

Bellow you will find the emails we changed:

His first email ( possible Scammer )

Quoting Walter Williams <[email protected]>:
Thanks for the swift response,I'm interested in the purchase and i would like to get it as soon as i can but how long have you owned it and when last was it checked for faults and is there any visible dent/scratch on the body? and i will not be able to come for inspection am a very busy type as i work long hours everyday due to the nature of my job and my present location as i am an hydrographer i have gone through your advertisement and i will make all transportation preparations for the it to be transported to my home in London,UK and i am satisfied with it but what is your actual Price of car and if possible too i will like you to send me some recent photo of the car? Bellow is my home address

Name ;Walter Williams
Address: 2 Elthorne Road
London,Greater London N19 4AG
Post Code: N19 4AG
Phone: +44 7031917741
Country: United Kingdom

Respond to me soon, Regards.

Our response:

Hello Walter,

Find bellow response to your questions.

I have owned the car since 2004, when the car had 130.000 km, at first it was registered in my former companies Name, and last year i have passed it to one of my business artners name.
Tha car has no dents, but has some visible scratches, on the front and rear bumpers, e one on the drivers door.
I never had an acidente, so no major damage has been done.
I am asking for 13.000€, can lower to 12,500€, but the car is im great mecanical shape, all round very good option, i am only selling it because i need the cash rigth now.
All photos were taken last friday afternoon, so they are up to date, and that´s how you'll find the car.

I can take some more detailed photos if you need.

Best Regards,

José Ribeiro

then his response:

Quoting Walter Williams <[email protected]>:
Thanks for your quick response.€12,500.00 EUR is nice and acceptable price and i will be adding the 3.9% PayPal surcharge to the total amount i will be paying you. So i will be paying directly into your PayPal account without any delay, and i hope you have a PayPal account.I can only pay via the fastest and secure way to pay online i.e (PayPal) here, as i do not have access to my bank account online,but i have it attached to my pay pal account, and this is why i insisted on using pay pal to pay.

I have a private courier agent that will come for the pick up after the payment have been made ...so no shipping included and With the issue of my details,transferring the name of ownership and signing of all paperwork will be done by the courier services company agent so you don't have to worry about that.

It will be so sweet if you can send me your PayPal email now so i can pay in right away and also include your address in your reply as i don't really have much time on here.If you don't have a paypal account, you can easily set up one...log on to http://www.paypal.co.uk and sign up its very easy... I would have loved to talk to you on phone but i work mainly on the sea and our phone network is down on the sea right now due to bad stormy weather, that was why i sent you a text, i even wonder how my message deliver to your phone but for now we can only communicate through the same mailing channel.await your reply asap.

Regards


What do you all think?!?!

Best Resgards

Miguel Ribeiro

It's a scam. The phone number shows that he's only pretending to be in England; the writing shows that he's West African. He sends a fake PayPal email saying that PayPal holds the money until you send the shipping fee to the shipper. PayPal does no such thing, and he sends no money by PayPal.

Thanks Vonpaso, for your input.
You just confirm what i suspected.

But i still do not understand what is his gain.
If we did not recieve the money we would never deliver the car. So i don´t understand the gain for this scam?!?

This would only make us loose time, i think, or is there more to it?
I would understand if we had to ship what we sold just with a email confirmation, but if a couriour would pick up the car we would never give them the car with no payment.

We are talking about a 12.500€ car.

I don´t understand the scam.

As vx says.

He will send you a fake (spoofed) mail that makes it look as if he has sent you a PayPal payment - but he hasn't.

It will appear that he has sent you extra money that he asks you to pay to his agent by Western Union, being the cost of collecting the car, but he will collect the money.

It is a very common scam. The scammer will send out hundreds of messages daily.

Guys, Tks for your help.

We really thought it was to good to be true!