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I'm in the process of selling some furniture online.

I use a website called dba.dk, which is the Danish equivalent of eBay (it was actually bought by eBay some years ago). The website is mainstream (almost all Danes use it from time to time) but is also known for being used by scammers, mostly from foreign countries.

I received a message regarding one of the items I'm selling:

Hello,

It is my pleasure to read from you once again. In regards to your email, i am ok with the price and the condition of the furniture as you have stated in your email and i will like to get it as soon as possible. I will be paying via PayPal (www.paypal.com), because it is an Instant payment and secure for online purchases and The furniture will be picked up from you by a private transport company after i have completed all the payment and you have gotten your money. So kindly get back to me with your PayPal details as listed below (Name, PayPal Registered Email & Tel) so that i can proceed with the payment through PayPal.

I wait to read from you.

The message makes me suspicious.

  • It's written in bad English. The text has probably been translated using translation software.
  • The buyer does not want to meet in person but wants to use private transportation. This is especially suspicious in Denmark where private transportation is expensive.

Reasons why I think it might not be a scam:

  • Buyer wants to use PayPal

    I'm afraid this scam might be a version of this.

Any input is much appreciated.

Charles Duffy
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Vingtoft
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    What is the normal way of making a payment on dba.dk ... is it paypal or some other means? – Dheer Jan 16 '18 at 10:20
  • Normally the buyer will pay cash at pick up or using a bank transfer service called MobilePay. – Vingtoft Jan 16 '18 at 10:23
  • Even your bank will never ask for your name or phone. Refuse giving your personal information. – sanaris Jan 16 '18 at 12:28
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    "The furniture will be picked up ... after ... you have gotten your money. " Oh it's definitely a scam. Same as the craigslist scam here ("I will send you money first" etc.) The payment they sent will be reversed (yes payment through PayPal is still reversible), or in the case of checks/money orders, fake. – xiaomy Jan 16 '18 at 17:18
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    If it smells like a scam, it's a scam. – BlackThorn Jan 16 '18 at 19:19
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    If that is the verbatim email and not your translation, that's definitely a scam letter. The language and structure of all these scam letters are very similar and have certain phrases like "my pleasure", and "kindly" instead of "please". – JPhi1618 Jan 16 '18 at 20:28
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    "via PayPal (www.paypal.com), because it is an Instant payment and secure for online purchases" Oddly defensive, no? – Alexander Jan 16 '18 at 21:01
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    Would a real buyer have to justify using PayPal and would they have to explain how a purchase works? – user253751 Jan 16 '18 at 21:56
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    Holy crap! I have no experience with online sales, but I thought I wasn't that gullible. Instead, at the end of this question, I was thinking: "Why do you even worry? They are using PayPal, it can't be a scam!". Boy, was I wrong! And to think that I even know the trick behind these scams - Reading "PayPal" made me turn my brain off. Shame on me! Really, really thank you for asking this question!!! – Fabio says Reinstate Monica Jan 17 '18 at 01:14
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    Just a note, a friend of mine encountered near-identical language when selling items via craigslist in the US. It is likely a form message that scammers use. – BrenBarn Jan 17 '18 at 07:47
  • Maybe you also want to reply to your scammer with your mother maiden name, name of your first pet, kindergarten, and other useful informations. It's for security purpose. – Antzi Jan 18 '18 at 07:31
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    @BlackThorn There needs to be something like Betteridge's law except for scam questions, where the answer is always "Yes" instead of "No"... –  Jan 19 '18 at 19:20
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    @Michael haha you are probably right. Let’s call it Michael’s law – Vingtoft Jan 19 '18 at 19:34
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    @FabioTurati A very good rule of thumb is that Paypal is often safer for the buyer than the seller. – Deepak Jan 20 '18 at 03:37
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    It is my pleasure to read from you once again. In regards to your question, I think not that it could be a scam. Please send the money to me and I will forward it Securely to the esteemed recipient ;) sincerely. – user541686 Jan 21 '18 at 20:58

9 Answers9

90

The way this one works is interesting, and there's a variant of it in the 'states as well:

You receive more money than you're asking for with this item. They ask you to pay their private transport using the 'extra' money they sent you, and maybe even leave a little extra for you for your troubles.

After you send the payment to their 'private transport', a separate entity, the transaction they sent you reverses, even though your transaction to this private transport does not.

It's as if you just paid some random person X amount of your own money.

It's not about the item you're selling. They don't care about it or what the cost is.

The entirety of the scam is getting you to forward some money that doesn't exist (and therefore is covered with your own) to the scammer.

The key to this scam to look out for is there's almost always a 'shipper' or in your case 'private transport' or other separate party that needs to be paid to complete the transaction. There's no legitimate situation where they'd need to send payment to you and have you forward it to someone else, yet most of the time when you get a message like the above, and respond to it, you'll find some barely-reasonable explanation of why a situation like that is going to be necessary.

The first email you receive from a scammer in this kind of situation is fairly hard to identify.

I had a similar one a while ago, but the scammer actually posted an ad claiming to be selling an RV at a too-good-to-be-true price to lure in contacts for the scam.

There's arguably hundreds of variations on this scam, anything from buying/selling an item to being overpaid with a fake cashier's check / money order, etc.

I've had family members actually receive cashier's checks addressed to them in the mail, and followup letters demanding they send a portion of it back, as it was a 'mistake'. The base thing you're looking for in a scam, like this or otherwise, is how they're paying you and whether at some point they try to get you to send money somewhere else.

Community
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schizoid04
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    I don't see how this explains the scam. Either you get a Paypal transfer or you don't. Can Paypal transfers be reversed? – Martin Argerami Jan 16 '18 at 17:57
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    @MartinArgerami In the event of fraud, Paypal transfers can be reversed. Hell there's a lot of consumer protection and dispute stuff that can reverse them, too. It's relatively simple enough to get a compromised Paypal account on the black market. –  Jan 16 '18 at 18:24
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    @MartinArgerami yes, they can, and PayPal tends to side with the buyer against the seller, and always goes against the seller if the account credentials/card was stolen, especially if there's anything shifty-looking about the trans. Their view is the seller should've known. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 16 '18 at 20:29
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    @Harper: could you expand briefly on this? Because it sounds crazy to me. You are saying that if someone clicks on "buy now" on eBay, and pays with a fraudulent account, the seller (which didn't even know of the transaction at the time) is considered "at fault" by Paypal (who got the fraudulent transaction through) because "the seller should have known"? – Martin Argerami Jan 16 '18 at 20:57
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    @MartinArgerami Consider the possibility that Scammer A sends Victim B $1500 on Paypal using a credit card for the paypal payment - Doesn't even really require a paypal account, you can check out as a guest. Credit card transaction bounces / is reversed. Paypal transaction is reversed, guaranteed. I'm sure there are other possible scenarios as well – schizoid04 Jan 16 '18 at 21:02
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    @MartinArgerami seriously? This is widely known to every practitioner in the field. here https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/brc/disputes-claims-chargebacks-and-bank-reversals here https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Archive/payment-reversal-scam/td-p/307072?profile.language=en-gb here https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/chargebacks – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 16 '18 at 21:14
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    Those links mention Paypal's Seller Protection Program, which sounds more reasonable than what you said above: "Paypal always goes against the seller if the account credentials/card was stolen". – Martin Argerami Jan 16 '18 at 22:34
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    @MartinArgerami Even with legitimate transactions and a trail of evidence, if the buyer disputes anything about a transaction, Paypal always rules against the seller. The Seller Protection Program is a scam in itself-- its criteria are impossible to comply with. – Ivan Jan 18 '18 at 21:18
  • There is nothing yet to indicate it was a scam. How can you prove that the person buying it isn't just using a Danish version of fed ex and so they are letting them know not to go through the postal service? There's nothing stating they will be given extra money and there is nothing stating that the seller covers shipping. The only thing they could be doing is stealing the chair being sold and a valid protection for that is to insist that the shipping company sign something at pickup to prove they took it. If payment is reversed then contact local authorities on account of theft or whatnot. – user64742 Jan 18 '18 at 22:01
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    Why can't you just withdraw the money before the payment gets reversed? – user541686 Jan 19 '18 at 01:42
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    @Mehrdad you can try to do that, but you'll end up with a negative balance. You're still responsible for paying that back. Paypal reserves the right to bill any bank account or credit card on record for a negative balance, by the way. – schizoid04 Jan 19 '18 at 04:37
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    Long story short, don't ever sell anything on eBay. Only buy – mike3996 Jan 19 '18 at 07:20
  • @MartinArgerami Seller protection is limited to US sellers and items shipped through a shipping company providing proof of delivery. – Dmitry Grigoryev Jan 19 '18 at 09:23
  • @DmitryGrigoryev Seller protection is not limited to US sellers, but it definitely requires proof of postage. The same goes for buyer protection, and in fact at least here in the UK, the Distance Selling Regulations provide more protection than when buying goods in person. – Chris Peacock Jan 19 '18 at 11:45
  • Sorry, but it's far more likely that the paypal account is hacked (or backed by a bad card). They won't bother to reverse the transaction, they'll just ditch it after they've got the goods, or failing that after the OP has sent them some transaction money via Western Mail. – Valorum Jan 21 '18 at 00:14
  • @Valorum that much was implied. No one's saying the scammer manually reverses the transaction. They use a bad card, hacked account, etc that would end up being reversed when the bad card bounced, hacked account reported suspicious activity, etc. – schizoid04 Jan 21 '18 at 06:24
  • @schizoid04 - Your answer outright states that the next action will be a reversal "the transaction they sent you reverses". That seems vanishingly unlikely. – Valorum Jan 21 '18 at 09:56
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    @Valorum As others have stated, and even cited external sources for, no, it is very likely that a fraudulent transaction would be reversed by paypal or other financial institution after it was sent to the victim from the scammer. That's the entire basis behind many 'forwarding' scams. – schizoid04 Jan 21 '18 at 16:28
  • @schizoid04 - Except that this scam can only be perpetrated once or twice before Paypal take notice of the fact the there have been multiple reversals. Also, a paypal account needs to be set up with the user's genuine information which means that there's an extensive paper-trail for local police to follow. By comparison, a hacked account can be used until the money runs out or the user notices. There's no paper trail and the victim launders their own money by sending it via a third party money-sender. – Valorum Jan 21 '18 at 16:34
  • @schizoid04 - And sure, Paypal would probably reverse a single charge (heck, I've done it before), but how is a scammer going to make more than a few tens of dollars out of this scam before they get caught, arrested and jailed unless they can pull the same scam over and over again? – Valorum Jan 21 '18 at 16:36
  • @Valorum as stated previously you don't need a paypal account to send money via paypal. You could use a fake credit / debit card, or a fraudulent / stolen one. You don't need to have an account. There are multiple ways this can happen. There's comments about that on this answer, other answers note ways that can happen, etc. The things you keep bringing up have already been addressed, there's no way for me to make it clearer. – schizoid04 Jan 21 '18 at 17:51
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Yes, the scam is PayPal is going to reverse on you eventually. Either they are going to reverse the charge, (a buyer can reverse a PayPal payment if they claim fraud), or they used a hacked account or stolen credit card data in the first place.

Meanwhile, they'd have you irreversibly send good cash money.

Once they've got you on the hook by sending you money, the next "sabot" to drop will be you finding they overpaid you. They will explain the excess money is for shipping (perfectly reasonable for buyer to pay shipping, yes?): it is for you to give to their shipping company.

Of course their shipping company will want to be paid in advance, and they will follow with instructions for you to pay their shipping company, via some method like Western Union or PayPal gifting which is irreversible.

Once you have irreversibly paid, they will reverse the PayPal payment to you.

The shipping company is a fake, it just went into their pocket.

PayPal's view will be that you, as a seller, should have known better given the underlying facts you just gave us in your question. And most likely, PayPal's TOS has clauses covering this situation, taking them off the hook.

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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  • This answer is not adding nothing new that is not already in the top answer. – Rui F Ribeiro Jan 16 '18 at 20:48
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    @RuiFRibeiro I get right to the point. The answer you're referring to vaguely gropes around the entire area and makes it hard to understand where the scam is. I feel there is a great deal of room for improvement. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 16 '18 at 20:56
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    A shipping company asking to be paid in form of gifting or money transfer would be a huge red flag in itself. – Dmitry Grigoryev Jan 19 '18 at 09:29
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    @DmitryGrigoryev indeed, if the seller noticed that detail. The buyer insisting on using his shipping company (you never heard of) would also be a red flag. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 19 '18 at 15:09
  • @Harper Not necessarily. I once bought something over the Internet and was insisting the seller uses the shipping company I suggested, because it was twice as cheap compared to regular post or DHL. – Dmitry Grigoryev Jan 20 '18 at 12:23
  • @DmitryGrigoryev you must be a scammer! Haha –  Jan 20 '18 at 18:36
  • That's something I never could understand, why a criminal would have no problem reversing a payment through something as legitimate as PayPal, but I'm a law abiding citizen can never do the same? Do those criminal have contracts with PayPal or something? If the reason for reversal is fraud why does not it work both ways? – Andrew Savinykh Jan 22 '18 at 05:32
  • @AndrewSavinykh Anyone can reverse a payment through PayPal. The only reason you think criminals can do it and you can't is that good people wouldn't. You simply tell PayPal that the product never arrived or that he sent you a brick. You can also chargeback your credit card, same effect. The only thing criminals can do that you cannot is use stolen credit cards, which will reverse when the fraud is detected. PayPal errs on the side of protecting buyers, because cultural norms in America are consumer protection > businessman protection. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 22 '18 at 07:43
  • @Harper, yes, makes sense, but what I meant if I sent my money to them this is also a fraudulent transaction, because I obviously was defrauded. This transaction should also be able to be reversed. Not in Western Union case, may be, as they deal in cash, but certainly if I used any form of electronic payment. But that's for some reason is not what people report. They report that they cannot recover these money. – Andrew Savinykh Jan 22 '18 at 08:35
  • @AndrewSavinykh Banks are not transaction insurance companies. Someone has to lose. The "buyer is protected" culture is based on the concept of an eBay seller who does hundreds of transactions a year, or larger. Stiffing buyers is totally unacceptable as eBay (PayPal's alma mater), Amazon Marketplace and other C2C trade platforms would collapse if they lost buyer faith. The seller is viewed as able to absorb the odd loss in his many transactions. The paradigm fails to consider a one-off Craigslist trader doing a single high-value transaction; she falls through the cracks. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 23 '18 at 22:33
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When you get an email like this, try searching for some of the text of the email. In this case I searched for "because it is an Instant payment and secure for online purchases" (with the quotes to search for the exact phrase).

The first two matches were links to this very question, but there were a couple more that were interesting:

Vmax Club Sweden • View topic - VARNING FÖR PAYPAL LURERIER PÅ BLOCKET. (2012)

Predaj bajku do zahranicia - Príspevok od majorkucera | Fórum MTBiker.sk - Slovenský bike web (2016)

The text in both is identical, and also identical to the email you received except for the word "bike" vs. "furniture":

It is my pleasure to read from you once again. In regards to your email, i am ok with the price and the condition of the bike as you have stated in your email and i will like to get it as soon as possible. I will be paying via PayPal (www.paypal.com), because it is an Instant payment and secure for online purchases and The bike will be picked up from you by a private transport company after i have completed all the payment and you have gotten your money. So kindly get back to me with your PayPal details as listed below (Name, PayPal Registered Email & Tel) so that i can proceed with the payment through PayPal. I wait to read from you.

Definitely a little sketchy!

See the other answers for how the scam works; I just wanted to share this little research tip.

Michael Geary
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PayPal transactions are reversible.

You get the money all squared away and they take your items. Maybe they will accidentally pay you too much and ask you to put a check or cash in the desk drawer.

Everyone is happy until PayPal says the transaction was fraud, or backed by a bad credit card, etc... they take your money back or otherwise compel you to return the money.

There is no way to get the furniture/cash/check back, you are screwed.

Their private courier can bring cash if they are serious. Never accept a check, even a cashiers check for this type of transaction either... same scam.

le3th4x0rbot
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  • +1 from me. The other answers aren't addressing that the paypal account is almost certainly hacked or backed by a stolen credit card. They'll have the sender return a fee via a different method (usually Western Mail) which effectively launders the cash. They can then continue to use the hacked account at zero risk to themselves. – Valorum Jan 21 '18 at 00:12
  • "Never accept a check, even a cashiers check for this type of transaction either... same scam." - Indeed, one of my neighbors has a hobby of collecting fake cashier's checks from scammers. He has quite a collection! – Michael Geary Jan 22 '18 at 07:51
  • @Valorum FWIW, I did in my first para. Anyway +1, this answer is excellent because it nails in the first four words, in bold the crux of the matter which so many people are having trouble believing: PayPal transactions are reversible. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 23 '18 at 22:48
  • @Harper - Sure, but if you're going to run it as a scam, if you do it more than once or twice, you're going to find your account suspended. And since the account needs to be linked to a real card, if this individual has used their own card, they'll be super-easy to locate and jail. Criminals love scams that are zero risk and don't involve their own money. – Valorum Jan 23 '18 at 23:01
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    @Valorum I agree with all of that. I presume these are stolen PayPal accounts, or stolen credit cards attached to other stolen or freshly minted PayPal accounts, etc. The scammer steals a PayPal account, issues a payment, he won't reverse the charge; he doesn't care if the hack victim does either: in which case the seller would actually be paid. That is likely in cases where the PayPal account is owned by an estate of a deceased, as the executor may not find out about it until too late. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jan 23 '18 at 23:21
  • @Valorum Scammers would not use their real name or credit cards in the accounts. More likely they are opened with stolen credit card numbers, often by a hapless third party being conned by the scammer. The transaction reversal can be a result of the fraudulent accounts being closed, rather than the account owner complaining. With a stolen account the owner would complain, but change their password too. An eye opening article about how a normal person becomes a money mule: https://www.wired.com/2015/10/online-dating-made-woman-pawn-global-crime-plot/ – le3th4x0rbot Jan 24 '18 at 00:08
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As pointed out by your; the mail looks suspicious ... generally for first time deals if there is an alternate offer of payment, it should be avoided.

Typically furniture sales like you said would be with local area's else shipping would make it expensive.

This type of scam would be more of transferring the money or showing a transfer is done, and then taking away your furniture ... and you realize it later that the paypal was fraudulent.

Best avoid it, or else offer him to make cash or phonepe payment.

Dheer
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    I doubt the scammers will ever come for the furniture. That would get the OP a chance to see a real person involved in the scam, plus they'd have to sell the furniture afterwards, which takes some effort and again exposes them to the OP recognizing their furniture and alerting the police. – Dmitry Grigoryev Jan 17 '18 at 09:49
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Even simpler than many answers, people fall for fake PayPal notification emails all the time. I've seen one (not sent to me) that was quite convincing -- of course it contained fake links (bonus: phishing your PayPal logon), but the language was spot on -- probably copy-pasted from a real PP email.

Like this case, that was a furniture sale (but on eBay), complete with "I'll send my shippers to pick it up". I think that's why furniture ads are a popular target, as most people don't have big enough transport themselves.

Now imagine the email arrives at the same time as the furniture van, and you feel rushed and don't check (by logging in independently).

Chris H
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Aside from the other comments which cover the likely situation well, if "private transport" means that a non-recognized pickup company (what we'd call a common carrier) is not used, you're not covered by Paypal.

If you hand an item to some random dude who comes to the door you have no proof that it was actually delivered and Paypal is not going to accept a signed invoice from said random dude, only something like a Fedex waybill (for an appropriate weight and size) that can be verified. That is why you should only accept cash for pickups.

But mostly I think you would never see anyone come, just a variant of your standard advance fee "419" scam to rip you off for the "shipping" costs. You receive payment from a stolen Paypal account. You are asked to pay the shipping costs out of the amount to the scammer (maybe via Western Union), and the Paypal payment is reversed leaving you out the money (expensive shipping for a large item). Asking for your details is probably so they can hound and threaten you by telephone if you start to catch on. At some point the words "Nigeria" or "Benin" may come up, though I've seen scams run from New York city.

Spehro Pefhany
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  • If you get something from the seller stating the time and date of pickup and have them send signed paperwork stating they cannot hold you responsible for it not being delivered once the chair is recieved then paypal or not they legally cannot reverse it. Furthermore, advanced payment should never be used so that is irrelevant. Buyer pays shipping. – user64742 Jan 21 '18 at 20:58
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Ok, let's enumerate all the obvious signs of a scam from the email:

  1. It references an email that you never sent. You say you sell on dba.dk. Unless that involves proactively sending out emails to prospective customers, the sender could not have received such an email from you.
  2. The buyer is requesting that you engage with him to privately, outside of dba.dk, conduct a purchase transaction. So, you will lose any protections granted to you by dba.dk.
  3. The buyer offers to use PayPal for the transaction, but asks for your name, email address, and phone number. Any user of PayPal would know that all you need to conduct a transaction is an email address. Not only that, the buyer can provide you with their email address and you can prepare the invoice yourself.

The first item should be enough to put an end to things. The email starts with a likely misrepresentation about something you did. Even after giving some leeway for someone with difficulty communicating in English, and so may have wording issues, the others are also signs that you shouldn't allow to overcome your suspicions.

iheanyi
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    "I can't see how you even got past the first item." → perhaps too harsh. Consider: "The first item should be enough to put an end to things" or some such suggestion, rather than what could be taken as berating the OP. – Mathieu K. Jan 18 '18 at 05:40
  • The email starts with lying about something you did - How do you know that? There is no indication of it in the question. – Vector Jan 20 '18 at 22:46
  • @Vector you're right, it's not explicitly said and the email is deliberately worded in bad English which gives the writer cover for such mistakes. – iheanyi Jan 22 '18 at 16:43
  • @iheanyi which gives the writer cover for such mistakes Exactly. – Vector Jan 22 '18 at 22:14
  • @Vector Yes. . . that's how these scams work. They rely on the recipient being so nice/gullible/greedy that they discount the warning signs. To protect yourself, simply hold unsolicited messages to a "normal" standard of behavior (don't misrepresent yourself, don't misrepresent me, don't ask me to give out personal information or conduct business in ways that are obviously detrimental to me). I very much doubt people are losing money by rejecting such emails from legitimate parties. – iheanyi Jan 23 '18 at 02:09
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This is not legitimate:

So kindly get back to me with your PayPal details as listed below (Name, PayPal Registered Email & Tel) so that i can proceed with the payment through PayPal.

All that's required to send money through PP is an email address. No reason for providing the rest. Clearly this is a scammer trying to get personal information from you.

The message has the style of an awkward and far too formal form letter, written by someone who doesn't know English well, and is trying to scam you. IGNORE.

Vector
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