Halton Borough Council’s Trading Standards officers have issued a warning after a resident was caught out by a scammer posing as legitimate buyer.
The 30-year-old Widnes man advertised his Apple Watch on eBay and was contacted via his account by a potential buyer who asked if he could send her pictures of the watch.
The buyer then asked for a quick purchase as she was keen to have the watch as a gift for her son’s birthday in a few days.
Discussions followed outside of eBay via their respective email accounts. Once a price was agreed the buyer asked if she could pay via PayPal Instant Payment and if he would then post the item for next day delivery. The seller agreed.
The buyer asked the seller to send her a PayPal Payment Invoice Money Request – all this involves is sending a request for payment to someone, once acknowledged as being sent it then shows as pending in your PayPal account.
The seller later received an email claiming to be from PayPal confirming that the payment from the buyer was pending and required confirmation of the delivery tracking number.
The seller understood this to mean that the money was being held by PayPal until he provided the delivery tracking number. He therefore posted the Apple Watch next day guaranteed delivery and confirmed the tracking number to the buyer.
When the seller later checked his PayPal account the payment was still pending as the buyer had not actually paid for the watch, the PayPal system was merely acknowledging the transaction was pending and not that payment was being held by them.
To make matters worse the buyer then tried another scam by sending an email to the seller, again pretending to be from PayPal, stating that the buyer had overpaid by £200 by mistake and that the seller should refund this amount by a cash transfer to the buyer.
At this point the seller realised they had been caught out by a scam and tried to cancel the delivery with Royal Mail. Unfortunately this wasn’t possible and so he lost his Apple Watch and didn’t receive a penny.
Halton Borough Council’s Executive Board Member for Trading Standards, Cllr Dave Cargill, said: “To protect yourself when selling goods on eBay you should make sure that any contact with buyers is through your eBay account.
“When using PayPal you only deliver the item once the monies have registered/appeared in your online PayPal account.
“Both eBay and PayPal provide protection for sellers but only when the transaction is made via their platforms.”
If you or somebody you know has been caught out by a scam please contact one of our specialist officers, Linda or Sue on 0151 511 8785 or 0151 511 8775, who are already working with people in Halton who have lost thousands of pounds to scams.
If you need advice on anything else please contact the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline or 03454 04 05 06.