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selling iPad- am i being scammed?

Jedi5

Jedi5

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 16, 2009
575
34
North Burbs, IL
listed my ipad on CL.
bounced 2-3 emails with this individual and here is their last email to me.
i'm not entertaining the idea of selling and shipping to china but do you think they are trying to scam me?
have no idea where they are from. no names have been exchanged. and out of the blue he wants it shipped.

"Hello ,
I really appreciate your response to my earlier mail. I will like to buy this item so pls do withdraw the advert from Craigslist. I will also like you to know that i will be paying via PayPal due to the distance . But am away for a business trip and because I'm new on Craigslist and i don't want to buy what isn't good will need you to get back to me with the total price you want to offer it including shipping cost to my kid in china. So all i need from you now is the total price including the shipping cost to china with your PayPal account so i can transfer the fund immediately.If you don't have account, you can set one up at www.paypal.com.
Lastly, will you guaranty me on buying it?
I hope to read from you soonest.

Thanks"
 
I don't like it, and I wouldn't do it. However, PayPal does have decent seller protection now. So you never know.
 
the protection favors the buyer i thought...

i'm thinking he pays for the item... i ship it... it gets lost in customs or not as advertised. he complains to PP who refunds the money and i'm out money and ipad.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Scam
Or to many chances for things to go wrong
 
Jedi5 said:
listed my ipad on CL.
bounced 2-3 emails with this individual and here is their last email to me.
i'm not entertaining the idea of selling and shipping to china but do you think they are trying to scam me?
Click to expand...

Sounds intensely scammy to me - probably somebody in China that's got a stolen / phished set of Paypal credentials. The seller protection stuff only kicks in if you ship to the verified address on the account - ship to China, and you're SOL.
 
Jedi5 said:
the protection favors the buyer i thought...

i'm thinking he pays for the item... i ship it... it gets lost in customs or not as advertised. he complains to PP who refunds the money and i'm out money and ipad.
Click to expand...
If he pays for the item, you ship it with insurance and tracking, and he complains to PayPal, you have PayPal Seller Protection to back you up. Just look at the criteria for qualifiaction and make sure you meet it. Then, as long as you're legit, if crazy **** goes down, PayPal will give you the money back.

I think al2o3cr is right though that it's US only. So I'll reiterate, I wouldn't do it.
 
Do it locally, cash only.

Paypal charges a fee. And they favor the buyer. I sell a lot on eBay (hundreds of items a month) and I do get "buyers" who try to scam me through PayPal's policies.

iPad is a popular product. I am sure a legit buyer will reach out to you soon.
 
Thanks all!

Been on eBay for 10+ years selling and using PayPal to both send and receive money. I can honestly say this is the very first time I've received an email like this which made me do a double take.

I didn't respond them as the more I reread it, the more I didn't like it.

Thanks again!
 
Is a scam(100%) especially seeing the buyer(scammer) hasn't mentioned or made reference to the particular item you are selling in his email i.e. the "iPad". This is a blanket phishing email sent out to many Craigslist sellers for all different items. These scammers also usually make reference to www.paypal.com for payment method and tell you to set one up. Funny how these scammers always seem to mention the same thing, that they are out of town or the country.:rolleyes:
 
Jedi5 said:
the protection favors the buyer i thought...

i'm thinking he pays for the item... i ship it... it gets lost in customs or not as advertised. he complains to PP who refunds the money and i'm out money and ipad.
Click to expand...

honestly i would prefer ebay or craiglist with local pickup although if you do ship it use the best shipping method you can find e.g. with signature and tracking and take screenshots of the progress
 
It is a scam and has been tried on me several times on CL with the same email.
It most likely is a stollen paypal account that they are using.

Don't even answer them.
 
SCAM. Delete it.

Craigslist is cash and carry only.

PayPal requires shipping and signed receipt.
 
DO NOT SELL!
apart from the obvious, hes guiding you towards paypal because hes hacked a paypal account. if i ask someone if i can pay by paypal i dont then explain to them how to set it up
 
Did you notice how he referred to your iPad as "this item"? and not an iPad? This is 100% scam. As another poster stated, use Craigslist for cash and carry only. And when somebody refers to the item your selling as "this item," and doesn't specifically state what the item is, just delete the email and wait for a local, ethical buyer.
 
Guy contacts another guy through Illinois Craigslist and wants him to ship his completely not-rare item to China. How is there any question of whether or not this is legitimate?

Also, honest question and I'm curious: it's been my impression that iPads sell hugely easily on Craigslist. Has the listing really been up for more than six hours without any worthwhile reply?
 
NameUndecided said:
Guy contacts another guy through Illinois Craigslist and wants him to ship his completely not-rare item to China. How is there any question of whether or not this is legitimate?

Also, honest question and I'm curious: it's been my impression that iPads sell hugely easily on Craigslist. Has the listing really been up for more than six hours without any worthwhile reply?
Click to expand...

Like I mention earlier in this thread, for as long as I've been selling on Ebay and using PayPal, not ONCE have I ever gotten an email like this before.
It caught me off guard more than anything. Once I came to and reread it, I saw it was a scam. So it only took what... 10+ years for me to receive my first scam email with paypal? :D

Anyway, I emailed the "buyer" back and told him my post office said it would be $75 to ship to china which brings the total of this sale to $500. buyer didn't even bat an eye, their response was OK, set up paypal... lol

well here in chicago, CL is flooded with ipads. i've had my ad up for 2 days now and no takers. i mean $425 is fair i think.
 
That is cool. I remember the first or second time I listed an iPod on Craigslist and I pretty quickly got an email asking if I'd be willing to ship the item to Kenya for the buyer's son while the buyer was on business in [other random country], and I thought "Why is he contacting Craigslist sellers from across the globe for an iPod?" I guess that the people must have some modicum of success if they're continuing to go this route.

And yeah, I just compared Chicago's Craiglist listings for iPad with Austin's, where I am. I very much underestimated the difference. Best of luck! :)
 
SCAM. This is actually a very standard reply, you could google it and find something. Regardless, it is a scam and spending more than 2 minutes thinking about how this could be legit is already a win for the scammer. Cheers.
 
I'm selling my dining room furniture and thought I had somebody interested until they wanted to pay with Paypal. They said that is the most secure way to do it. I told them cash at time of pickup was the only way I would do it. I hate scammers.
 
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