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Is this a scam? (craigslist)

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ECUpirate44

ECUpirate44

macrumors 603
Original poster
Mar 22, 2010
5,750
8
NC
I'm looking to sell my 16 GB iPad 2 on craigslist, and I got this email from someone. Just looking to get some feedback as to what you think.

Thanks for your reply,i am located in Rochester city
in NY,i really need to buy this and send to my
Daughter schooling outside the state as a Birthday Gift,
since am not there to celebrate it with her and
i will not want to miss
out on this opportunity so am making
you an offer of $450 so as to rap the sale off.
I will be paying through PAYPAL
because i have a verified account with PayPal.
i will urge you to send me your verified PayPal email address
so i can make payment into your PayPal
account right away.Once payment clears,shipment will be handled by me through my
personal FedEx account,so you don't have to pay for
shipment.Get back to me as soon as possible so as to make the payment asap and
i will also like to see the pictures
thanks
 
ECUpirate44 said:
I'm looking to sell my 16 GB iPad 2 on craigslist, and I got this email from someone. Just looking to get some feedback as to what you think.

Thanks for your reply,i am located in Rochester city
in NY,i really need to buy this and send to my
Daughter schooling outside the state as a Birthday Gift,
since am not there to celebrate it with her and
i will not want to miss
out on this opportunity so am making
you an offer of $450 so as to rap the sale off.
I will be paying through PAYPAL
because i have a verified account with PayPal.
i will urge you to send me your verified PayPal email address
so i can make payment into your PayPal
account right away.Once payment clears,shipment will be handled by me through my
personal FedEx account,so you don't have to pay for
shipment.Get back to me as soon as possible so as to make the payment asap and
i will also like to see the pictures
thanks
Click to expand...

Paypal typically holds your money until the buyer leaves positive feedback (on ebay) or delivery is confirmed. By using the buyer's fedex account, you don't get tracking information or proof of delivery which may be required for your funds to be released.

Ebay: sell by mail with occasional local pickup.

Craigslist: sell in person, face to face in a well lit public place.

Any deviation from the above is a strong indication of a scam.
 
I recently posted my iPhone 4s on Craigslist for sale and got at least 10 email similar to this.
They usually start off as a "Is the product still available" email and then followup with a second email with the "plan".

I got 4 initial "Is the product available" email from different people and then got 4 emails back with "plans" to deliver it overseas from a single 5th email address. The lazy ba$t@rd couldn't even go into the specific email accounts to email me back his scam plans.
 
There would be no question of whether something like this is a scam or worth trying out.

But I am curious as to how the scam is supposed to play out if they're asking for your PayPal email address. How do they benefit, or what exactly is the scammer's plan of action?
 
NameUndecided said:
There would be no question of whether something like this is a scam or worth trying out.

But I am curious as to how the scam is supposed to play out if they're asking for your PayPal email address. How do they benefit, or what exactly is the scammer's plan of action?
Click to expand...

Paypal "item not received" claim...

r0k said:
Paypal typically holds your money until the buyer leaves positive feedback (on ebay) or delivery is confirmed. By using the buyer's fedex account, you don't get tracking information or proof of delivery which may be required for your funds to be released.

Ebay: sell by mail with occasional local pickup.

Craigslist: sell in person, face to face in a well lit public place.

Any deviation from the above is a strong indication of a scam.
Click to expand...

Paypal heavily favors buyers. So before you get the funds released, the "buyer" notifies Paypal they never received your item and they get their money back and you are out your item and your money.
 
r0k said:
Paypal typically holds your money until the buyer leaves positive feedback (on ebay) or delivery is confirmed. By using the buyer's fedex account, you don't get tracking information or proof of delivery which may be required for your funds to be released.

Ebay: sell by mail with occasional local pickup.

Craigslist: sell in person, face to face in a well lit public place.

Any deviation from the above is a strong indication of a scam.
Click to expand...

Wrong. Paypal only does this if your account is put under investigation. Some more facts about it: Money is released after Positive Feedback; 3 Days after confirmed delivery; or 21 days after money was received.

Most accounts are put on hold because they are under 100 feedback AND have an inconsistent selling history or selling many large(high price) items at the same time. Holds last atleast 1 month, they then review and will either release your hold or just continue it for another month...

I have had my account put on hold about 2 times last year. Most of it was because it was a personal account on which I sold a lot of random items. The first hold happened when I sold a PS3 and about 10 games individually, this hold really occured because of 1. I had not sold anything for months and 2. the total of the items was about $450. The next hold came randomly during the summer when I was inactive and continued as my account transitioned from selling random items to selling items for our business, this hold lasted about 3 months...I was given no reason as to why they kept extending it. Now that I am above 100 feedback and have been selling close to the same items for about 4 months now, I have absolutely no problems.
 
tjb1 said:
Wrong. Paypal only does this if your account is put under investigation. Some more facts about it: Money is released after Positive Feedback; 3 Days after confirmed delivery; or 21 days after money was received.

Most accounts are put on hold because they are under 100 feedback AND have an inconsistent selling history or selling many large(high price) items at the same time. Holds last atleast 1 month, they then review and will either release your hold or just continue it for another month...

I have had my account put on hold about 2 times last year. Most of it was because it was a personal account on which I sold a lot of random items. The first hold happened when I sold a PS3 and about 10 games individually, this hold really occured because of 1. I had not sold anything for months and 2. the total of the items was about $450. The next hold came randomly during the summer when I was inactive and continued as my account transitioned from selling random items to selling items for our business, this hold lasted about 3 months...I was given no reason as to why they kept extending it. Now that I am above 100 feedback and have been selling close to the same items for about 4 months now, I have absolutely no problems.
Click to expand...

Nice try but before you tell someone they are wrong, check your facts or at least qualify your statement as anecdotal and don't represent it as fact. Your experience may not be typical. My experience was clearly documented by policies stated on Paypal's web site that for certain items (cell phones in my case) they hold funds until delivery confirmation or positive feedback.

My account has never been under investigation and I have never been below 100 feedback, yet when I sold cell phones over a certain (undocumented) purchase price, I found my funds were "on hold" until I provided Paypal with delivery confirmation. It turns out the buyer got around to posting positive feedback a few days after I got my money but I didn't get my money until I entered the delivery confirmation. Well actually I opened a support case and gave them the tracking number and they released my money. This might have eventually happened automatically (when the buyer left me positive feedback) but I had already waited long enough.

I've been doing business on Ebay with Paypal for many years now and I remember a time when it was a complete snake pit when nobody left honest feedback for fear of being revenge-negged by power sellers. Things are better now but still far from perfect. Since ebay owns Paypal, it wouldn't surprise me if some of their stated ebay policies apply to payments sent outside ebay as well. Paypal always errs on the side of tying up your money a long time. On Paypal, money is sent at the speed of light but returned by a blind one-legged midget hopping slowly through a swamp without a compass.

I've had 2 disputed transactions within the last couple of years. One with Sears. The transaction pulled $99 out of my checking account but failed to go through and it took a full 3 weeks for my money to come back. In another case, yahoo pulled $25 for flickr plus but failed to recognize the payment and this time I was faced with a full 30 day wait for the transaction to "time out". What a crock. I only use PP when I don't have a choice and I don't have any illusions about how slippery they are.
 
Nope, 100% legit. I'm glad you came to us to ask though, I mean...after all...Craigslist, a site for local buyers and sellers, is a perfectly good place to buy things from out of state using Paypal.
 
MovieCutter said:
Nope, 100% legit. I'm glad you came to us to ask though, I mean...after all...Craigslist, a site for local buyers and sellers, is a perfectly good place to buy things from out of state using Paypal.
Click to expand...

Plus, iPads are probably just about near impossible to find in Rochester New York. And when you're having a used iPad shipped out to your daughter as a gift the week before a new model is released, nothing else quite cements the message of "******* you, I don't care" like having it packaged and shipped to her from a stranger in North Carolina.
 
r0k said:
Nice try but before you tell someone they are wrong, check your facts or at least qualify your statement as anecdotal and don't represent it as fact. Your experience may not be typical. My experience was clearly documented by policies stated on Paypal's web site that for certain items (cell phones in my case) they hold funds until delivery confirmation or positive feedback.

My account has never been under investigation and I have never been below 100 feedback, yet when I sold cell phones over a certain (undocumented) purchase price, I found my funds were "on hold" until I provided Paypal with delivery confirmation. It turns out the buyer got around to posting positive feedback a few days after I got my money but I didn't get my money until I entered the delivery confirmation. Well actually I opened a support case and gave them the tracking number and they released my money. This might have eventually happened automatically (when the buyer left me positive feedback) but I had already waited long enough.

I've been doing business on Ebay with Paypal for many years now and I remember a time when it was a complete snake pit when nobody left honest feedback for fear of being revenge-negged by power sellers. Things are better now but still far from perfect. Since ebay owns Paypal, it wouldn't surprise me if some of their stated ebay policies apply to payments sent outside ebay as well. Paypal always errs on the side of tying up your money a long time. On Paypal, money is sent at the speed of light but returned by a blind one-legged midget hopping slowly through a swamp without a compass.

I've had 2 disputed transactions within the last couple of years. One with Sears. The transaction pulled $99 out of my checking account but failed to go through and it took a full 3 weeks for my money to come back. In another case, yahoo pulled $25 for flickr plus but failed to recognize the payment and this time I was faced with a full 30 day wait for the transaction to "time out". What a crock. I only use PP when I don't have a choice and I don't have any illusions about how slippery they are.
Click to expand...

Ive sold many cell phones also and never had the money on hold. By investigation, I meant when Paypal puts your account on Hold. Also, you have had to have been below 100 feedback at one point.

I do understand the money issue and time, I can use my paypal card at a store and get an email seconds after the card is swiped saying xxx has been taken from your account...but when sending money from Paypal to my Bank it takes 4 days, but when Amazon processes a refund the money arrives at my Back the same day. Paypal is a **** company, and if eBay were not so big Paypal would have been dead years ago for their shady practices.
 
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