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Selling Macbook Part 2: Paypal Safety

W

waynechriss

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 7, 2009
166
0
EDIT: NAME REMOVED FOR PRIVACY sry!

Ok i made a thread yesterday talking about selling my macbook on ebay. Some guy messaged me telling me he'd pay me $900 if i took the auction off (he wanted to get it before others bidded on it). So i was like sure and he said he would pay me via pay pal. I got a message from paypal with this information:



Untitled is a verified buyer. Mark Jacobs has sent their payment and it is cleared and confirmed.
**Untitled has Buyer Protection and because you have no seller feedback on eBay you WILL NOT receive the payment in your PayPal account balance until the item has been shipped and is confirmed by tracking number. Please allow up to 3 business days for the money to appear in your PayPal account balance after tracking has been received.
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Ok so like every pessimist, i'm afraid of being screwed if i give him the tracking number and he won't forward the money to me. I understand that he doesn't want to be conned into buying my macbook without actually getting it, he has buyer protection. Does anyone have doubts about this guy?
 
First, remove the guy's name and have some respect for people's privacy.
Second, as a new eBayer I believe this is their policy, if you don't like it, don't sell on eBay. I can see why you'd be concerned but I would hope you are protected somehow.
 
You only need one thread. Paypal is holding the money, not the buyer.

jessica., I agree with you, although if you did try to find out who Mark Jacobs is....you might run into someone that is into clothes more then MacBooks.
 
thegoldenmackid said:
You only need one thread. Paypal is holding the money, not the buyer.

jessica., I agree with you, although if you did try to find out who Mark Jacobs is....you might run into someone that is into clothes more then MacBooks.
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Not all of us are into fashion like yourself. However, I stand by what I said; common name or not, for the simple fact that the OP said, "Ok i made a thread yesterday talking about selling my macbook on ebay. Some guy messaged me" which tells me the "guy" is a member here. Have some respect for privacy, I will say it again. I don't care what you can google or how many handbags come up as a result.
 
waynechriss said:
Does anyone have doubts about this guy?
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Yes, it's probably some guy in Nigeria using a stolen PayPal account. Which MacBook is it? $900 sounds expensive for a used MacBook. And he wants you to take it off eBay? That's another red flag. This reeks of classic eBay scam.
 
^ He implies, and please OP correct me when I'm wrong, that the guy is a member here. He spoke of a thread and spoke of a message.
 
jessica. said:
^ He implies, and please OP correct me when I'm wrong, that the guy is a member here. He spoke of a thread and spoke of a message.
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I got the idea that he was messaged via eBay. His post is rather vague on that though. If he was messaged here, then it's less likely to be a scam.

If the transaction takes place outside of eBay, does PayPal still care about what your eBay feedback is?
 
Oh I see your point. Yeah it's unclear. To your second question, nope. PayPal doesn't hold your money if someone paid outside eBay.
 
jessica. said:
Oh I see your point. Yeah it's unclear. To your second question, nope. PayPal doesn't hold your money if someone paid outside eBay.
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Okay, so something seems weird.

Whether he was contacted via MR or eBay, it sounds like either way, the transaction took place outside of eBay as the auction was taken down, so why was that message in the email? Is it one of the fake PayPal emails scammers send out to make you think they paid when they really didn't?
 
If the amount shows up in your paypal account as pending, I wouldn't worry about it. It can happen if the payment is tagged for your ebay item by the buyer regardless of if it sold or not. If the balance is not there, however, and the message didn't actually come from paypal, there's a problem.
 
I reread the email from "PayPal" and a few things stuck out:

1. Whether or not the buyer has buyer protection is irrelevant to you. You care about seller protection, which is not mentioned.

2. Sounds like the scam is you ship it out, email "PayPal" the tracking number thinking you'll get your money in a few days, and they never pay. It's not even a stolen PayPal account. There may be no PayPal account, they're just sending out a fake email that looks like it's from PayPal to make you think they paid. This is even worse because you have no recourse via PayPal if there was no PayPal transaction. At least with stolen accounts you can put up a fight and maybe get lucky with them.

3. The grammar and sentence structure is better than other Nigerian fake PayPal emails, but parts of it just don't sound right.

The first thing I'd do is log into your PayPal account and in your recent activity, see if there is any mention whatsoever if this transaction. Even if your account balance is zero because the money hasn't posted yet, there should at least be a pending transaction showing the amount and all the other details.
 
Just to note, i got the message via email. i got it from this address:
paypal@mcom.com

Also i have nothing in my recent activities in Paypal. Nothing received. So i guess the email was fake?
 
waynechriss said:
Just to note, i got the message via email. i got it from this address:
paypal@mcom.com

Also i have nothing in my recent activities in Paypal. Nothing received. So i guess the email was fake?
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Yes. It's fake. Hope you didn't ship out the MacBook yet.

FWIW, it could've been from an @paypal.com address and it doesn't mean it's not fake. You can make an email look like it's from any address you choose....I could send you an email and have sjobs@apple.com as the return address on it. Unfortunately, when email was designed way back 1970s, they didn't bother with any sort of security or verification since the internet wasn't available to everyone and it was only being used in professional capacities where everyone trusted each other.
 
one way to not get screwed over using paypal is to get the person making the payment to send the money, file a complaint, then close the complaint, then you ship the item. you can only file a complaint once, so if they agree to do that, you're safe.. (they probably won't since it means you can screw them over now, so they must trust you)

and regarding spoofed emails this article is good http://pranketh.com/avoid/
 
Sounds complicated. Well i don't want to deal with this guy. i see nothing new in my paypal account whatsoever so i'm putting my item back on ebay and do it within the confines of ebay xp.
 
waynechriss said:
Ugh no i did not and i was about to tomorrow morning. Thank you for saving me MR community >.<!
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Not to sound like a jerk, but NEXT TIME call PayPal.

And yes, the community can be helpful, but can't be certain all the time.

IF you were to get screwed over, good... you deserved it for not taking any precautions.
 
That's why when it comes to eBay, I only deal in dollar amounts that I'd be willing to lose should I get scammed. Well, no one is willing to lose anything, but if I lose 15 bucks, it's not the end of the world. If I lose $900, then it is.
 
I just wanted to make everyone else aware that I tried to sell my iMac and received the same exact email. He was very hasty with wanting overnight ship. I then sent him a request for funds, which came back saying he had no paypal account. Red flag number 1. Then seconds later a message from "paypal" comes back saying he paid. It didn't look legit at all. Amount was wrong, formatted sloppily and the obvious "paypal@mcom.com".... beware of this fraud. I then told him to "take back his payment" and I then received another response saying legal action would be taken if I did not hold up my end of the bargain. completely bogus.
 
Simple rule: NEVER trust any financial (bank/Paypal etc) emails. Don't click on links in them, don't trust what they say. Instead, just go to their websites by typing in the address yourself in your web browser, and checking the info. in question there. Follow that one simple rule and you can avoid colossal percentage of e-scams.
 
TheOnlyJon said:
Didn't remove all of the name in the first post...:confused:
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Whoops sorry xD if a mod can do it feel free.

Yeah sikuss after a mishap like this i will never do business outside of amazon or ebay. I mean i'm just a first time seller so thank goodness i didn't get scammed xp.
 
My story...


I sold a laptop via ebay and used paypal and got screwed. I received the funds from a verified paypal user, with positive ebay feedback, shipped the laptop. After receiving the money I moved it into my checking out within a day.

Everything is great and a couple weeks later I receive an email that the I must return the money to Paypal because the transaction fell through. Of course, I'm out a laptop and have the money in my checking account so I call paypal to ask what the deal is. They will tell me nothing. They just want the money back. I pretty much tell them that's not happening until they can explain what happened and why the think I owe them this money. They won't. This is multiple calls, multiple days and they won't tell me anything.

At one point a paypal employee mentions the account used to purchase the laptop may have been stolen. They would not confirm this though and insisted I return the money. I again refuse and ask them to send me all the documentation they have of the transaction via certified mail. Surprisingly I never receive anything.

They turned the account over to collections and they called repeatedly for about over a year, this was a daily thing I had to deal with. I finally did talk to a manager with the collections agency and explained the situation and the steps I went through to get them to tell me what happened and he was sympathetic and basically threw the claim away.

It was a pain in the butt though for nearly two years. We're talking calls daily, sometimes a few different times a day. It got to the point where they would call and talk about how they would never stop calling and that they would wear me down until I paid, it was ridiculous. I wasn't about to give them a dime though.

So yeah, I'll never use Paypal again.
 
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