I've always used PayPal to sell and buy things, however, I will never again use this service! I put an ad on craigslist to sell my diamond engagement ring.
I'm skepticel when I read inquires about anything I advertise on craigslist,ebay, etc.
I got an email back from this guy who wanted to purchase the ring for a special occasion and he said he could pay me through Paypal and had to have the ring shipped out next day air. He had asked me several questions such as: how much was is the ring?
Do you have the originial box and receipt. I didn't assume too much other than he was probably going to propose to his significant other this weekend, which is why he would want the ring right away.
I've never had a problem with receiving money from previous things that I've sold through ebay and using paypal for payment, therefor, I told him Paypal was ok for payment.
He asked for my Paypal adress so he could disburse the money to the account so I gave it to him.
I waited and I got a confirmation email from Paypal saying that Paypal needed a tracking number so the customer would be guaranteed to receive the item they purchased; however, they did tell me my payment was intact and ready to go into my account as soon as they had the tracking number.
It all made sense that they would need the tracking number before the money was ready to go into the account. My fiance and I went to the nearest UPS store to ship it and got it to where the customer had to sign the package upon delivery.
I gave Paypal the tracking number as soon as I shipped it and then received yet another email saying that my tracking number was being verified and because of the high volume of orders that go through it might take up to 24 hours, so I began to wait.
I woke up the next morning and checked my Paypal account, when I didn't see the money in there I began to worry that I might have gotten scammed. I waited till 5pm and then my worst nightmare came true, I was yet another victim of an internet scam.
I called Paypal to see what was going on, they later told me that it was in fact a scam and the recipeant somehow used someone else's email and never put the money in the account.
The paypal agent told me there was nothing they could do so I was out of a ring and out of my money.My next phone call was to UPS cause if somehow I could catch them before they delivered the package than I could have the package sent back to me.
I was further dissapointed to find out it had already been delivered. I didn't know what to do and stressed beyond belief I only thought of one other thing I could do; file a police report.
I filed a police report with the local police department, so the only thing I can do now is wait to see how all this play out, which I hope is in my favor.
I just hope no one becomes a victim like I was and goes through the stress I've been going through.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Bill
Carrollton,Texas,
U.S.A.
The same thing almost happened to me
#4General Comment
Mon, March 15, 2010
I had a laptop for sale on ebay. Somebody won it. They wanted it real fast. So I gave them a price to get it to them within 2 days. The buyer was ok with it and said he would send me the money via paypal. So I waited until I saw the money in the account. It never showed, what I got was a letter much like the one you got, they wanted a tracking number before the money was to be put into the account. PAYPAL HAS NO SUCH POLICY.however I noticed that the return address was not paypal. So I CALLED paypal and sent them a copy of the email as well as a copy to ebay. This so called buyer even went so far as to claim that paypal and ebay would sue me if I didnt ship the laptop off and that the FBI would be paying me a visit. Now I noticed that all the emails were fake, That was easy as this idiot miss spelled every other word, and didnt even copy the ebay/paypal backgrounds right. This went on for almost a month. they(ebay and paypal) didnt make me pay a fee at all. And as it turns out a coon from nigeria had hacked a ebay sellers/buyer's name and tried to rip me off. So as a warning to everybody that reads this before you deal check the return address to make sure it is paypal or ebay, All you have to do is click on reply and see who it is going to. I have been useing the internet for at least 16 years and I have seen every scam out there. It is up to you to check this stuff out. less than 3 seconds to hit reply and see were it is going. You should always send a copy of all emails to: spoof@ebay.com and or spoor@paypal.com
That is how you cover your a*s if you just dont know what is going on. I would rather piss a buyer or seller off than get scamed it is best for us all if I have to check them out and even have them check me out.
Thats how you do it in the real world.
Edgeman
Chico,California,
U.S.A.
I agree, Paypal didn't rip you off...
#4Consumer Comment
Sun, February 28, 2010
Three years ago I tried to sell a camera on eBay. The winning bidder sent me emails from two different sources. The first email was from his "actual" email address and he wrote that the camera must ship immediately and that he had just sent the money through Paypal.
The second email was made up to look as if it came through Paypal but it clearly hadn't come from them. The email gave a very similar story to the one related in the OP. I just ignored it.
The third and final email came from the winning bidder who tried to get me to rush and ship the camera and stated that Paypal would give me the money as soon as I entered a tracking number.
I'm sorry that this happened to you. Did you ship it to a location within the united States? If so, did you contact the police in that city?
Other than that, the best thing that you can do is to contact the Secret Service's Financial Crimes Unit.
Best of luck to you.
Nc
Grayslake,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Paypal didn't scam you, scammer sent fake Paypal email
#4Consumer Comment
Sun, February 28, 2010
So sorry to read about your story. They fooled you by sending you the fake Paypal email. If you had logged into your Paypal account, you would have seen that the money had never been deposited into your account. (It never takes 24 hours to receive a deposit.)
Unfortunately, Craigslist has become full of scammers-from fake payments to people taking deposits for apartments they don't own.
I really hope it works out for you!