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I'm in the process of selling some furniture online.

I use a website called dba.dk, which is the Danish equivalent of eBay (it was actually bought by eBay some years ago). The website is mainstream (almost all Danes use it from time to time) but is also known for being used by scammers, mostly from foreign countries.

I received a message regarding one of the items I'm selling:

Hello,

It is my pleasure to read from you once again. In regards to your email, i am ok with the price and the condition of the furniture as you have stated in your email and i will like to get it as soon as possible. I will be paying via PayPal (www.paypal.com), because it is an Instant payment and secure for online purchases and The furniture will be picked up from you by a private transport company after i have completed all the payment and you have gotten your money. So kindly get back to me with your PayPal details as listed below (Name, PayPal Registered Email & Tel) so that i can proceed with the payment through PayPal.

I wait to read from you.

The message makes me suspicious.

  • It's written in bad English. The text has probably been translated using translation software.
  • The buyer does not want to meet in person but wants to use private transportation. This is especially suspicious in Denmark where private transportation is expensive.

Reasons why I think it might not be a scam:

  • Buyer wants to use PayPal

    I'm afraid this scam might be a version of this.

Any input is much appreciated.

Charles Duffy
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Vingtoft
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9 Answers9

90

The way this one works is interesting, and there's a variant of it in the 'states as well:

You receive more money than you're asking for with this item. They ask you to pay their private transport using the 'extra' money they sent you, and maybe even leave a little extra for you for your troubles.

After you send the payment to their 'private transport', a separate entity, the transaction they sent you reverses, even though your transaction to this private transport does not.

It's as if you just paid some random person X amount of your own money.

It's not about the item you're selling. They don't care about it or what the cost is.

The entirety of the scam is getting you to forward some money that doesn't exist (and therefore is covered with your own) to the scammer.

The key to this scam to look out for is there's almost always a 'shipper' or in your case 'private transport' or other separate party that needs to be paid to complete the transaction. There's no legitimate situation where they'd need to send payment to you and have you forward it to someone else, yet most of the time when you get a message like the above, and respond to it, you'll find some barely-reasonable explanation of why a situation like that is going to be necessary.

The first email you receive from a scammer in this kind of situation is fairly hard to identify.

I had a similar one a while ago, but the scammer actually posted an ad claiming to be selling an RV at a too-good-to-be-true price to lure in contacts for the scam.

There's arguably hundreds of variations on this scam, anything from buying/selling an item to being overpaid with a fake cashier's check / money order, etc.

I've had family members actually receive cashier's checks addressed to them in the mail, and followup letters demanding they send a portion of it back, as it was a 'mistake'. The base thing you're looking for in a scam, like this or otherwise, is how they're paying you and whether at some point they try to get you to send money somewhere else.

Community
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schizoid04
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59

Yes, the scam is PayPal is going to reverse on you eventually. Either they are going to reverse the charge, (a buyer can reverse a PayPal payment if they claim fraud), or they used a hacked account or stolen credit card data in the first place.

Meanwhile, they'd have you irreversibly send good cash money.

Once they've got you on the hook by sending you money, the next "sabot" to drop will be you finding they overpaid you. They will explain the excess money is for shipping (perfectly reasonable for buyer to pay shipping, yes?): it is for you to give to their shipping company.

Of course their shipping company will want to be paid in advance, and they will follow with instructions for you to pay their shipping company, via some method like Western Union or PayPal gifting which is irreversible.

Once you have irreversibly paid, they will reverse the PayPal payment to you.

The shipping company is a fake, it just went into their pocket.

PayPal's view will be that you, as a seller, should have known better given the underlying facts you just gave us in your question. And most likely, PayPal's TOS has clauses covering this situation, taking them off the hook.

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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When you get an email like this, try searching for some of the text of the email. In this case I searched for "because it is an Instant payment and secure for online purchases" (with the quotes to search for the exact phrase).

The first two matches were links to this very question, but there were a couple more that were interesting:

Vmax Club Sweden • View topic - VARNING FÖR PAYPAL LURERIER PÅ BLOCKET. (2012)

Predaj bajku do zahranicia - Príspevok od majorkucera | Fórum MTBiker.sk - Slovenský bike web (2016)

The text in both is identical, and also identical to the email you received except for the word "bike" vs. "furniture":

It is my pleasure to read from you once again. In regards to your email, i am ok with the price and the condition of the bike as you have stated in your email and i will like to get it as soon as possible. I will be paying via PayPal (www.paypal.com), because it is an Instant payment and secure for online purchases and The bike will be picked up from you by a private transport company after i have completed all the payment and you have gotten your money. So kindly get back to me with your PayPal details as listed below (Name, PayPal Registered Email & Tel) so that i can proceed with the payment through PayPal. I wait to read from you.

Definitely a little sketchy!

See the other answers for how the scam works; I just wanted to share this little research tip.

Michael Geary
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PayPal transactions are reversible.

You get the money all squared away and they take your items. Maybe they will accidentally pay you too much and ask you to put a check or cash in the desk drawer.

Everyone is happy until PayPal says the transaction was fraud, or backed by a bad credit card, etc... they take your money back or otherwise compel you to return the money.

There is no way to get the furniture/cash/check back, you are screwed.

Their private courier can bring cash if they are serious. Never accept a check, even a cashiers check for this type of transaction either... same scam.

le3th4x0rbot
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As pointed out by your; the mail looks suspicious ... generally for first time deals if there is an alternate offer of payment, it should be avoided.

Typically furniture sales like you said would be with local area's else shipping would make it expensive.

This type of scam would be more of transferring the money or showing a transfer is done, and then taking away your furniture ... and you realize it later that the paypal was fraudulent.

Best avoid it, or else offer him to make cash or phonepe payment.

Dheer
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Even simpler than many answers, people fall for fake PayPal notification emails all the time. I've seen one (not sent to me) that was quite convincing -- of course it contained fake links (bonus: phishing your PayPal logon), but the language was spot on -- probably copy-pasted from a real PP email.

Like this case, that was a furniture sale (but on eBay), complete with "I'll send my shippers to pick it up". I think that's why furniture ads are a popular target, as most people don't have big enough transport themselves.

Now imagine the email arrives at the same time as the furniture van, and you feel rushed and don't check (by logging in independently).

Chris H
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Aside from the other comments which cover the likely situation well, if "private transport" means that a non-recognized pickup company (what we'd call a common carrier) is not used, you're not covered by Paypal.

If you hand an item to some random dude who comes to the door you have no proof that it was actually delivered and Paypal is not going to accept a signed invoice from said random dude, only something like a Fedex waybill (for an appropriate weight and size) that can be verified. That is why you should only accept cash for pickups.

But mostly I think you would never see anyone come, just a variant of your standard advance fee "419" scam to rip you off for the "shipping" costs. You receive payment from a stolen Paypal account. You are asked to pay the shipping costs out of the amount to the scammer (maybe via Western Union), and the Paypal payment is reversed leaving you out the money (expensive shipping for a large item). Asking for your details is probably so they can hound and threaten you by telephone if you start to catch on. At some point the words "Nigeria" or "Benin" may come up, though I've seen scams run from New York city.

Spehro 'speff' Pefhany
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Ok, let's enumerate all the obvious signs of a scam from the email:

  1. It references an email that you never sent. You say you sell on dba.dk. Unless that involves proactively sending out emails to prospective customers, the sender could not have received such an email from you.
  2. The buyer is requesting that you engage with him to privately, outside of dba.dk, conduct a purchase transaction. So, you will lose any protections granted to you by dba.dk.
  3. The buyer offers to use PayPal for the transaction, but asks for your name, email address, and phone number. Any user of PayPal would know that all you need to conduct a transaction is an email address. Not only that, the buyer can provide you with their email address and you can prepare the invoice yourself.

The first item should be enough to put an end to things. The email starts with a likely misrepresentation about something you did. Even after giving some leeway for someone with difficulty communicating in English, and so may have wording issues, the others are also signs that you shouldn't allow to overcome your suspicions.

iheanyi
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This is not legitimate:

So kindly get back to me with your PayPal details as listed below (Name, PayPal Registered Email & Tel) so that i can proceed with the payment through PayPal.

All that's required to send money through PP is an email address. No reason for providing the rest. Clearly this is a scammer trying to get personal information from you.

The message has the style of an awkward and far too formal form letter, written by someone who doesn't know English well, and is trying to scam you. IGNORE.

Vector
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