Ebay car scam

stevetiler

stevetiler

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Steve
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Hi,

Anyone know of any eBay scams involving PayPal and vehicles? A mate of mine has just "sold" a car on eBay for £5000- the buyer wants to pay by PayPal then send someone over to pick up the car. I don't like the sound of this but I'm not sure why!!
Can people enlighten me please??

Steve
 
The only thing I know of is they can try and claim the money back from PayPal but saying things such as the car wasn't as described etc.... Being sceptical I'd refuse and say cash or released on cleared funds from a cheque
 
Because they will then do an "item not received" with Paypal who will refund them as there is no proof of delivery.

Cash on collection or bank transfer prior to collection or no sale if it was me.


Heather
 
Send someone over from where...Nigeria?
Avoid like the plague :nono:
 
As with most things on eBay, I woudn't trust it even if I am armed with rubber gloves and a yard stick.

Since it is a large purchase involving a large item, I'd much rather it'd be an old skool sold-as-seen cash-in-hand upon-collection thing.

Paypal is more useful when dealing with smaller objects worth a few hundred quid at most sent by post.
 
neil_g said:
how does that work? car auctions don't have a postage option if I remember rightly?
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Delivery doesn't mean postage necessarily. At an auction, the person buying the car is there and signs all the necessary paperwork before taking the car away.

Ad for this case, the fact that they're saying that someone else will collect the car definitely sets alarm bells going. In the case of dispute, all Paypal have to ask is if the purchaser took delivery/collection of the car and you have a problem.
 
Cash on collection only.
 
stevetiler said:
Thanks all - knew it was dodgy!!!
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i don't think anyone can 100% say its dodgy, but the seller needs to apply a little common sense. i mean what if the buyer only happened to have cash in paypal and due to work simply couldn't make it to collect the car?

id like to think that ebay/paypal would have enough common sense to not refund the buyer without knowing if the car had been returned.

that said, if they were sending someone else id be interested to know how they were planning to sign the V5..
 
payment by paypal doesnt have to be dodgy - it could just be that he wants to put the purchase on a credit card.

however the collection by "a mate" does ring alarm bells, and I wouldnt take the risk with that much money
 
fabs said:
Delivery doesn't mean postage necessarily. At an auction, the person buying the car is there and signs all the necessary paperwork before taking the car away.
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yeah maybe, but then that's where a signed V5 and signed receipts for both parties come in.

but like i said id like to know how the new owner was going to achieve that by sending someone else to collect.
 
My mate has just emailed the buyer and asked for cash or bt- no reply yet.......
 
It could be that the buyer thinks that since the collector isn't the owner he can drive it away under his (the collector's) insurance if that covers him to drive any other vehicle. The car still needs to be insured for the collector to do that though.
 
neil_g said:
i don't think anyone can 100% say its dodgy,
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I can! And as a garage proprietor, I've sold lots and lots of cars and heard lots of sad stories.

This is a pure no-deal for stevetiler's friend to walk away from. :nono:
 
My concern would also be to how legitimate the PayPal email was to say money had been received.

Twice now I have had an email from PayPal saying funds received, when I've clicked the senders name at the top of the email which appears as 'PayPal' it has been something like

paypal@idubsbsusnsbdj.co.uk

I check this every time now, the first time I got lucky, the fraudulent buyer was slack enough to put the wrong amount in on fake email. Been wary ever since
 
a few years ago I sold a bike on ebay and the buyer tried to pay with Paypal but they wouldn't allow the transaction to go through as the amount was too great (around £3000) . I don't know if it was anything to do with the buyer or if Paypal has a limit to how much you can spend on it.
 
Yves Geza said:
I can! And as a garage proprietor, I've sold lots and lots of cars and heard lots of sad stories.

This is a pure no-deal for stevetiler's friend to walk away from. :nono:
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can you really though? can you say for sure its just not a case of naivety on the buyers side?

for me the only sticking point is the signing of the documents.
 
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chris954 said:
a few years ago I sold a bike on ebay and the buyer tried to pay with Paypal but they wouldn't allow the transaction to go through as the amount was too great (around £3000) . I don't know if it was anything to do with the buyer or if Paypal has a limit to how much you can spend on it.
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If your Paypal account isn't verified, their is a maximum transaction limit (around £1,600 IIRC)
 
There are usually only two reasons when someone decides they want to pay by paypal but collect the item in person

- They want to retain the protection provided to them by paypal in case the item is not as described.
- The paypal account is hijacked - i.e. they pay using someone else's paypal account and collect the item from you. Paypal would automatically reverse the transaction when they discover that the account was hijacked.

I personally doubt that in your case it would be a scam because if someone wants to scam you for your car, it is probably easier to come to your house while you are asleep at night than to go through all the troubles of ebay,paypal etc.

Having said that, i would not personally sell it if i am not receiving cash. The reason being that if he pays by paypal he will have more protection and can simply claim that the car is not as described even if it is. To keep it safe i would insist on Cash only.
 
neil_g said:
can you really though? can you say for sure its just not a case of naivety on the buyers side?

for me the only sticking point is the signing of the documents.
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Have you ever though of owning your own bridge? :D

I've got all the correct documents and everything! :cool:
 
A friend of mine sold a new and unwanted upgrade phone on ebay. The buyer paid by pay pal and them went to collect in person. A few days later there was a hold put on the money as it was said that the pay pal account from which the funds were paid was an unauthorised payment (hacked?). Friend never got his moeny or phone back and to this day suggests that there was some form of collusion between the owner of the "hacked pay pal" account and the guy that came to collect........Pay pals response was that they could do nothing to help as the phone was not posted out to a verified address
 
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Paypal is definitely NOT aimed at face to face transactions like car sales - I would only accept paypal if it was for an item sent to a "confirmed" paypal address with an online trackable signature as otherwise there is almost no protection from chargebacks.
 
I would suggest your friend googles the words 'ebay paypal car scam' and accepts cash only
 
Yves Geza said:
Have you ever though of owning your own bridge? :D I've got all the correct documents and everything! :cool:
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Why want to rent it from me? :p

Seriously though I'm not trolling, I just don't think it's time for tin foil hats just yet :D

All I'm saying is based on the minute amount of info we have been given nobody can say for sure it's a scam.

Maybe the buyer works nights and hasn't had a chance to withdraw the cash? I don't think there is any cause to write the entire transaction off just yet (I'd have concerns about signing of paperwork though as mentioned).

The seller needs to contact the buyer to reach mutual ground if they're not happy with the way the transaction is going. Common sense is the way forward.
 
Did you offer payment by 'PayPal' as an option in the listing? If so I'm not sure if you can refuse payment that way.
 
Looking arround ebay the usual form for car sales seems to be a deposit by paypal as soon as the auction ends (to deter timewasters and tyre kickers) with the rest in cash on collection

incidentally as regards fake notes - you can get fake checking pens for a few quid
 
fabs said:
If your Paypal account isn't verified, their is a maximum transaction limit (around £1,600 IIRC)
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I tried to buy a lens last week with £1200 part payment of the sale going through Paypal. It wouldn't go through even though the account was verified and good. We rang Paypal who couldn't work out why. I felt like I was trying to pull a fast one as no-one at Paypal could explain the problem. In the end, the seller sent me an invoice which was paid instantly no problem.
 
I thought once you received funds into your paypal account you are able to withdraw instantly (2hours) to your own bank account, at which point Paypal would not be able to claw the money back :shrug:

At which point if the mate turns up with a signed letter with the address of the purchaser, you'd be pretty well covered in the event of a dispute, or am I being naive?
 
treeman said:
I thought once you received funds into your paypal account you are able to withdraw instantly (2hours) to your own bank account, at which point Paypal would not be able to claw the money back :shrug:

At which point if the mate turns up with a signed letter with the address of the purchaser, you'd be pretty well covered in the event of a dispute, or am I being naive?
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Yes, Paypal will just apply the refund to your Paypal account and put you in debit, if you don't resolve it within a short time they send it to debt collection, (default, judgement, bailiffs etc).
 
and/or if you have a credit/debit card attached your paypal account - they will just draw the funds there.

You'd probably be reasonably safe with paypal gift , but it would be a very unwise buyer who went that route, because thered be nothing to stop you saying "car ? I didnt sell him a car, it was a gift, innit"
 
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Paypal protection doesn't apply to cars so I think the only worry there would be if they filed a chargeback with their credit card company. I'm not sure how you would appeal that and it seems a lot of hassle!
Even if you'd withdrawn the money Paypal would send debt collectors after you and apparently they're not very nice.

I wouldn't accept Paypal purely because it could be a right pain, cash is easy

EDIT: As for fake e-mails, just check your Paypal account and see if the money is in there.
 
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Dave1 said:
Yes, Paypal will just apply the refund to your Paypal account and put you in debit, if you don't resolve it within a short time they send it to debt collection, (default, judgement, bailiffs etc).
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Seriously, can they legally do that? So they just assume the purchaser is always correct in a dispute?

big soft moose said:
and/or if you have a credit/debit card attached your paypal account - they will just draw the funds there.
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If all this is correct why would you ever buy anything with Paypal?
 
treeman said:
Seriously, can they legally do that? So they just assume the purchaser is always correct in a dispute?
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They can yes, but they don't automatically decide in the purchasers favour. As long as the seller follows the rules they are relatively safe, it's when you don't follow the rules (like accepting Paypal on a collection item) that they will decide against the seller.

If all this is correct why would you ever buy anything with Paypal?
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It offers some pretty good buyer protection, I will pay with Paypal out of choice if I think the seller is suspect, or foreign.
 
Agreed. Cash on collection on relist it. It's that simple really.
 
Bought two cars through ebay with no problems, but once I paid with cash, another time I did the bank transfer there and then. Paypal has it's uses, but would never use it for that kind of purchase.
 
Maybe the buyer doesn't feel comfortable with turning up at a location that the seller has choosen (or said is their address) with £5000 in cash - could be a 17 year buying their first car and scared at what/who would be waiting for them.
Just an idea, but IMO I'm not sure I'd be too happy about bringing that amount of cash to a deal I made on ebay (which may not even be local to the buyer).
 
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