Scammer on the loose

5 SIGNS THAT A POTENTIAL BUYER MIGHT BE A SCAMMER

1. Has got a newly created eBay account, with zero feedback on eBay.
2. Wants you to end your listing early for them because they are paying you double for it.

Of course you know these things already, but here are some more pointers that will help you tell if a buyer is trying to pull a fast one.

3. Tells you that the payment for the item is pending in your PayPal account and will only be credited once you ship the item, but the weird thing is, you don’t see any pending or on hold funds in your account!
4. Tells you to upload or email the tracking/shipping information to an unfamiliar email address, and upon uploading or emailing the tracking, that’s when the money will be credited to your PayPal account.
5. Last but not the least, tells you to ship the item in Nigeria.

Once you hear/see the word Nigeria in your correspondences with the potential buyer, you would have to be very careful. Please remember that Nigeria isn’t included yet in the list of countries that PayPal supports. Once you learn that the buyer wants the item shipped in Nigeria, that should give you a hint already that the buyer is a scammer.

Of course, sometimes we can’t prevent bad things from happening, let us say you are really new to eBay and PayPal, you believed this con artist and you shipped the item already, there's still hope, don’t worry.


DAMAGE CONTROL

Coordinate with the shipping carrier or go directly to the post office and try to stop the shipment of your item. At this point, PayPal will not be able to help you because there was no legitimate PayPal transaction that took place. Next time you gotta be really careful. Times are tough and money is hard to earn, so we really have to be very careful.