Scammer contacted me via forum beware

kelpbeds · December 2020

I put a' Want To Buy' ad for a Cali76 stacked in the classifieds of this forum and a guy contacted me saying he knew someone who was selling one and sent me his email.
I contacted the guy who replied and sent me photos.
He wanted £250, which seemed a fair price and spoke like he knew what he was talking about.
I asked for Paypal, he said he didn't do it, so I declined.
He then came back and said his son had a Paypal and we could use that. So I paid him with protection. (I paid the extra)
He then made up lots of excuses about it not being cleared (even though it was) and asked me to click on the button in Paypal which would have confirmed me receiving it (I may have been a bit stupid over this but not that stupid!)
Anyway I've escalated it to Paypal am waiting to here. Will be a while though.
Just wanted to make people aware so they don't get caught out.
The seller goes by the name of Russell Moore, the guy who contacted me went by the username !Jay9j! (can't find him on the forum and I should have looked earlier then I might have been alerted)

Schnozz · December 2020

Thank you for flagging this up - Much appreciated.

I've just put some stuff up on Gumtree and I'm getting lots of scam attempts at the moment (certainly more than usual!).

Pleased you sussed it sooner rather than later, as my friend's sister recently lost her violin due to something similar.

Roland · December 2020

jJay9j was banned as soon as we became aware of his behaviour. There are two techniques common to this and other scams: using private messages to keep things out of the public eye, and responding to WTB threads.

kelpbeds · December 2020

Yeah it just seemed legit with the photos and everything. So glad I used Paypal protection. Cheers for the info

Creed_Clicks · December 2020

Looks like something I'd get caught out in if I were in a rush or busy and clicked whatever PayPal buttons I thought were necessary. Anything else we should be looking out for apart from the above?

webrthomson · December 2020

@kelpbeds ; - report him to the Police, they may or may not do something about it but fraud is fraud

kelpbeds · December 2020

Yeah i thought about the Police and looked it up but apparently they rarely do anything in these situations, thanks.

kelpbeds · December 2020

Creed_Clicks said:

Looks like something I'd get caught out in if I were in a rush or busy and clicked whatever PayPal buttons I thought were necessary. Anything else we should be looking out for apart from the above?

Not really! Just make sure if you put a WTB ad in and you get a response it's from a legit forum member with a history I guess.

kelpbeds · December 2020

Actually just looked again and can report it here, so will do that. Thanks

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime

russpm · December 2020

He contacted me recently and put me in touch with the same guy trying to sell me a Jam pedals Ripply Falls as I had a WTB post on here.
They guy emailed me and something just didn’t feel right so I passed.

Thank god I did.

PengaMax · December 2020

Thanks for the heads up, such a shame there is so much of this kind of thing happening at the moment. Bastards

prowla · December 2020

I've been having an issue with a scammer these past few weeks...

K33EU · December 2020

in his defence he may not be scamming you. I have had many problems with paypal releasing funds / putting funds on hold that in one case took THREE MONTHS for them to release it to me. In fact, despite my platinum ebay/paypal status they put funds on hold more often than not. They have used a myriad of excuses so they can to hold on to money for as long as they can. I assume this is to benefit them with liquidity. I specifically will not ever use Paypal again unless its vital for this and a whole host of other reasons too numerous to mention. In short most times i find its paypal that are the scammers...

K33EU · December 2020

good luck with escalations to paypal BTW. They usually take at least a week to respond. Lately this rose to more than a month...anyway enough ranting from my end..paypal use beware i think you can tell!

kelpbeds · December 2020

Cheers chaps, he is definitely scamming me. Says he has refunded me when he hasn't and is now being abusive. Just waiting for Paypal to escalate it.

russpm · December 2020

He is defo a scammer, I could smell it!

Philly_Q · December 2020

Funnily enough, I know two people called Russell Moore. I doubt this is either of them, though.

kelpbeds · December 2020

I can't escalate it through Paypal until 24th, will let you know what happens.

prowla · December 2020

There are things you can do, including registering a case with Action Fraud; a number of us have been going through the process with another scammer.

kelpbeds · December 2020

Yep I have found that, thank you

darthed1981 · December 2020

Surely this is risking a criminal convinction for relatively small amounts of money - is it a compulsion these people have?

Scumbags - sorry to hear this is happening to so many here.

Hattigol · December 2020

A guy I knew years ago used to use crisp packets as condoms.

I think he was colloquially known as Russell Moore....

blueskunk · December 2020

What a cyunt

Mike58 · January 2021

Scammers... Persue them , find them, then use your special skills
recommend deeper grave than normal.

hotpickups · January 2021

I’ll certainly be aware in future thanks to this listing albeit I don’t use eBay much tbh.

One question though, so PayPal doesn’t release funds unless it knows the item been delivered / received? Hence why he asked for the received button to be clicked?

bananaman · January 2021

There are various methods of paying by paypal, some of which give more protection than others. By far the simplest belt and braces way to protect yourself with a distance seller is to ask them to make a 'buy it now' ebay listing and send you the link. Ebay often has '£1 selling fee' offers on, so it shouldn't cost them the earth to do it. Then you get both ebay and paypal protection. Reporting people to action fraud is a complete waste of time. They are up to their eyeballs. I know a lady who got scammed for ten grand (!!!!), was able to supply loads of details (scammers bank account etc., which branch he was going into and so on) and they did absolutely bugger all. So I'd imagine that when a report comes in for a couple of hundred quid fraud, they simply press the 'delete' key and go back to eating their doughnuts!

Sammy · January 2021

K33EU said:

in his defence he may not be scamming you. I have had many problems with paypal releasing funds / putting funds on hold that in one case took THREE MONTHS for them to release it to me. In fact, despite my platinum ebay/paypal status they put funds on hold more often than not. They have used a myriad of excuses so they can to hold on to money for as long as they can. I assume this is to benefit them with liquidity. I specifically will not ever use Paypal again unless its vital for this and a whole host of other reasons too numerous to mention. In short most times i find its paypal that are the scammers...

He was probably scamming you, but agree with K33EU, Paypal aren't regulated like a bank so can take as long as they want and do what they want with you money! If you check out about paypal withholding peoples monies there are thousands of people complaining about this in the USA where paypal originate from, many having their business accounts suspended, having done nothing wrong at all! I had so much problem with paypal where I bought some fence panels for my partner, in that they said I was a trader and wanted my business account details, which I don't have as I am not a trader never have been, and would not release my own monies until I supplied them with details of my non exisitant business account! I have reams of emails going back and forth to complete idiots at paypal who haven't got a clue and just kept repeating the same questions. They wouldn't even let me close my account and have my own monies returned which were sitting in there. The only way I finally got them to release my monies was that, as I had already threatened them and they took no notice, I told them I had had enough and was going to take them to the small claims court and would get as much bad publicity at the same time as I could for paypal, when I won the action against them. Within three hours I recieved an email from paypal advising that the suspension had been lifted and thanking me for my patience in the investigation! I subsequently got my monies out of paypal and closed the account and would never ever use them again. As I mentioned above Paypal are not regulated like a bank, which is ludicrous as they are handling millions of money transactions. I was going to send all the info to my MP, but it was at the start of Covid, so obviously other priorities came first. May still do at a later stage, as paypal as K33EU said, are the scammers, as they are retaining peoples monies under false pretences!

kelpbeds · January 2021

Quick update, Paypal refunded me very quickly after it passed the date I could report it to them. Was very impressed with them and very glad I took the insurance!

DuncMan · February 2021

Sammy said:

K33EU said:

in his defence he may not be scamming you. I have had many problems with paypal releasing funds / putting funds on hold that in one case took THREE MONTHS for them to release it to me. In fact, despite my platinum ebay/paypal status they put funds on hold more often than not. They have used a myriad of excuses so they can to hold on to money for as long as they can. I assume this is to benefit them with liquidity. I specifically will not ever use Paypal again unless its vital for this and a whole host of other reasons too numerous to mention. In short most times i find its paypal that are the scammers...

He was probably scamming you, but agree with K33EU, Paypal aren't regulated like a bank so can take as long as they want and do what they want with you money! If you check out about paypal withholding peoples monies there are thousands of people complaining about this in the USA where paypal originate from, many having their business accounts suspended, having done nothing wrong at all! I had so much problem with paypal where I bought some fence panels for my partner, in that they said I was a trader and wanted my business account details, which I don't have as I am not a trader never have been, and would not release my own monies until I supplied them with details of my non exisitant business account! I have reams of emails going back and forth to complete idiots at paypal who haven't got a clue and just kept repeating the same questions. They wouldn't even let me close my account and have my own monies returned which were sitting in there. The only way I finally got them to release my monies was that, as I had already threatened them and they took no notice, I told them I had had enough and was going to take them to the small claims court and would get as much bad publicity at the same time as I could for paypal, when I won the action against them. Within three hours I recieved an email from paypal advising that the suspension had been lifted and thanking me for my patience in the investigation! I subsequently got my monies out of paypal and closed the account and would never ever use them again. As I mentioned above Paypal are not regulated like a bank, which is ludicrous as they are handling millions of money transactions. I was going to send all the info to my MP, but it was at the start of Covid, so obviously other priorities came first. May still do at a later stage, as paypal as K33EU said, are the scammers, as they are retaining peoples monies under false pretences!

They did something similar to me years ago. Haven't had any trouble with them since but they can certainly be a law unto themselves at times.

Ché · February 2021

Two things about PayPal from my own experience which might be helpful.

if your PayPal isn’t linked to your bank account or verified in some way, you aren’t able to issue refunds if the money is no longer in your PayPal account. I had the hassle having to go the whole process for a few days before I could issue the buyer a refund.

Another issue with not having your bank account linked or verified is the amount of money coming and going through your account. If you are selling a lot and a large amount of money comes into your account, PayPal can withhold it from you until the account is verified.

This guy sounds like a definite scammer but the issues he describes do and can occur.

Spikeedog · February 2021

What's the alternative to using Paypal?

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