I had an email last night from someone called "Barbara Barnett" who was interested in buying my Yeti Big Top. [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/light-strong-cheap-–-for-once-choose-all-three-yeti-big-top-29r-for-sale ]It's a bargain, take a look.[/url]
She seemed pretty genuine: asked all the right questions... But claimed that, as she was recovering from surgery, she wouldn't be able to come and check the big, see if it fit etc. We agreed a price and she asked me to send a payment request via PayPal. Which I did. At this point, I wasn't financially at risk, so my suspicions were not aroused.
Next morning, she said that she had sent the money to my PayPal account, plus an extra £300 so that I could arrange a MoneyGram transfer to her courier (which she described as the 'moving company') so they would come and get the Yeti. She claimed that she couldn't get to her local MoneyGram... that surgery again.
This sounded like BS. But I got a VERY CONVINCING email, purportedly from PayPal which backed up instructions (including the details of the MoneyGram recipient, in Paris).
HOWEVER, when I checked my PayPal account, my original payment request was still 'pending' and no money had been deposited into the account.
So it's a scam. You MoneyGram them £300 and you never get the balance.
Bastards. Be careful out there.
Nice bike 8)
Call her/their bluff by offering to deliver?
Unless of course this is a stealth re-ad? 😉
String 'her' along with some BS and post it all up here. Also publicise the email address so we can sign them up to some choice mailing lists.
Ha! You have a suspicious mind, slackalice.
No, it's a true story. And it's deffo a scam. They've gone completely silent since I sent them an email calling them out on the con.
But if you know anyone who fancies a Big Top, give them a shout.
this is a very common scam, glad you were alert enough not to fall for it OP as I'm sure many others have sadly been hooked by it/similar.
Well done for not falling for the scam. I badly want your bike, so your stealth re-ad has worked..! I'll have to sell a few of mine first though, to make room! Or do I...
The email address is: jqaabarnett@gmail.com
I'm sure it's a 'burner' and that 'Barbara' won't be using it any more...
Here's the email from 'PayPal' with the MoneyGram account I was supposed to send the £300 to.
The top part of the email was extremely accurately branded.
[img] 
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It's only a little hardtail, DezB... it won't take much room... Message me!
Do I know you? Your name really rings a bell!
Gotta get ready for a new years thing, but I'll have another look tomorrow.
You spotted it wasn't a real Paypal email - they probably linked to the real branding graphics. If anyone is ever in doubt, it's worth learning how to read email headers, to see who the email is actually from. I've checked one I received today (in answer to a query) and the from address includes paypalcorp.com. It's easy to forge email content, but a lot harder to forge headers.
Very convincing email? Really?
Illness ... shipping agents ... Moneygram ... £300 ... cash ... dodgy a/c name ... Paris ... couldn't be more obvious really tbh.
Surname 'Obafemi' sounds a 419 scammers name.......
The poor English in the PayPal email would have alerted me to something going on!
"Obefemi" is the name of the courier she claimed to be using. It certainly got suspect when 'Barbara' started asking for a MoneyGram... I've received some really crappy phishing emails in the past; in comparison, the 'PayPal' email I got this morning was very convincing – well branded, well laid out, same colours and fonts as PayPal.
Don't think so, DezB. Have a great New Year's Eve.
Barbara. "I've only been taking the hormones a week and already me nipples are like bullets!"
Always read email headers.. I once got and email from barclays.co.uk.ru or similar.. Must be thier new Russian office!
Who, of bike riding age, is called Barbara? This alone is suspicious enough for me.
Old scam, being repurposed for other things from its original purpose (cars, vans), and been done to death here already.
"So we reserve the right to make this transaction secured" as stated above the grammar always lets the scammers down 😆
Oh and everything else about surgery/money gram etc !!!!
Just had the same email after putting my bike up for sale.
From Barbara Barnett:
Hi, I won't be available to view as I’m recovering from surgery, so I'll like to know it present condition.
Why do you need to sell it ? Any accident history? Sorry my phone is not active as I just came back from the hospital after several weeks.
Regards
Brilliant. As soon as I replied it had been sold after seeing youre post, I had another message come through within minutes from a mobile no, though they didnt sign off with a name..
Call we skeptic, im sure its the same party since questions asked are answered in my post, so they're either not reading it and just messaging the sellers regardless with the same questions or im dealing with a person whos unable to read the small print.
why would anyone send money to someone who's buying something from them? Is it me or was the old fashioned way that if someone buys something from you they send money [b]to[/b] you...
call me old fashioned but this alone would have put me off...
Apparently some scams use deliberately misspelled English or poor grammar to throw you off the scent.
A couple of things: turn off images and remote content in your email client, the server requests that these make validate your email address as being active. Secondly if you hover your mouse over any links in the email the popup will show the actual address that it links to.
And yes, why should you as a seller have to send money to the buyer?
Obafemi is a Yoruba name. Lots of Yorubas live in Nigeria.
The phrase "I'll like to know" is typically Nigerian language.
I always thought that was done in order to filter out anyone with a bit of sense - the logic being that anyone who actually replied has already passed the "stupid test".Apparently some scams use deliberately misspelled English or poor grammar to throw you off the scent.
see above!And yes, why should you as a seller have to send money to the buyer?
I had the same email 3 times when selling on autotrader. They got a very short reply
I always thought that was done in order to filter out anyone with a bit of sense - the logic being that anyone who actually replied has already passed the "stupid test".
it is.