Bought an iPhone yesterday face to face for £300 and paid for it by Paypal Gift – got an email from PP an hour later to say the full amount had been sent back to my account by the seller together with a message saying they could not transfer the money out of PP to their bank account. They now want me to transfer the money to their bank account. Want to do the right thing and pay for it but not if they can double charge me. Is it a scam or is this woman mad?

Log into pp & check your messages there – could be a fake email & she’s at it, dunno why she’d be unable to receive the money, unless it’s gone through as an echeque or something…

The refund has been received in to my account-she has my number and I can’t believe she would not ring me before sending the money back

That’s what’s wrong with this situation. Transferring 300 quid back to you without asking first? That is A) very trusting or B) A scam that plays on your sense of honesty and puts you under pressure to do it quickly.

Thought paypal gift was like cash. You have the phone.
I’d not be doing anything until I was contacted through the medium you’ve arranged the sale so phone/email.
My spider sense is tingling but it could be the curry I had yesterday.

Is the phone legit?

Cheers guys – what is the best way of checking it is legit? – it came with a box, I picked it up from her at her employers, it works. In my naivety I thought this was enough.

Throw it in a pond, if it sinks it’s likely legit. If it floats, BURN IT!!

Am I right in thinking that there is a PP restriction on transferring funds out of PP accounts if they are recently opened? Or something like that.
If so maybe she is new to PP and hadn’t realised this and now finds that she cannot access the cash and needs to.
Stupid to just refund it though

Paypal Help

If its a new account or she hasn’t used it much etc paypal restrict withdrawals to protect themselves.

Sounds like she doesn’t understand how paypal works and wants the money asap.

Her own fault, she should have asked for cash to start with, esspecially if you were meeting to exchange the phone anyway!

Sounds like she doesn’t understand how paypal works and wants the money asap.

probably this, maybe she wanted the money in her bank account asap to pay bills etc and used paypal rather than taking your cash and having to walk to the bank, but just simply didn’t understand how paypal works.
maybe check how she has returned the money to you ie returned the gift or paid you the money by other paypal method. if she returned the gift, I don’t see that she can grab it back at a later date.
Bear in mind also that there is a message with the money returned, which she perhaps wouldn’t have done if it were a scam. dunno tho does all seem a bit strange

Sounds to me like Hanlon’s Razor may apply here.

Ordinarily this has all the hallmarks of a scam; however, you have the phone and it works. The only thing I can possibly think of is that once you’ve paid by bank transfer she’ll reverse the PP refund she’s given you (if that’s even possible) so that you’ve paid twice. You’ve paid by PPG so that’s lost money, she’s ‘refunded’ by making a normal payment, you bank transfer, she reverses her PP transfer, boom.

When you picked it up from her employers, are you certain it was her employer and not a car park where she went “I work here, honest”?

paid for it by Paypal Gift

never ever

Pawsy_Bear, if you actually read the OP, he got the phone face to face and then used PP gift.
That is the part I don’t understand, why would you not just give her cash?

Have you phoned Paypal and the seller to find out what’s going on?

Why would she hand a new phone to a stranger then trust them to pay later?

I’d wait for her to make contact if she has your details, rather than act on what maybe a false email.

Onus is on her to contact you.

It appears that she is just young and not very smart – needed the money quickly so she could buy a Note4 as she did not like the 3 week old Iphone I bought from her.
She then sent the money back to me even though she did not keep a note of my number when she handed the phone over to me yesterday but then decided 20 minutes after we did the deal to send the money back to me and then email me to request I send the funds to her bank account. 😯

I did read it face to face still wouldn’t use papal gift. Phone fails two mins later your out £300. It’s about being safe

It would also be quicker to send it to her bank account via online banking.seems genuine mistake on her part. If you use paypal normal at least u have a way of redress. So why not use it

Plenty of scams at the moment.

Look out for Norwegian bank accounts

needed the money quickly so she could buy a Note4 as she did not like the 3 week old Iphone I bought from her.

So it’s stolen, then? (-:

Go to the cops see if the phone has been reported stolen

All very strange…for those saying don’t do PayPal gift as it might not work 2 minutes late that’s no different to cash which would probably the default transaction in this situation.

I’d be cautious, can you go back to her ’employers’ and discuss with her/pay cash? What type of workplace was it? Surely you can tell if she works there or not? Uniform? Ask on reception etc?

Ha she sent the money back by gift? If so she can’t get it back can she?
Lets assume that this is true.
Just take the phone back and tell he r to stuff the deal.
If she has real PPed the money then tell her to claim it back and gift it.
If the phone is stolen you will be out of pocket so try to hang onto the cash. Or Tell the police and you may lose the phone so withdraw the cash from your PP account then close it.