paypal scam

by Loz
(USA)

I had an item for sale, about 2 weeks later I got an e-mail from the company I had the advert with forwarding an enquiry from an interested party.

They wanted to buy the item and could only pay for it via PayPal. I had never used PayPal so I opened an account with them to receive the money and sent a bill request to the buyer via PayPal. I then had an e-mail from the buyer stating that he had included money for his agent to come and collect the item (it was a large item)and would I go to Western Union and pay the agent costs then forward the money transfer number to them and the funds on PayPal would be released.

I then had an e-mail supposedly from PayPal stating that the funds were with them and a temporary hold had been put on it to protect the buyer and seller.

Alarm bells started ringing; he wanted me to pay $950 of my own money via Western Union to his so called agent. I e-mailed him and told him that I did not have that kind of money, I got another e-mail supposedly from PayPal to send the money and then I would get paid.

Stupidly I replied to the e-mail thinking I was talking to PayPal explaining the situation and got one back basically saying that all would be fine once I'd sent the money. I looked at my PayPal account and found that there was no money on hold.

I immediately closed my PayPal account then forwarded the e-mails I'd received to them. I was one of the lucky ones, the grammar was not perfect on the e-mails and before I realized it was a scam I told my husband that PayPal should get rid of them as their written English was poor!!!!

BEWARE.

Hope this helps others.