I recently put my laptop for sale on Craig list and the next day got 3 or 4 emails from people who were interested. I decided to go with the person who said they will use paypal to send the payment, thinking that was the safest choice. The person explained to me that they were in Malaysia on a missionary conference and that they are buying the laptop for their friend for his birthday. She said she wanted it to be sent out USPS and when I suggested sending it through UPS she said she wanted it to be sent through USPS because it's more reliable and safer. She then told me to send them my paypal account id name and they will send the money to it as soon as possible. So they emailed me saying they sent the payment. I went to my paypal account and it did not indicate that I had gotten such payment, so I emailed the person and told her that it wasn't showing up in my account (this was my first time selling an item online and using paypal so I wasn't sure how it worked.) She told me to check my email that paypal should of emailed me confirming that the payment has been sent. I checked my email and this is the email I got with paypals logo all over it, so it looked pretty legit to me:
You've got new Funds!! Payments by PayPal
Dear (
jms473@medaille.edu),
Diana Webber just sent you an Auction Payment using PayPal.
(
dianaweb080@gmail.com) is a Verified Member.
Payment Details:
Amount: $600.00 USD
Transaction ID: 5Y758872CS5622823
Status: Confirmed
Note: You Have been Paid For: notebook
Shipping Information :
Olatuja O O
b4-3-10,permai 5,desa lembah,ampang
kuala lumpur ,68000
Selangor,Malaysia.
Address Status: Confirmed
This PayPal fund has been deducted from the buyer's account (
dianaweb080@gmail.com) and has been " APPROVED " but will not be credited to your account until the shipment reference/tracking number is sent to us for shipment verification so as to secure both the buyer and the seller. Below are the necessary information requested before your account will be credited.
Send shipment details to us through this mail:(
paypalmembersteam@mail2consultant.com) and our customer service care will attend to you. As soon as you send us the shipment's tracking details for security purposes and the safety of the buyer with the seller, the money will be credited to your account.
**PLEASE NOTE**
Once shipment has been verified and the tracking number sent to us.You will receive a " CONFIRMATION EMAIL " from PayPal informing you that the Money has been credited .
PayPal
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal team.
So I believed the email as being paypal and payed $75 to ship the laptop to Malaysia, (thinking the money that I paid would be reimbursed from the $600 that "paypal was holding for me") and I then sent the proof of the shipment to the email that "Paypal" told me to send to. I then received an email back saying they confirmed the proof of the shipment and to please wait 7 days until my money will be sent into my account, the reason they gave me for that was because of how much business paypal receives that it will take that long for them to transfer the money to my account. Now I started to feel like that was kind of odd, but that being said I've never used paypal before to receive money for selling an item, so I waited until the 7 days passed. When the day came and I was suppose to have the money in my account it was not there. I received an email saying that paypal put a hold on my money because of the number of times that I had signed into my paypal account, that it looked suspicious. So I called paypal and they told me that they have been receiving a lot of calls saying the same thing has happened to them. When I gave paypal the account id of the lady who was buying my laptop, they told me there was no such name and basically that I was scammed. Paypal suggested that I try to go to the post office and have the item shipped back if it hasn't yet been delivered, but it was already too late, the item had been delivered. The post office told me as soon as it left the country there was basically no chance of getting it back.
So I'm pretty much at a loss here, I feel as if there is nothing I can do, that these people got away with a free laptop. So now I lost my laptop and I am down 75$ for shipping the stupid thing. I feel cheated, stupid and blind. I now will make sure nothing like this will happen to me again and I want my story to be out there so that this doesn't happen to anyone else and that a stop comes to this. Also if anyone has any suggestions to what I might be able to do to get these people caught and hopefully arrested?