11-09-2014, 03:04 PM
In relation to the earlier discussion about scams, a popular one in Australia goes something like this:
You advertise your bike on a website—in my case gumtree.com.au—and you get a text from someone asking you to email them information about the bike. You do it and get a response telling you they're prepared to buy but can't come personally as they're working in a remote part of Australia. They ask for details of your PayPal account so they can transfer the money. You send them the details and they overpay you then ask you to refund the overpayment via Western Union or a similar organisation. It turns out the funds used to pay you have been stolen and PayPal recovers the entire payment from your account. You're out the amount you 'refunded'. And you still have the bike. If they were really clever they'd have someone come and collect the bike and you'd be short of that too, but they generally operate from overseas and are interested only in the cash.
I was lucky: I found the whole approach odd and did some searching and talking only to discover the scam. I stopped replying to the texts and emails and then heard nothing.
You advertise your bike on a website—in my case gumtree.com.au—and you get a text from someone asking you to email them information about the bike. You do it and get a response telling you they're prepared to buy but can't come personally as they're working in a remote part of Australia. They ask for details of your PayPal account so they can transfer the money. You send them the details and they overpay you then ask you to refund the overpayment via Western Union or a similar organisation. It turns out the funds used to pay you have been stolen and PayPal recovers the entire payment from your account. You're out the amount you 'refunded'. And you still have the bike. If they were really clever they'd have someone come and collect the bike and you'd be short of that too, but they generally operate from overseas and are interested only in the cash.
I was lucky: I found the whole approach odd and did some searching and talking only to discover the scam. I stopped replying to the texts and emails and then heard nothing.