How to Differentiate Between Fraudulent Paypal Buyers

Communication is key to recognizing the goods from the bad. How are they communicating with you? In these days and age we are a lot more active online by researching, buying, or selling among other things.

You listed your items on craigslist.org with pictures to draw an interest from a buyer. There were a couple contacts but they were not willing to pay in cash or pick up locally. Finally there was one willing to pay you via paypal, which sounded great because you have a paypal account through eBay. What do you do next?

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Know where your buyer is from, so be suspicious of distant buyers. For example one country that is notorious for most things fraudulent is Nigeria. Find out more information on Nigeria by calling USPS directly if you're in doubt.

2. Fraudulent buyers work in a team to con you out of your businesses and money. The first one who showed interest in an item might suggest you send a package to another. He will request a paypal invoice.

3. Identifying real and fake paypal emails. A fake one might look like this if you open up a detail properties of your email: [e-mail]. Notice how it says paypal but if you look at it closely after the "@" symbol, it is actually from mail2pal.com. The real one looks like this: [e-mail] or this: [e-mail]

4. An email claiming to be from paypal says they're holding your money sent to you from Mr. Stanley Steve. Your paypal account should be credited after you provide them with a tracking number for the item purchased. You then email them the tracking number, but for two days they did not deposit your fund, yet they claim the deposit should be made immediately upon receiving the tracking number.

5. Urgent request. He will ask you to ship the item via USPS express or priority mail. Be informed that the United States Postal Service does deliver to Nigeria, BUT will not be able to track the package up to the recipient. Their local postal office does not honor our USPS system. Opt for UPS or FedX that might guaranteed your package be delivered.

6. You created a label using your paypal account. When you went to printing the label it did not print. Be suspicious of this. It might be that USPS does not recognize the address. You have 24 hours to reprint the label and 48 hours to get your refund back for a label purchase as a seller. Plan accordingly knowing all of this and you shouldn't lose any money.

Tips & Warnings

• If someone else warned you about something similar, take it seriously
• Do NOT mail out the package until you're darn sure
• Report Internet fraud
• Paypal funds does not need a third party to be deposited
• Do not give out your SSN or photos of yourself
• Know that a fraudulent buyer might be reading this

[alltrails]

on 9/26/2009 Good tips for spotting fraudulent paypal buyers. 5 stars - thanks!