Ive put my car up for sale and had some interest from this person, could this be someone trying to launder money? Here's the email:

Great. am glad to read from you ,will appreciate more pictures... i am
a marine engineer, i am at sea right now.I am buying this for my son
as a surprise promise Gift so am willing to offer you the amount you
required. I can only pay through PayPal at the moment as i don't have
access to my bank account online(i don't have internet banking with
it), but i have it attached to my PayPal account, and this is why i
insisted on using PayPal to pay,all i will need is your PayPal email
address to make the payments, and if you don't have a PayPal account
yet, you can set one up at www.paypal.co.uk it cant take you less than
3mins to do that, i will be expecting your PayPal email so l can pay .
I have a pick up agent that will come for the pick up after payments
has been sorted.

l will be waiting for your reply asap

 

Thats got Nigerian Scam written all over it! I'd advise steering (excuse the pun) well clear.

 

I thought as much, thanks Toully

 

scammier than a scammy scam from scamland

op - don't take offence but did you really think it could possibly be credible?

I only ask because I have to move a few million around (all legit, just want to avoid rip offs from the banks) and I need someone trustworthy to run it through their account in return for a commission

 

Yep, a scam 100%, the old paypal trick.

Seen it before.

 

I beleive it to be a scam as well.


So go on then, explain how this PayPal scam works ?

Thanks
Bharat

 

Agree, I mean bloody hell they are wanting to give you money without looking at the car first.

Give them an address like iwanttobescammed@paypal.com

 

From what I have heard before, there is a way whereby they can send you the funds via paypal, someone comes and collects the car and then when you go back to see your funds they have been taken back out of your account.

 

Yep absolutely right.

African Scam for which I experienced something very similar few years back.

In short I received an Email offering to pay slightly more than the full asking price, and for which a cheque would follow for slightly higher amount. You'd end up losing your money (if your'e really stupid) and (if your really/really stupid) your car.

Here we go then.

Car asking price £10K for example.

Chq arrives for £10,500 (and here's the first catch) because the buyer needs to urgently get some money to someone else in the UK your'e asked to bank the chq and make arrangements for the £500 to be transferred by some means (bank transfer/etc) to another account (all sounds very genuine/blaa blaa blaa.

Chq arrives (which is normally a pathetic attempt at a real chq), you bank it and transfer the £500 as requested. Because the UK chq clearing system is somewhat slow and antiquated, by the time you find out the original chq has bounced, your £500 is long gone and unrecoverable.

Also; you may even have someone turn up, around the time the chq arrives, to relieve you of your car (but apparently this is extremely rare).

Might be worth reporting your Email to the police; hopefully it will be of use to them. Let the person know your'e onto them and have reported the matter to the police and you won't hear another word from them.

 

It is a well known scam. Very often called " the offer you can't refuse scam"