A True PayPal

Over the course of the past few months, I've had the opportunity to sell hundreds of items on KSl.com, Amazon.com, and eBay.com. While I, in no way, consider myself an expert, I've learned much about the patterns and strategies scammers will use to get your items for free-- or even collect money from you.

While I was fearful at first, I quickly learned these were cowards who only dared interact in the virtual world. After realizing that, my fear quickly dissipated and I became an offensive player in these conversations rather than a fearful defendant. 

And that's when the fun really began. I began engaging in conversations with fraudulent buyers through email, texts, and even phone calls at times. I figure if I can engage them with me, that's less time they'll be spending scamming an unsuspecting victim. 

I figured I would post my latest interaction to help people out there more quickly recognize scammers. Once you learn their strategies, it really isn't too difficult. 

Let's break it down. 

This attempt was one of the more sophisticated attempts, but I knew it was fraud in the first text. 

Often times, the scammer will directly copy and paste your item into their subject line. Who types a text message like this? Nobody. He copy and pasted my exact item into a box, left a space between the template he uses, and sent it over. 

Secondly, the scammer's grammar and English is below average (but above the average of most scammers I've dealt with). While the grammar of most in text messages is poor, you'll often notice abhorring grammar and English in these. That is not to meant to be racial or bias in any way-- it's just a pattern that has become overwhelming clear in the several confrontations I've had. 

I won't break down the entire conversation, but as I said before, this attempt was more elaborate. I engaged in conversation with him for quite a long time, and he was actually negotiating with me. Usually, they will offer to pay it through Paypal in the second message after you confirm it's available. Yet, there were still several flaws with his approach here: 

1. He said he's in St. George. Clever move. He's going to want me to ship it and he's going to want to pay through PayPal. But wait.. What's the zip code? 478. I Googled it, and it came up as an area code in Georgia. Yes, it's possible he moved there from Georgia and kept his area code. Probable? No. Another hint. 
2. Asking you to mail it. As soon as they ask you to mail it, you know it's fraud. They are going to have you ship it to an address, and they're going to want to "pay" you using an online source. 
3. Family reason. In every fraud instance I've seen, they've used some compelling family issue to speed up the process. In the case of selling an Apple Watch, it's almost an urgent birthday gift. And whaddya know? The scammer wants to surprise their brother which means I need to ship it immediately. Right....
4. His grammar is better than most... but still. 

So, to speed things up here, I gave him an email address to sent me a "PayPal payment". If you do this, ensure that you do not take any action until you see the money in your account on PayPal. Within a few minutes, I received a fake email from PayPal, confirming his payment. What were the problems? 

1. The email was sent to my scam folder. I do regular transactions on PayPal, and their emails definitely do not go to my spam folder. 
2. Check the fine print of the email:

I cross-checked this email with the ones I receive from Paypal. PayPal is not going to tell you have to send your package before you receive the payment. The scammer is-- no surprise. Additionally, notice the typos? 

• "This is a security measure taking to ensure the safety"
• "to make sure the buyer get their item"
• "as soon as we credit your your paypal account"

Right, so one of the biggest online merchants misspelled their fine print more than four times? 

So, after I sent him a fake tracking number and he asked me where his package was, this is how I concluded the conversation.

And that's the biggest giveaway right there. As soon as you call them on their bluff, they're gone. Their cowards behind the veil of virtual interaction. They'll run as soon as they know you're onto them, and find the next unsuspecting victim. 

Again, I'm not an expert-- just sharing what I've noticed and observed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.