Really wish I didnāt have to report this s++t but ā¦
We posted some items for an elderly friend today on my wifeās fb account on fb marketplace . I hate fb but she keeps an account to connect with our youngest daughter. Marketplace seems to have taken over from Gumtree in many respects, just as fb groups have supplanted forums as a way for groups of hobby enthusiasts to connect,
It is also a fertile playground for scummers (spelling correct). We had a contact from a woman in fairly quick time after the listing went in (always sus on gumtree) She asked reasonable questions about the goods which were marked very low in accordance with my friends instructions. Then quickly agreed to take everything at a job lot. She could not pickup till later in the week after work but would pay full price now on PayPal or the phone payment thingo I donāt use. Ok, sounds fair, so, my PayPal account is
softskull@thickhead.com etc.
Sometime later we get another messageā¦. Ok Iāve paid the amount to
softskull@thickhead.com, you should have an email from PayPal confirming the amount by now. I check ā¦nuh nothing. Go to pp no deposits this month. We confirm this with Mrs oldmate. She replies with ācheck your junk mail ā. Well this is fair enough as itās not unusual for serious emails to finish up in junk and Iāve had this warning before from legitimate sources.
We get an official looking email from PayPal security saying a payment (correct amount) has been received from a business account, but it exceeds our daily limit because we donāt have a business account
So could we please switch over on this link to change to a business account, as this amount cannot be reversed or refunded.
At first I was momentarily annoyed as I thought āwhy the truck didnāt they just pay cash when collecting the stuffā. Then, the penny dropped, that Iād
given them my email which is the one I use as my PayPal name. They had just cloned a pp email format and tried to direct us to their phishing link. The email repeats minutes later.
As usual with this stuff I wanted to rule out blowing off a genuine buyer, so I attempted to use the (real) on-site PayPal chat bot to check out the validity of the request. The AI chat bot didnāt seem to dig the text Iād forwarded from the email. It kept asking what brand of herbal tea my maiden aunt prefers. I gave that up and decided to ring the hotline and converse with a human. I got a security code to input (good) and number to ring. Expecting a two hour symphony of elevator music, I was pleasantly surprised to get a nice lady within two minutes, who confirmed no deposit had been made, and no emails had been sent from PayPal. She asked could I copy the email and sent it to their phishing dept so they could activate their hypersonic death ray and stop further annoyance. Quite satisfying really.
When copying the text it was then I noted that even though the heading of the fake email said āPAYPAL SERVICE ā The address below said āseeviceāā¦note the difference
Again the personal nature of the correspondence had gently steered me to thinking I was holding some money that could not be accepted or refunded till Iād done the paperwork. Clever and annoying, as I realised I had not sold my friends stuff, had almost let my guard down and worse wasted an hour dealing with **se wholes.
Anyway, as Iāve said the best way of stopping these people is to spread the word. Forward this to your brethren.
I hope their inflatable PFDs cylinders are full of whipped cream .
Coincidentally this was on SBS news site todayā¦I only scored 8 out of 10. Old age is kicking in
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/can ... /sjsdyn8ja
Apologies to anyone who read this post last night. It contained the Worldās longest sentences and has since been edited.
Marvin says āforewarned is forearmedā
