AllClassifieds being targeted by shysters and con artists

PsydFX – great idea, but I read just recently somewhere a lady who tried to do just that and neither the police nor the company it was being done through were interested in taking the bait.

When I was selling my car on All Classifieds I recieved a similar scam email stating that the interested buyer was a Marine Engineer at sea, and that they would purchase the car for the agreed price and pay immediately via PayPal, they then went on to state that they would have a Pickup Agent come and collect the car once the transaction had gone through.

Sensing it was a scam I told them to f(_)ck off and reported it to All Classifieds. In hind sight, I should probably have gone along with it, and gotten the police involved as they may have been able to track the person down through the “Pickup Agent”

i have used an ‘and’ in that second sentence instead of “logs the value of offers, or”.
Mentally insert and reread.

It should probably also be noted that I’m no lawyer, its just my reading of their Terms and Conditions.

AllClassifieds for its part in ‘assisting’ sales listings, doesn’t really do much for user protection. 🙁

Ebay has a policy of only allowing authenticated members to contact authenticated members, and never actually revealing a user’s email either directly to the public or to an authenticated user unless one user goes out of their way to reveal it as a system-logged private message.

AllClassifieds’ system never actually requires any form of membership, or authentication other than a character recognition “Captcha” before letting a person see the user’s email address or phone number.
Captchas are breakable, so their system 1) does not prevent bots from harvesting emails of listing users (for spam or scam purposes) and 2) the nature of their business puts users at an elevated risk of the ‘fake buyer’ or ‘postal theft’ scams mentioned here.
And it does it as a private communication between users entirely seperated from AllClassifieds, so AllClassifieds doesn’t know\care about it.

So their disclaimer linked to from every page is all they need. (emphasis mine)
All Homes Pty Ltd is not involved in or a party to any transaction between buyers and sellers of items listed on the website. Accordingly, All Homes Pty Ltd makes no guarantees, undertakings or warranties regarding the accuracy, truth, comprehensiveness or currency of information contained in advertisements, the suitability, quality, safety, merchantability, fitness for any particular purpose or legality of any of the items advertised for sale on the website, or the ability or capacity for sellers or buyers to complete or enforce a transaction regarding an item advertised for sale on the website

Has anyone bothered to let All Classifieds know about this?

BT, I agree that PapaDoc should continue baiting the buyer.

Following Skid’s scenario I know a guy who sold a Gen 1 iPhone on eBay last year. He got a fair price too.

The sale was completed, paid for using PayPal and the iPhone was delivered as you would expect.

About a week later the 3G iPhone was announced for Australia. Suddenly the seller began to have problems with the iPhone and demanded a refund. PayPal sided with the buyer and automatically withdrew the funds from the sellers PayPal account.

The iPhone was returned and is still being used today by the original seller. That is, there was never anything wrong with it. It seems like a big case of buyers remorse and PayPal can sometimes be too far in favour of buyers.

What’s particularly interesting about this is that the way that the scammers are taking security provisions put in place to prevent scams on the selling side, and turning them around to help them effect scams on the buying side. The ingenuity of evil surely knows no bounds.

Until you get the cash out of Paypal, they can still quarantine it, or just bleed the seller through a death by a thousand cuts.
(This is the point of the dispute resolution centre).

‘Buyer'(Guyman) sends $700 dollars, advises to change the sending address from what their account was verified for. (Hence the “I work internationally, and move around a lot, so would not be at my usual address in Canberra\London\wherever” introduction)

Seller sends item to requested address, because this is consistent with their interactions with buyer(guyman).
Guyman lodges a dispute through Paypal, saying the box was empty or never arrived.
Paypal informs user that dispute is in play, and quarantines their payment.
They ask you to prove that you sent it to the verified address.
Paypal discovers seller did not send to the address on the account.
Paypal decides seller was stupid in taking such a risk, against the procedures Paypal advises as ‘relatively safe for both parties so long as they use verified addresses’.
Paypal is not at fault because they can only verify the addresses people self-identify as active, not every address on earth.
Paypal refunds money to Mr Nigeria, whose verified address was in London\Canberra\wherever, saying they are not responsible for stupid behaviour\international postal services.

It gets much easier if people choose to use Western Union, or just tell eBay support that they paid by direct deposit.
Ebay has an almost zero tolerance policy, and don’t give an useful level of buyer\seller protection on bank deposits, which is great if you run a scam.

There is a Canberra section on Craigslist now.

http://canberra.craigslist.com.au/

Now, that site is FULL of scammers.

I take it the scam is to get the account details?

If they pay you via PayPal, then how does the scam work?

Skidbladnir said :

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22I+work+with+an+International+shipping+company%22+scam&meta=

“I work with an International shipping company” seems to be a codephrase meaning “This is a scam”

It must be a bugger for people who really do work for international shipping companies.

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22interested+in+buying+it+outrightly%22&hl=en&filter=0

“interested in buying it outrightly” suffers the same problem.

All roads leads to Nigerian guymen.

Heh, the 419Eater link on the Google list is, as always, entertaining, and explains how the scam is supposed to work.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22I+work+with+an+International+shipping+company%22+scam&meta=

“I work with an International shipping company” seems to be a codephrase meaning “This is a scam”

I have often wondered about this sort of scam. Surely there is a point where your bank has to take responsibility if they say the money is in your account and the cheque turns out to be fake?

Sorry for the double post, but I just got his reply:

Hello,

Thank you for deciding to sell to me,reciprocation of trust is very vital in every dealing,as i can categorically assure you that there will be no regret or soever as you’ve decided to sell to me. I am buying this (property) for my cousin as a gift,and it is urgently needed.

To enhance speedy transaction i will not be able to come for the inspection as I was planning going on buying physically but could not due to the nature of my work as i am always on the move cos I am a marine engineer and I work with an International shipping company,so there will be no problem with pick up as I have a reliable person to pick it up from your destination.

I will be paying with my paypal account…so please do reply me asap with your paypal account or send me a payment request from your paypal account so i can effect payment to you right away.

I await your reply

NB:Honestly, I would have loved to come for the inspection of this property but cannot because I’m always busy sailing.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Regards

Andrew.

Hahaha, this is one I woke up to this morning after listing a PC:

Hello there,

I just need to tell you that this is a very lovely property you have gotten here and I am interested in buying it outrightly. For a quick sale, I will pay you $1,700.00 for this property .Let me know if my offer is accepted so that we can finalize this ASAP.

NB: Honestly, I do not know the actual worth of this property ,If my offer is not ok, Let me know so i can shoot up abit or bring it down as the case maybe.
Hope to hear from you soon.

Andrew.

He sure must like the “property” I have for sale!

AllClassifieds needs an escrow system. Allowing payments via Paypal may help avoid these scam schemes.