eBay buyers Scam the listings by sending fake PayPal emails, Sellers Be aware!!

Aug 16, 2020: I have always been educating others about the ongoing scams and traps few scammers pretend and do a financial loss to the innocent public. Today I will be discussing about one such scam where I have recently encountered on eBay while selling an item. 

Background: 

eBay allows sellers or any individuals to list their used items and create classified listings just like craiglist. The benefit with eBay is you can offer shipping services and the transactions and money are backed up by PayPal as they keep hold of money and only once the item is confirmed delivered PayPal releases the money to eBay Sellers. So I listed one of my used phone which I do not need any more. Within a day my listing was sold and I got a confirmation from eBay that my item is sold and awaiting payment. I have sent out an email to the buyer to continue with payment. Seller acknowledges that he will do the payment in sometime and queries some  details about the listing as if a genuine buyer. 

Scam Process: 

Next day, I receive an email which looks as if sent by the PayPal that the buyer has made the payment and asking me to ship the item. I do not see the same information on eBay. Also, a quick note that I never saw an email from PayPal so weird that they ask me to ship the product. PayPal has no association with eBay listing and it only holds and releases the money after a successful transaction. The email looks something like the below. 

I also receive an eBay message asking me to ship it with highest priority and he has sent excess money for shipping costs too. My listing was for $270 and the buyer sent me around $360 as per the email I received which is some what fishy. 

My analysis: 

I immediately looked into the email I received clearly and found out it is a fake as the sender was not legitimately PayPal. You can verify this information in the mail client you use by clicking on the from address. You will only see any email address ending with paypal.com and not with any other domain. I checked on my PayPal account and I do not see any information over there too. I have checked on my eBay as usually whenever buyer pays for the item the listing/order status will be updated but this time it doesn't. This has raised many red flags. I immediately reported this to eBay and the customer care confirmed this is a fraudulent scammer and deactivated the buyer account. 

Important Notes!! Steps to prevent falling for this scam:

• Make sure you enable the immediate pay option for your classified listings
• Do not immediately ship a product until you see the payment status updated on the eBay. 
• Confirm the email has been sent legitimately by PayPal with the from email address
• Check your PayPal account for "on-hold" amounts
• PayPal never asks you to Ship the item. 
• No buyer wants to pay you more than the listing price. 
• For any clarifications, do reach out to eBay/PayPal customer care for confirmation if you got paid and the funds are on hold genuinely. 

Thank you for taking time and going through the post. Please leave your valuable comments below and I will keep improving my posts.