Pittenweem Pottery

Fraudsters

In this day and age none of us can be too careful. Fraudsters are very clever at catching you out, so take a look at the following and try to make sure that you never fall victim. This person or persons, are at this every day. They look for items of sale at high value and then pretend to buy. Paypal tell you you have a payment pending, so you think everything is ok. Problem is, you can't get the payment until you ship the goods and show photographic proof that you have sent the goods. This all has to be done in 24 hours or else. If you look at the following email, you will see that all the official logos are in place.

Please don't get caught out!

Dear *********,

This email confirms that you have received an Instant payment of £1,300.00 from Kelly madisha (kellymadisha23@yahoo.com). via PayPal Payment Service.

View the "NOTE" of this pending transaction below

Payment Details


Transaction ID: 6X472815E1267414M


Title	Quantity	Price	Subtotal
*GOODS*		£1,000.00	£1,000.00

Shipping & Handling (includes any seller handling fees) Western Union Transfer Charges:	£300.00 £0.00
Shipping Insurance (optional):	--

Total:	£1,300.00

This is to inform you that you are required to send a sum of £300.00 to the address below via Western Union Money Transfer and get back to us with the relevant information's which you will be provided with after the money has been sent. You are requested to give us the Mtcn (Money Transfer Control Number) and the sender's name and address used to make the transfer after which we will then credit the total sum of £1,300.00 into your PayPal span account. Below is the address where the money is to be sent using western union money transfer .

Agent's Info:

Name:Elijah Obakeye
City:Phnom Penh City
State:Phnom
Country:Cambodia

Address Status:

Confirmed

Note: As this transaction was done via our e-mail payments service, all inquiries should be directed to us by replying to this e-mail (customerdesk_centre@consultant.com) as it is the one being monitored for your transaction which is because the status of this transaction has not been passed on to the phone service section of our customer care.

Please, understand that this is a security measure to help protect both the Buyer and the Seller. Therefore, we apologize for the inconvenience that we may have caused you.

Thank you for using PayPal !

PayPal Security.

End of email

How was this scam done? First of all, they respond to my advert for a guitar. Their message to me was "Hi there Steve, you have received a reply to your Gumtree posting "*********" (ad# 6994) from <kellymadisha23@yahoo.com>:

hello seller, i will like to know if this add is still up for sale.." Sounds exciting.

Their next email is :

Hello seller. Thanks for the urgent response,i will like you to know that i am interested in the item, i have gone though the pictures on Google and i can see that its exactly what i am looking for. I will like to purchase it and get it for my church as a donation, i will also be arranging for the pick up cus i have a pick up agent that can come for the pick up, i will be making payment through paypal because of the nature of my job and i have attached my bank account to it, i am a marine engineer, and i am currently working on sea, i only have access to the internet and no phone calls.kindly get back to me with your full address and your paypal id so i can make the payment as soon as possible and the pick up can be made..Hope to read from you real soon."

Sounds Nice.

Their next email is: "kindly send me invoice via paypal so i can make the peyment into your paypal account.."

They have not used their names at all even though I give them mine. I thought this odd and PayPal confirmed it. In fact, these fraudsters have been at it a while and they are still trying to make people lives miserable.

Think about this and protect yourself and your friends.