Autotrader - Scam

[Futureologist]

Selling a car via AT and after an inital email asking if the car was for sale, I recieved this email;

Hi there

thank you for getting back to me. Can you assure me that its in a good state and that I will not be dissapointed with it. Im ready to pay your asking price and to be honest, I wanted to buy this for someone very close to me, but the issue is I am an oceanographer and I do have a contract to go for which starts tomorrow and leaving any moment now. The contract is strictly no call due to the lack of reception on the sea area. But i am able to access email anytime as we will make use of my laptop so my only qucikest payment option is paypal as I can send money via paypal anytime. since im requesting this transaction to be done via paypal I will be responsible or all the paypal fee/charges on this transaction and if you dont have an account with paypal its pretty easy, safe and secured to open one. just log onto www.paypal.com. I hope we can make the purchase as fast as possible? I have a mover that will come for it once payment clears and they will get it to my sons location safely, so I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Apart from the fact it is clearly a scammer, how shall I reply?

[Thejimreaper]

I had the exact same email, it has been going round for a while. I think 'Go f8£k yourself c&^t' would suffice!

[LiamB]

Just calmly tell him, he is no life scum.

Sure it would work great.

[Thejimreaper]

Alternatively you could waste their time with loads of replies confirming everything over and over again and telling them about your car, and when you are about to tell them your ready to go ahead send them my previous suggestion.

[Futureologist]

Blatant scam but sadly these people exist because some people must fall for their approach.

I am playing the game with them and waiting for an update.

[danyeates]

Deal with them everyday at work. I play along if I have the time!

[Manks]

Out of interest, does the money actually arive in the seller's PP account and then a chargeback is issued by PP? Or does it never actually arrive? If so how does the scammer make it appear that it does?

[LiamB]

Manks said:

Out of interest, does the money actually arive in the seller's PP account and then a chargeback is issued by PP? Or does it never actually arrive? If so how does the scammer make it appear that it does?

Typically it will arrive then after a few day or maybe even hours the Buyer will often use a charge-back when they have acquired what they want.

[Manks]

LiamB said:

Manks said:

Out of interest, does the money actually arive in the seller's PP account and then a chargeback is issued by PP? Or does it never actually arrive? If so how does the scammer make it appear that it does?

Typically it will arrive then after a few day or maybe even hours the Buyer will often use a charge-back when they have acquired what they want.

This has to be issued by PP though right?

[AndWhyNot]

Could it be that the link in the email purporting to be to www.paypal.com is actually a link to a site that looks like paypal but isn't- instead it's the scammers' own site designed to gather your paypal login details and strip your account that way.

Easy enough to do in a html email