As some of you will recall, I had said some time ago that I was going to sell our caravan.
Well, that time has come and not without it's problems.
So, I thought I'd share the experience so that others won't fall into the trap !!!???
Having sold several items on flea bay, some for 4 figures without trouble, we thought that we would advertise the caravan.
I dutifully took loads of pictures and chose 12 for the advert, placed the add together with a write up (2 pages of A4).
I then made the first and biggest mistake, I put my Email address on the ad with a click link.
After a couple of days I got Emails from Aaron, Andrew, Valeria and another Aarrron. Coincidentally they were Jones or Smith !
All of whom gave an elaberate story of working on off shore and having little or no time on shore and only a few hours of computer access per week. Then there was the story of buying the caravan for a son as a suprise present. The majoirity of the mails were detailing a third party collecting the caravan. All of them wanted my Paypal details to process payment.
As anyone should know, if you bid/buy/sell through fea bay Paypal is requested to be set up using their facility. Therefore you do not need to give out your paypal details. Also paypal offer a link to your bank account so that you can use funding from there if your paypal account doesn't have sufficient funds.
Knowing all that and after looking carefully at the story, I was very suspicious as the wording didn't quite make plain english. Also after my first round of refering them to bidding via flea bay, I got Emails that then after clicking reply offered names of eastern european soundings or totally random letters to make the address. I then decided they were all scams. So I simply reiterated that they must bid via Flea bay. Then I got one reply just simply saying "just give us your paypal account"
So having learn't my lesson, I had to remove my Email and mobile number and insist that watchers used the message service to contact me. That dwindled the watchers from 400+ down to just 19. So from that I take it that I'd flushed out 381 scammers.
So the moral is think long and hard before placing the add and then treat everyone as robbers and thieves until they prove otherwise.
I thought I'd covered the usual bases like not letting folks know where the van is normally kept. I have to store my van elsewhere so it would have to be collected and parked outside my home for a viewing day, and then taken back to storage.
So there we have it! A certain plan of a way to give yourself a week of sleepless nights and neumerous trips to the cop shop.
Well, that time has come and not without it's problems.
So, I thought I'd share the experience so that others won't fall into the trap !!!???
Having sold several items on flea bay, some for 4 figures without trouble, we thought that we would advertise the caravan.
I dutifully took loads of pictures and chose 12 for the advert, placed the add together with a write up (2 pages of A4).
I then made the first and biggest mistake, I put my Email address on the ad with a click link.
After a couple of days I got Emails from Aaron, Andrew, Valeria and another Aarrron. Coincidentally they were Jones or Smith !
All of whom gave an elaberate story of working on off shore and having little or no time on shore and only a few hours of computer access per week. Then there was the story of buying the caravan for a son as a suprise present. The majoirity of the mails were detailing a third party collecting the caravan. All of them wanted my Paypal details to process payment.
As anyone should know, if you bid/buy/sell through fea bay Paypal is requested to be set up using their facility. Therefore you do not need to give out your paypal details. Also paypal offer a link to your bank account so that you can use funding from there if your paypal account doesn't have sufficient funds.
Knowing all that and after looking carefully at the story, I was very suspicious as the wording didn't quite make plain english. Also after my first round of refering them to bidding via flea bay, I got Emails that then after clicking reply offered names of eastern european soundings or totally random letters to make the address. I then decided they were all scams. So I simply reiterated that they must bid via Flea bay. Then I got one reply just simply saying "just give us your paypal account"
So having learn't my lesson, I had to remove my Email and mobile number and insist that watchers used the message service to contact me. That dwindled the watchers from 400+ down to just 19. So from that I take it that I'd flushed out 381 scammers.
So the moral is think long and hard before placing the add and then treat everyone as robbers and thieves until they prove otherwise.
I thought I'd covered the usual bases like not letting folks know where the van is normally kept. I have to store my van elsewhere so it would have to be collected and parked outside my home for a viewing day, and then taken back to storage.
So there we have it! A certain plan of a way to give yourself a week of sleepless nights and neumerous trips to the cop shop.