Is receiving money through PayPal always safe??

Targaryen007

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Mar 26, 2015
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Guys,

I would like your advise on a certain matter...
I live in The Netherlands, and decided to put my Playstation 4 up for sale on a well known Dutch marketplace website.

Now the strange thing is, I decided to ask 375 Euro's... and the buyer I just got in contact with is willing to offer me 420 Euro's.
That does sound a bit weird... he probably has too much money, lol!? :huh:

Suspicious behaviour though... this guy only speaks English, so he appears to be a foreigner (not Dutch that is).
No problem of course, I'm willing to sell to anyone.
I just find it a bit suspicious that he's a foreigner, and willing to pay me 45 Euro's more than what I'm asking for.
--------
* However, he offered me to pay through PayPal... which in my opinion sounds safe.
Or am I mistaken, and isn't PayPal as safe as I think it is??

Is there any risk of this person playing a game and one way of another finding a way in and hacking my bank account, if I give him my PayPal address?

So what would you advise me, just go ahead and see if he really pays the 420 Euro's??
 

anon(4698833)

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To address your specific situation...this guy sounds like a scammer. Nobody pays MORE for something than they should simply to use PayPal. Here in the states we have a service called Craigslist and one of the #1 scamming techniques is people from overseas (or people from the US who are "not in the country right now") want to pay you more "for your trouble" and send money via PayPal. What ends up happening is they send money, take your item, and then file a report with PayPal getting their money back (or they do it via a fraudulent credit card which then takes the money back out of your account when it is cancelled).

Unfortunately, this is all too common these days...the first red flag though is absolutely the fact that he's willing to pay MORE for something than you're asking for. Who does that? Nobody, that's who.

Now as far as the PayPal service itself...PayPal covers transactions 100% if you send it and accept the service fees...if you choose the route where you send it to "friends or family", you remove the security of PayPal's coverage, and you essentially have no recourse if the person turns out to be a scammer. Unfortunately this takes time, and by the time you've got your money or compensation for what you've lost, the person who scammed you is long gone and it's been several weeks to several months before PayPal's investigation is done.

PayPal in and of itself is extremely secure, but like any online money transfer system, it will never be 100% secure...banks can't even claim 100% security online...it's just the nature of the beast.

All in all though, PayPal is an very safe method to conduct business, but you also pay an arm and a leg to do so outside of sending money to friends/family...their in cahoots with eBay, so their transaction fees are through the roof.
 

Targaryen007

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Let's just say this person is fake... as it does sound like that.
I could just wait for the money to actually appear in my PayPal account as valid transaction, and than immediately transfer to my bank account.

So I'm sure of the money.
Would that be a safe idea?
 

robbrick

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Dec 12, 2003
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Usually in my experience, these scammers actually send you a FAKE PayPal email and the money is NEVER in your account. Most people won't even check to see if it's in there. But, if you click on the link in their email they'll probably take you to a phishing site where they'll capture your PayPal username/password and get your money thru PayPal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

anon(4698833)

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Let's just say this person is fake... as it does sound like that.
I could just wait for the money to actually appear in my PayPal account as valid transaction, and than immediately transfer to my bank account.

So I'm sure of the money.
Would that be a safe idea?

One of two things could happen...

1.) Money shows up, scammer claims product was never sent (or that he was scammed him/herself) and then paypal refunds money to the buyer and debits your account for the amount. This can be cleared up on your end by providing proof of shipment and stuff, but many times, this takes MORE time than the actual refund takes, and it leaves you potentially out of money AND the product.

2.) Like robbrick said, the "PayPal" link they send you is fake, and is usually a phishing scam. This is a much easier thing to notice if you're used to using PayPal as the website will be some weird variant of "www.paypal.com" like "www.paypaltransaction.com" or "www'paypals.com" or whatever

...and at the end of the day, even if the guy is legitimate, if you feel odd about it, why not just walk away anyways? Worst case you just have to sell it again to someone else, lol. Seems like an easy choice to me.
 

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