Paysafe scam

[lybrand]

After replying to an ad on Gumtree, I've been in contact with an "Alexa" also offering to deliver an electronic drumkit using Parcelforce's "Cash on Delivery" system. Mostly she was plausible but I realised pretty quickly that Parcelforce don't offer this service, got onto Google and found this forum. The last email I had from Alexa was virtually identical to those listed above so I won't quote it but would just like to add my own experience as a warning to others...
Have informed Gumtree but as yet have heard nothing from them. Don't know whether to say anything to the scammers or just let it go. Unfortunately they do have an email address a mobile number and a postcode for me which is pretty disconcerting!

 

[wendy1]

Re: alexa edwards

Well, just been on Gumtree, or Scamtree as it will be now known. The ad was taken of and then put back on a couple of hours later. Same photo and every thing! are they $&^%)* Stupid!! Im begining to think this Alexa thing actually owns Gumtree!!
What do they have working for them? I will be in touch with trading standards tomorrow and anybody else that will bloody well listen.

By the way, Its a Sahara 6 tent, with all the other bits and bobs advertised from Merseyside, £100

 

[jimreece48]

My wife has informed the National Fraud Office who automatically inform the Police. Since writing about the scam on Facebook I now find that some of our friends have been subject to the same scam - one last week paid out £400 for parts advertised on Gumtree! I love Wendy1's description of Gumtree as Scamtree

 

[let me out]

I have also just been scammed by these, any ideas of who we could inform, not for the money back, but just to make people aware and just incase there are any repercussions?

 

[jimreece48]

The National Fraud Office is aware of this scam, ParcelForce is aware of the scam and the Police are aware. All we can do is keep reporting them as they arise, inform our friends and neighgbours by word of mouth and include others through social media including Facebook and Twitter and hopefully one day these low lifes will get caught.

 

[let me out]

Thank you for that, I noticed one comment mentioned if you had paid by debit card you could ask the bank if it was posssible to try a 'chargeback' . Does anyone know any more on this?

 

[Witch consumer]

Debit card chargeback is a voluntary service provided by the banks and unlike crdit cards, the bank has no legal responsibility to return the money. They attempt to take it back from the sellers bank account so unless the money is paid directly into someone's bank account, it wouldn't work.

 

[e1703032]

A BIG THANK YOU!

Thank you to everyone who has posted on this forum, you have just saved me £200!

I was communicating with the seller and I received the same style emails as everyone else even the little 'ta' at the end of the email was the same!

I managed to cancel the deal before it went too far, but I phoned the non-emergency police number (101) to report it and I got told that because I didn't hand money over, they didn't want my emails as evidence and that they wasn't even investigating the scam!

I know there are tough cuts to public spending, but seriously, wtf is wrong with our police force!?!?!?

 

[Witch consumer]

It seems this forum is working well, another person prevented from handing over hard earned cash to scammers.

As far as the police are concerned, if no money is handed over, I suppose there is no crime!

I wonder if any of the people who have been scammed have reported it to the police?

Incidentally, I sent an email to Gumtree a few weeks ago for their comments on this matter and surprisingly, haven't had a reply, I have checked their scams page and this particular one isn't included so obviously they don't give a fig

 

[lyndac]

unfortunately i did not see these in time. i replied to an add on gumtree for some furniture, the "lady" sent me a text with her e-mail address (amandawilder75@gmail.com), she seemed very nice, she was visiting her mother, low signal on her mobile etc, maybe she could drop it off for me, stupidly i gave her my address. she then e-mailed to say that she had been called into work and that as a perk of the job she can send shipments out via parcelforce , i could inspect and pay on delivery. i said great. i then got an email which looked as thought it was from parcelforce which said alll i had to do to release the delivery was to get a UKASH voucher, scan it to them to verify it and they would release this for delivery. i did all of this and then when i called parcelforce to ask what time delivery woudl be they said they dont deal with UKASH and that they have had several calls about people buying from a woman on gumtree and its a scam!!. i have reported it to the police (who dont do anything about this other than take the details, give you a reference and then give you the num,ber for action fraud) i called action fraud who can again only take all the details and pass it to the national fraud investigation bureau who may or may not take up the case. i have called UKASh who say that the voucher was redemed yesterday for an online purchase , i said that as they know what it has been used to pay for can they not contact the company to say it he been paid for with money obtained fraudulently but they say they can only look into this at the request of the police (who as you remember have already told me that they will not do anything). what is scary is that now they have my name, address and my telephone number and i have no idea if they will try and use these details to try and obtain more money in a fraudulent way

 

[frase64]

I too have been a victim of this person. I have created a list of names/email addresses (all @ gmail.com )and phone numbers that he/she uses which I have found from other forums:

Alexa Brown - alexa75brown 07747516575
Alexa Edwards - alexa75edwards 07747524520/07973423112
Alexa Connel - 07747524520
Sarah Harper - 07747516575/07747192044
Sarah Harding - 07747192044
Sarah Harlow - sarah75harlow 07747516575/07747192044
Norma Palmer - 07747192044
Angela Murray - angela75murray 07747516575
Teresa Sutton - teresa75sutton 07973475052
Nora Alexander - 07973423112
Lynn (can't find surname) - 07973423112
Carol Andrews - 07973475052
Amanda Wilder - amanda75wilder 07973475052
Jennie Bright - jennie75bright 07973475052
Melanie Wherton - melanie75wherton 07973475052
Stacey Stone - stacey75stone 07973475052

I suggest putting the title used in adverts on Gumtree into the completed listings search on Ebay. That's where the info is coming from along with the photos. Just found the one I'd responded to completed on Ebay.....wish I'd found it sooner then more alarm bells might have started ringing.

Things you MUST do:

Report it to Gumtree

Contact UKash to cancel the voucher or find out if the voucher has been cashed 00800 247 85274

Complete a fraud report at actionfraud.police.uk (won't let me put the link) - you can fill out a report even if you didn't send money as you were a target of this (complete the 'report attempted scams/viruses if you didn't send money) (it takes about 20 minutes to complete online or you can phone)

Spread the word to friends/family and update the thread with any other names/phone numbers/email addresses that he/she uses

Keep all email/text communication made with this person

It is unlikely that any of us will get our money back but the more people who report this the more he/she is likely to get caught

 

[Ryan]

Thanks to people on this thread for confirming my suspicions.

Another one to add to the above list is

Helen Watson [helen75watson@gmail.com] 07973425052

They have got my mobile number, i hope they cant to anything with it.

I have now started to play along with them, as an alternative i could wait a week or so to pick it up...so i said...

"Yes, i will pick it up next week, whats yours address.

Thanks"

 

[Devonblue]

Thank you one and all, you have saved me a lot of embarrassment and £370

The scam also involves a Helen Watson (helen75watson@gmail.com) who says she works long hours working for ParcelForce.

The advert was on gumtree but they have now removed it, and I have also reported this to ParcelForce themselves.

If it was not for this forum, I would definitely have been one of the many who have been conned.

 

[frase64]

I am pleased to see this thread has saved another person becoming an innocent victim but disappointed that the unscrupulous individual is still operating and being allowed to advertise on Gumtree.

I personally am not happy with the way Gumtree have responded to my own complaint about this. They sent me a standard response email:

Firstly I am so sorry to hear about your experience. We work hard on reducing the risk of this kind of activity being experience on our site, but on this occasion we weren't successful. We take matters like this extremely seriously and will do our best to use the details that you have provided to prevent any further occurances of this or similar incidents. We do work closely with the police but we do recommend that you also report this matter to them. Unfortunately we can't report this on your behalf, but please give the police our dedicated law enforcement contact details (fax number: 0208 711 5441 or email) so that we can assist them in their investigation as much as we possibly can. We have information to help you report this to the police here. Please come back to us if you need further support

and then 2 days later I received this one

We recently replied to your message to Gumtree Support. Hopefully, we answered all your questions, but if we didn't then please reply to this email and let us know how we can help to solve your problem. If we don't hear from you in the next 48 hours, we're going to assume that everything is ok and we'll close this help ticket. You may receive a short survey asking about how we did when we helped you. We'd be very grateful if you could fill this in so we can improve Gumtree Support

I replied asking if they were actually doing any investigation into this as I had reported it to the police but they said they cannot do anything as Gumtree have been notified and it is in the hands of the Gumtree legal team who will deal with it.

The email received from Gumtree would not suggest that they are investigating at all ("please give the police our dedicated law enforcement contact details so that we can assist them in their investigation as much as we possibly can.")

11 days later I still haven't received a reply from Gumtree!!

 

[Witch consumer]

Consider yourself lucky, that's two more replies than I got!

 

[frase64]

I have finally received another response from Gumtree:

Apologies for not getting back to you sooner. What we do from our side is that we look into the customer's account and investigate and then restrict their access. We work hard to try and stop these fraudsters from posting any further fraudulent Ads. With regards to the police, they have to handle the legal aspect that is if someone lost money or had a problem with receiving the item then that is in the police hands as Gumtree is simply a classified website and we do not get involved in the sales. However we do help the police to investigate by giving them all the information we have on the case. Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.

I have replied to them suggesting that they should at least consider a pop-up window warning people not to pay for anything up-front with particular mention to Paypoint & UKash as people do not visit safety/security advice pages until they encounter a problem. We will see what they have to say about that, probably nothing is my guess but I will keep you posted.

Since posing just a short while ago I received another reply from Gumtree:

Thank you for all the information and suggestions I will pass everything on to the concerned teams. All your help is very much appreciated.

I still doubt that anything will be done though.

I have also updated my report to Actionfraud to include the latest email address used.

Can we change the title of this thread to include the word UKash please?

 

[crusty]

Please add pamela75hogan at gmail.com to the list. "She" is operating on Gumtree currently on Ad ref 111293484.

Initial contact was via a text with an id of pamela.s.ip suggesting I contact her via <pamela75hogan at gmail.com> with the at spelled out. I could not reply to the text so used the email and got a similar string of semi-plausible emails in reply, such as: visiting her mother, working late, delivery by ParcelForce, Cash on delivery, etc.

Happily, i didn't get as far as the UKash bit as I could not imagine a ParcelForce driver accepting a large wad of cash on delivery. "Where would it be safely kept in the cab?" was one question I couldn't fathom. So, I did a search on <ParcelForce cash on delivery> to find this site and plenty of info to say PF don't do it. Hmmmm!! ;-((

A search on <pamela75hogan> comes up with a raft of similarly dodgy results. I've now shut down the transaction but not before giving up my name, mobile num, email, address and post code. They are all in the public domain but not together in one lump.

Now we're worried for the outcome and whatever might happen next.

Thanks for everyone's inputs - they certainly kept me safe today.

 

[frase64]

Please add pamela75hogan at gmail.com to the list. "She" is operating on Gumtree currently on Ad ref 111293484.

Initial contact was via a text with an id of pamela.s.ip suggesting I contact her via <pamela75hogan at gmail.com> with the at spelled out. I could not reply to the text so used the email and got a similar string of semi-plausible emails in reply, such as: visiting her mother, working late, delivery by ParcelForce, Cash on delivery, etc.

Happily, i didn't get as far as the UKash bit as I could not imagine a ParcelForce driver accepting a large wad of cash on delivery. "Where would it be safely kept in the cab?" was one question I couldn't fathom. So, I did a search on <ParcelForce cash on delivery> to find this site and plenty of info to say PF don't do it. Hmmmm!! ;-((

A search on <pamela75hogan> comes up with a raft of similarly dodgy results. I've now shut down the transaction but not before giving up my name, mobile num, email, address and post code. They are all in the public domain but not together in one lump.

Now we're worried for the outcome and whatever might happen next.

Thanks for everyone's inputs - they certainly kept me safe today.

Glad you found this thread and saved yourself a great deal of money! As before, a quick search of completed items on Ebay shows the exact same listing, title, description & photos, word for word. I have reported it to Gumtree.

 

[frase64]

Re: Paysafe Paypoint UKash scam

Updated list...I cannot put the full email address as I have to have posted 10 messages first!?!? These are all @gmail.com

Alexa Brown - alexa75brown 07747516575
Alexa Edwards - alexa75edwards 07747524520/07973423112
Alexa Connel - 07747524520
Sarah Harper - 07747516575/07747192044
Sarah Harding - 07747192044
Sarah Harlow - sarah75harlow 07747516575/07747192044
Norma Palmer - 07747192044
Angela Murray - angela75murray 07747516575
Teresa Sutton - teresa75sutton 07973475052
Nora Alexander - 07973423112
Lynn (can't find surname) - 07973423112
Carol Andrews - 07973475052
Amanda Wilder - amanda75wilder 07973475052
Jennie Bright - jennie75bright 07973475052
Melanie Wherton - melanie75wherton 07973475052
Stacey Stone - stacey75stone 07973475052
Helen Watson - helen75watson 07973425052
Pamela Hogan - pamela75hogan

 

[Witch consumer]

There is an article in my local paper this week about fraudsters using UKASH to con people into paying for PPI claims and asking victims to call the police, strange how they don't seem too bothered about the Gumtree scam, anyone had any luck with the police?