Just been scammed on Gumtree

Hello there

Joined the forum after being scammed, I'll explain what happened

Long story short, I'm a retro game collector , and I saw somebody had 31 Gameboys for sale, including 7 NES controllers, and Gameboy games, I needed some controllers for my NES. This is the link to the ad, it has been since taken down http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/job-l ... 1041741490
So I agreed for £16. two NES controllers and Pokemon Gold.
So last tuseday I paid the money through bank transfer, it got till Friday, and I still had not received the parcel, so I contacted him and asked him what was happening, and he told me he never received the money, so I sent him a picture I cropped a picture of my mums bank account to show that I did pay for it, in the end he told me I photoshopped it, so I just left it, then about 1am Sunday, I got a message from Gumtree, fearing the worst I clicked on it, it said how this mans advert had been flagged, and been taken down, my alarm bells were now screaming as I received a 3 emails from the man saying 'wheres the payment?' he then suggested to pay again, so then if he got two payments he would send one back, I said it was very late (I was in bed on my phone) and I would think it over, he then told me he had another buyer waiting, but he 'accidentally' posted another conversation into the email, with the other guys email in, I quickly emailed the guy and warned him, so he then said I received what he bought.

He sent me the sellers actual email, and I asked this 'Ben' if he would send a picture of the parcel.
The 'parcel' was just a box wrapped with wrapping paper, with my name scribbled on a piece of paper, so I forwarded the email to my mum, and she contacted him, saying she knew what was happening, and he then sent her the most vulgar email I've seen, he'd searched her on Google, so he knew about her and stuff, which is scary, and he knows where we live.

But I decided to track both of the emails IPS, as I was sure he was the same guy, turns out, both of them were using proxies.
Which means I can't trace him or know his real name.

Welcome to Scamwarners Peaholmes.

If you didn't know before, you do now, that all major ad sites are crawling with scammers, selling everything up to motorhomes and heavy construction machinery.

You mention one thing

I paid the money through bank transfer

If that's the case, then he isn't entirely unidentifiable. You mention a price in Pounds Sterling - are you in the UK, and where's the scammer's bank account located ?

It's unlikely that this is a 'one off' scam and we track groups that scam professionally on an industrial scale through ad sites. Considering the relatively low value involved, he may actually be using his own account, as we know that the large organised groups use 'money mules'.

I'm in the UK yes, so this means I can't get my money back then?

The police would probably consider it a civil matter and the amount involved wouldn't interest them. This may annoy you but many people are scammed out of amounts of over £10,000 on ad sites and find they have no chance of getting their money back. If it's a significant amount it's possible to get the receiving bank account flagged up as being involved in fraud, but I doubt it's possible for this sort of amount. The person you're dealing with should be aware of the risks he's running. Without a bank account he'll have trouble getting a job or receiving state benefits and he won't be able to do any more online trading.

If you did a bank wire and have his bank info than definitely try the police! No guarantees, but you never know. Keep in mind the bank account holder may NOT be the scammer, they often use money mules for that

Hello,

I live in the UK and unfortunately I was a victim of fraud a few weeks ago, when I replied to an ad on gumtree for a car, I sent an email to the seller saying that I was interested and that I would like to arrange a viewing, the seller then replied saying that the car was in Germany and it would only be sold through Ebay protection program, i really didn't think that it could be fake so i received an invoice that was supposed to be from ebay with the seller's bank details, and also a fax number to send them with the confirmation of the transfer.
I made a payment of £2200 through bank transfer and I sent the confirmation to this fax number: 08458520094.
I started to get suspiscious a day after the payment, when I asked the seller about the V5C form, and I didn't get any response. So I googled the fax number that they sent me and that was when I found out that it was fraud.
I phoned my bank to try to cancel the transfer but unfortunately it wasn't possible.
I called ebay and they confirmed that the invoice was not from them, I tried everything I could to stop the transfer but it was too late, I called the bank in Germany where the money was going but there was nothing that they could do, they just advised me to go to the police, and I have reported it to the action fraud.

I am sharing my story because I would like to warn other people about this, I should have done a research before making the payment, it was really too good to be true.
I have reported the ad to Gumtree because I saw the same car for sale today, with the same description and the same email address that I used to contact them.

the email addresses are: [email protected], [email protected]
the seller was called Maria Walsh, the name of the account holder was Alexandru Parsolea .

Please make sure you dont buy anything online without seeing it first, if you have any doubts about anything just do some research first, I should have called ebay before making the payment, that way I wouldn't have been in this situation.
I hope this can help to prevent things like this from happening in the future.

Hello MariaS,

I am sorry you had to visit us under these circumstances. Thank you for wanting to help others.

You may want to file a Police report also.

Please post links of the fake Gumtree ads as they appear.

You can also post the email the scammer sent you with the bank account information. This will help others.

Certainly put in a police report and also make a complaint to the bank where you sent the money.

If the account holder is regularly receiving money like this, they are at best acting as a 'money mule' and could face having their account closed and being blacklisted. At worst they could face prison depending on what their account reveals about their financial transactions. Just acting as a money mule puts a person at risk of a prison sentence and even losing your bank account makes it virtually impossible to work or receive benefits.

Online fraud may seem like an easy way to make money but the risk is that it will potentially ruin your life.

It's rare for the victim of online fraud to shrug their shoulders and forget about the loss, so acting as a 'money mule' is a short term method of earning money with serious repercussions. Having that on their CV/record will damage the person for life.

I have reported it to the police, but i am going to contact the bank in Germany again, hopefully they can do something.
I saw an ad yesterday on Gumtree with the same car for sale and also the same email address that I used to contact the seller.
watch out for vauxhall insignia ads for sale for around £2000, too good to be true. This is just an example, unfortunately there are certainly other ads like this.
I would send the link, but they seem to be postings the ads for a short period of time, when they get someone interested they remove it immediately, I think they do this because they dont want to cause any suspiscion.
But watch out for this ad http://www.gumtree.com/p/cars-vans-moto ... 1046331246, they post this ad for a few minutes and then they remove it and they post it again. I dont know if it is really fake but it is suspicious.

This is the email the scammer sent me with their bank account information: [email protected]

[AlanJones]

Please can you post the email that you received from [email protected], including the headers (remove your details). This will help others avoid being scammed and also allow us to get the fake domain shut down.

There are organised gangs posting fraudulent ads on all major ad sites and I concentrate on looking at Autotrader UK where I must have detected not far off 100 scam ads today. People don't realise the risks.

Personally I wouldn't use an ad site to buy or sell anything.