If it’s a scam, there’s no intention of ever picking up the item. The payoff would be in convincing the victim to send them money. I’ve watched some videos by a scambaiter and the “oops, we sent too much money! please send us some of it back!” gambit seems very popular.
If the guy is offering twice what you’d accept, would you still make a tidy profit if you offered to cover shipping? Then you’re covered under the baseline protection.
Of course, they might try to switch to a shipping scam at that point? I dunno.
I don’t have a problem storing it until you can pick it up. Since this would be a local pickup, it’s an unusual transaction for me. If you decide to buy, please be careful of the amount you pay. Overpayments are problematic, and require several weeks to resolve. If you decide to buy, I will need you or your family member to sign a receipt and let me take a photo of a driver’s license to prove delivery. If you do not pick it up yourself, please sign a letter giving authorisation to the person picking it up to pick it up. I hope you understand my caution.
He replied:
I completely understand. I’m moving forward with finding a willing party before deciding on the purchase. It is a large amount/item and if I was available it would not be such an issue. However, it is dealing with Family, Friends, and eveything else that is going on in the world.
Don’t count me out yet. Just need some time to arange movement before I pull the trigger.
So his entire decision on buying is if he can get it picked up and not on what he’s buying?
Plus more odd phrasings and misspellings.
He’s not looking to buy, he’s looking to scam. I’m just not sure what form the scam will take.
The scammy language is certainly indicative of a non-language US speaker.
I had a problem with the company I used to work for pre-retirement. An employee that was taking over part of my job duties somehow got it into his head that a particular vendor would only conduct business with me, personally. Which was ridiculous. He was also not a native English speaker and he had really poor English skills.
He was sending this vendor e-mails that read like “Please we are kindly interested in purchasing the item” and signing my name. Someone from that vendor called me and forwarded one of the emails and I was like “You’ve had the internet for how many years now? Of course it’s a scam, I never sent that”.
And it turned out it wasn’t a scam and they had to scramble to straighten it out. I was like “ “REALLY?” What did you expect? Of course I’m going to deny writing an email I didn’t write, especially when I didn’t even know you were using my name!”
Among the other things, this is weird. What is a “large amount/item”? Weird.
As I said earlier, I’ve talked to several people who had run-ins with scammers, and they all had complicated stories about why things weren’t simple.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that every complicated story is a a scam, but why would the email address be different than the PayPal account and there is a long tale about delivery problems?
I read the buyer’s response as a way to duck out without the OP leaving a bad rating or raising a red flag with eBay about the account. I give it a 99% chance that the next correspondence will be “sorry, I can’t find someone to pick it up.” And the other 1% is a scam that we haven’t identified yet.
I take this as the Item, cost a lot and it is a large Item. Just kind of abbreviated strangely. This is also a bad habit I have gotten into lately, especially since I am chatting online with co-workers more. I seem to be shortening my sentences.
It’s weird, right? I always wonder if it’s just me, or other Americans really do think “family and friends are important, so better capitalize!” I’m sure some do, but it just seems like an additional flag.