fallout from another person's hacked account

[bob123450_2]

Last weekend someone bought a camera from me (via Buy It Now). The guy asked me to email him with some more information re shipping to South Africa as a birthday present for his son . He seemed Ok but unfamiliar with eBay.

Anyway, I replied answering his questions & the guy said he was going to send money to my bank next day.

Next day I got a msg from eBay cancelling my sale & refunding my fees because the "buyer" had hacked another eBay account & was using it to buy my item. A very nice start to the day!

Then I got effusive apologies from the buyer, saying it was all a mistake & was sorted out with eBay. Then I got an eBay email (fake) confirming this & to go ahead with the sale.

The "buyer" said he would use an intermediary company called Nochecks to pay me & was depositing the money ASAP. When the item was posted & proof sent to Nochecks, the funds would be released for me to transfer to my bank

I did not respond to any of this (except to report to spoofs@eBay).

Next day the buyer amped up things up by sending fake eBay emails saying my account would be suspended and threatening further action because he had paid & wanted mailing details at once. Again, I ignored all this.

Then, today, I got a fake email from the Federal Police threatening to arrest me for fraud!!

It is kind of interesting to see how skilfully (psychologically) these scams are perpetrated.

I guess the moral is to avoid non-eBay communications. Also, the very first emails from this buyer were a little odd, but sometimes you do get inexperienced/disorganised buyers, so that was not a big red flag for me.

I feel sorry for the real owner of the hacked account.