Scam business account upgrade

[BHALL79]

I agreed to sell a pair of boots to a person on Facebook market place. The buyer said they sent me the asking price. When I checked my email, I see this: You have a pending payment of $50.00 USD. We should be crediting your account now but we noticed your account has been limited to receive business payments and not a business account so it can’t be credited. Then it goes on to say that I need to have the buyer send an additional $350 to me in order to be set up as a business account. The buyer is pushing for this and wants me to immediately refund the $350. I find this very suspicious.

[kernowlass]

@BHALL79 

SCAM.

You never pay any upfront fee as a seller.

Ignore scammers that send fake Paypal emails telling you that you need to pay an upfront fee to verify/upgrade to a business account/or any other reason to accept a payment.

You do not need a business account to receive payments.

You would certainly never have to send funds especially via another payment processor/bitcoins/ or tokens/vouchers of any sort.

Any fee is auto deducted by Paypal at the same instant the remainder of the payment is credited to your Paypal account balance.

No funds in your balance = you have not yet been paid, even pending/held payments will still show in your Paypal account activity.

[BHALL79]

Thank you!

[Knittingmuse]

Yes just happened to me. After spending more time researching found this post and hope to save others from this crap  here is photo of scammers FB account  an email from fake PayPal was sent to me saying buyer would need to send extra funds then I would need to refund the extra  Good try really as I spent an hour wondering why there wasn’t anything pending in my PayPal account 😏 

[BHALL79]

I wondered the same thing. Then for the "PayPal" email to come from a Gmail account I was convinced that it was a scam. The "buyer" finally backed down and left me alone.

[paulainsworth]

The same has just happened to me, I'm so annoyed to be so trusting, never again!

Can I suggest that Paypal send regular emails to users describing scams like this so others don't fall prey like I have just done

[kernowlass]

@paulainsworth 

No funds in your paypal balance = you have not been paid, even pending or on hold will SHOW in your paypal account, remember that and you should be safe from scammers.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/what-are-common-scams-and-how-do-i-spot-them-HELP201

https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/how-do-i-spot-a-fake-fraudulent-or-phishing-paypal-email-or...

https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/how-to-spot-online-shopping-scams-help1062

[paulainsworth]

Thanks for the advice, I wont be scammed again!