The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: MoneyRx on February 23, 2015, 08:42:36 PM
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I'm selling my old iPhone 5 that has a broken power button on eBay. I had someone offer me $140 (probably a fair price for what they go for, not alarmingly too good to be true) for it through a direct message and they said send them a paypal request to circumvent fees and they have 300+ positive feedback at 100%. It seems like this is common although eBay obviously frowns upon it.
So I sent them a request on PayPal, and the name that comes up is not in English....
To: Быстров Алексей (rapid1962alex@gmail.com).
The address is in Pennsylvania though.
So what do you guys think? Is this a scam? If I am the seller how would a scam work here if he pays first?
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I'm selling my old iPhone 5 that has a broken power button on eBay. I had someone offer me $140 (probably a fair price for what they go for, not alarmingly too good to be true) for it through a direct message and they said send them a paypal request to circumvent fees and they have 300+ positive feedback at 100%. It seems like this is common although eBay obviously frowns upon it.
So I sent them a request on PayPal, and the name that comes up is not in English....
To: Быстров Алексей (rapid1962alex@gmail.com).
The address is in Pennsylvania though.
So what do you guys think? Is this a scam? If I am the seller how would a scam work here if he pays first?
It's a scam. Technically, because they are skirting Ebay's rules by trying to bypass fee's. You'll sell and ship, and eventually their payment will bounce. Not only that, but the Paypal account they are using is most likely a hijacked one.
Don't fall for it. They are counting on greed here, and they trap a lot of people due to that factor...
I've been on Ebay since 1997, and I've had a PayPal account since around end of 2001.
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I would back out if I were you. If they're using a hacked PayPal account, then PayPal might suspend your account too, if you don't refund it and cancel the deal.
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Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback!
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In case you didn't know: Even with the broken power button, places like Gazelle.com and Amazon.com (trade-in for gift card) will accept it and you won't feel scammed. As long as it powers on (via the ghost button I'm assuming?) then they will probably take it. You won't get much but you'll get something.
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In case you didn't know: Even with the broken power button, places like Gazelle.com and Amazon.com (trade-in for gift card) will accept it and you won't feel scammed. As long as it powers on (via the ghost button I'm assuming?) then they will probably take it. You won't get much but you'll get something.
The only way to power it on when it is off is to plug it in to a charger. I used the phone for over a year without the power button and got used to it.
Anyway, I went ahead and sold it on ebay and got $145 + $7.95 shipping. I think I'll still come out quite a bit ahead even with fees and shipping than I would with one of the buy back programs. When I looked at some of them, they didn't differentiate between a phone that works fine but has a broken power button (like mine) and a phone that is completely broken, cracked, etc. so I think I still had a little value there.
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In case you didn't know: Even with the broken power button, places like Gazelle.com and Amazon.com (trade-in for gift card) will accept it and you won't feel scammed. As long as it powers on (via the ghost button I'm assuming?) then they will probably take it. You won't get much but you'll get something.
The only way to power it on when it is off is to plug it in to a charger. I used the phone for over a year without the power button and got used to it.
Anyway, I went ahead and sold it on ebay and got $145 + $7.95 shipping. I think I'll still come out quite a bit ahead even with fees and shipping than I would with one of the buy back programs. When I looked at some of them, they didn't differentiate between a phone that works fine but has a broken power button (like mine) and a phone that is completely broken, cracked, etc. so I think I still had a little value there.
that's great!
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I think I'll still come out quite a bit ahead even with fees and shipping than I would with one of the buy back programs.
That's probably true regardless of the phone's condition.