Please dont get caught like i did using paypal as payment in full for a car.

I sold a jeep for £2500 the buyer used the buy it now option on the listing easy? well not really the phoned me straight after the auction and said he would send me a £200 deposit straight away then the rest in cash on collection later that day, at the time i thought wow what a superb e-bayer he had the decency to call me straight after the auction and arrange instant collection and payment.

When i got home i checked my e-bay and the buyer had 150+ postive and no negative and even better the deposit was sent from a verified and confirmed paypal account which is some reassurance could it go any better? he rang me about 3pm and said he was struggling to get to a bank but has just sold a load of pentuim 3 chips on e-bay and now has some extra funds in paypal he offered to pay the remaining £2300 thru paypal and he would even pay the extra £115 to cover the fee's (these fee's are what paypal charge for handling large amounts of money lol)

Anyway i thought he sounds a honest buyer he has good feedback and the paypal payment is secured etc, so i thought what can i loose? the jeep is sold and i have the money i was after sound!!!. He asked if he could use my computer at my home to transfer the money this way i could see that infact he does have the money in is account and he can make sure it goes thru without any problems etc. I thought yes it sounds good to me no problem.

He came about a hour later with a friend both well presented came in a brand new 4x4, he said the girlfriend will be chuffed with the suzuki he won of me as it was a present for her he asked if is friend could check the jeep over while he sorted the money out with me i accepted and he paid thru paypal with a confirmed address filled the V5 out in the same name drank is coffee i made him and left both parties happy.

Untill the next day i got a e-mail from paypal saying the money had been taken out my account due to fruadulant funds being used? i rang them explaining the funds were from the same user who brought my jeep i followed all the paypal guidelines with accepting money etc and thought it was 100% garenteed? not the case. They told me to write to them explaining what happened give them the address and name of the person and they will look into it. I thought what a con im £2500 out of pocket and have no jeep great deal for me, i contacted the buyer he said he also got the same e-mail so he rang them and they told him that becuase the amount was over £500 they automaticlly stop the payment to due fruad and hacked accounts etc and they were going to re-send the money back to my account in a couple of days and he apoligised and said leave it with him he will sort it, he then said he loves the jeep and has brought this that and the other for it blah blah i thought he is not to blame here and seems really friendly and anwsers is phone straight away and is also owner of a computer firm in birmingham and is not short of money.

1 week passed and still nothing paypal were unhelpful and said it was being investigated what??? in the meantime the buyer was keeping in touch saying he was also getting pi*/sed off with them and said he would send the money again thru paypal. 2 weeks passed and the phone calls stopped and his phone is never switched on and still no money i thought something is fishy here i contacted paypal and said i was going to contact the police they told me not to as the money is still being investigated and they told me that it will be sorted and i will be credited within a few days.... ( i also found out at a later date that there is infact nothing the police can do as PAYPAL is a NON UK based company and cannot look into anything conserning fruad etc with a NON uk company?)

After nearly a month i thought someone is taking me for a idiot so i contacted the police straight away soon as i told them the name of the buyer they said yes he is known by the police for several counts of fruad and is wanted by the police anyway for questioning for another matter, thats great made me feel a lot better. In the meantime the police recovered the jeep arrested him and impounded the jeep, I had to wait another 2 weeks to get the jeep back then i had to pay recovery charges of £400, charming also kept getting threatning e-mails and phone calls of the buyer saying he is going to kill me and burn my house down etc etc the usaul idle threats we all get once in a while, he also said he was taking me to court for stealing is jeep cheek! and sending me a bill for the extras he had put on the jeep i told him to do what he has to and left it at that (i offered him is personal belongings at of the jeep but he never collected them). After further investigation he was a known fruadster to everyone he sold stolen computer parts conned e-bayers out of £1000s i was told he had £30,000+ in paypal that he conned out of people just goes to show how intelligent paypal are not to know someting was not right, i also spoke to several people who helped me find out what he was all about and without them i would have never found out where he lived or worked he was also on income support and had a council paid flat and owned a shop in bham he was a wanted man by the police and a lot of un-happy buyers and sellers. I supplied the police with e-mails his phone calls and texts also peoples names who were willing to testify against him if it went to court (over 8 people were willing).

After months had passed the police contacted me saying there was not enough evidence to convict him and they would contact me in the future if im needed for statements etc. Its been over 2 years now and nothing as arised i re-sold the jeep again with no such problems. I never have any problems with selling cars now im a lot wiser and i wont be conned again for sure by a smart apperance and good credibilty they dont mean a thing when it comes to money.

My experiance was one i would not like to be repeated it was time consuming i lost a lot of time and money spending hours helping the police paypal etc. It was only my own running about and investigating that got my jeep back.

PAYPAL were un-helpful to say the least e-bay helped me by giving my listing fee's back and suspending his 4 e-bay accounts he used so he can never rip anyone else of on e-bay which gave me confidence again, police were helpful i suppose got my jeep back kept me informed of what was happening etc, but i was discraced with paypals lack of help and appaling phone conversations it must have cost me near £100 in phone bills to them and they keep saying the same old story "were looking into the issue".

Again sorry to go on and on with the long story but please dont be ripped off, dont take people for what they look like or how pleasant they seem, there a lot of honest traders on e-bay and a lot of really nice people and i owe a lot to e-bay i sell lots of stuff on here and make some pocket money out of it, just a little annoyed PAYPAL who is run by e-bay could not be the same high level service, it has improved over the years but no where near enough, all i can say to finish off is dont accept PAYPAL for large amounts of money take a deposit thru paypal but not the full amount there are to many possibiltys that can go wrong its easier to loose £200 deposit than £2300.