How to Spot a Fake Buyer

The mistake is answering the question they asked. A message arrives asking whether the item is still available, then asks for your email to arrange payment, and three replies later you are off the platform with no message history and no report button.

Everything below is a script. The people running them are working through a list, which is why the wording repeats and why the first message arrives within a minute of the listing going up.

The overpayment script, where the refund is the point

They agree to buy without asking a single question about the item. A payment arrives for more than you asked. Then comes the explanation: their assistant made an error, or the extra covers the courier, or they meant to pay for two things. Would you send the difference back.

The returned money is the entire purpose. The incoming payment can be reversed - a stolen card, a chargeback, a reversed transfer - while the money you send from your own account is gone the moment it lands.

The rule that ends the whole category: you never return part of a payment. If somebody genuinely overpays, they reverse the whole thing through the same channel they sent it, and then they pay again correctly. You send money to nobody, for no reason, ever, as part of a sale.

The shipping agent who will collect

The variation is always the same shape. They are abroad, or offshore, or deployed, or buying it as a gift for a relative. Their agent, courier or shipper will collect and handle everything, so no meeting is needed.

Then an email arrives that looks like it came from a payment service, saying funds are being held and will be released once you upload a tracking number, or once you pay a shipping or insurance charge from your side.

No payment service holds money pending a tracking number you email to somebody. If it is not showing as a balance in your own account, in your own app, opened by you, it does not exist. A buyer who will not collect and will not pay through the platform is not a buyer.

Fake screenshots and the pending transfer

A screenshot is an image, and anybody can produce one. An email saying a transfer is pending is an email, and the sender name can say whatever they want it to say.

Check your own account. Not a link in their message, not a page they sent you - your own app, opened from your own phone. Money that has arrived shows as a balance.

Bank transfers can also be reversed after the fact through a fraud claim, so an arrived transfer from a stranger is better than a screenshot without being the end of the story. Cash counted in your hand at a local handover removes the entire class of problem, which is why local handovers are worth the inconvenience: meeting a stranger to hand over an item.

The verification code that has nothing to do with your item

They say they want to check you are a real seller and not a bot. A code will arrive on your phone by text. Read it back to them, or type it into a page they send.

The code is not about you and not about the item. It is the second factor on an account - sometimes a phone number being registered in your name, sometimes a password reset on something of yours.

Never read a code aloud, type it into a form somebody sent you, or forward it. If a code arrives that you did not request, treat it as somebody working on your account right now and go and change that password. The same answer applies to requests for a photo of your driving license or passport to prove you are genuine. You do not.

Pressure to move off the platform

My app is broken. Just text me. Email is easier. Add me on this other service.

Off-platform there is no message history, no reporting route, no dispute record, and the account talking to you cannot be banned or traced. That is what the pressure is for, and it is the single most reliable signal in this entire post.

The pressure has a shape as well as a direction: speed, flattery, urgency, a reason it has to be settled tonight, a story with a deadline in it. Real arrangements do not need that.

Say once that you keep everything in the platform messages until the item and the money have swapped, and stop replying to anybody who argues with it. Wording in your own listing can invite the wrong messages too, and it is worth writing so it does not: how to word a listing so it sells.

What an ordinary buyer's messages look like

They ask about the thing. Does it come with the charger. What are the dimensions. Will it fit a particular model. Is it ground floor. Would you take a bit less. Can I come Thursday.

They are terse. Sometimes they are blunt to the point of rude. They negotiate, they go quiet, they change their mind, and none of that is sinister - it is just people.

What they do not do is agree the price instantly without asking anything, explain their personal circumstances at length, mention an agent, or bless you. That said, the contrast tells you less than it feels like it does: a polite stranger can be a scammer, a rude one can be a genuine buyer, and a real buyer can waste your entire Saturday. These are patterns, not proof.

You cannot vet everyone, so structure the sale instead

Since you cannot tell from a message who is who, build the sale so that it does not depend on knowing. Local handover. Cash counted in person, or a payment you have watched arrive in your own app before the item moves. No posting to an address that appeared after payment. No partial refunds. No codes. No agents.

Where you do post, use the platform's own tracked shipping so that a claim exists if something goes missing, and keep the receipt. The trade-offs between posting and handing over in person run deeper than fraud alone: shipping risk versus local pickup.

The same instinct applies in the other direction, when the pitch is a job or an opportunity rather than a purchase, and the tells there are different: telling whether a side hustle is a scam.

Report, block, relist. Do not explain why, and do not argue - a reply only tells them the number is live.