Online scams are dangerous and I almost got into one. I had to sell some of my old furniture, of which some had minor damages. I put it up on some local sites to sell. We have a few buy and sell pages on facebook and we can also put it up on OLX. I first put it up on the facebook pages I was not getting any response, so then I put it up on OLX.
After a day on OLX I received a response, the interested buyer did a little of negotiations and then agreed to buy the dining table and the sofa set that I wanted to sell. One of the chair leg was damaged which I informed him and he said that's ok, he will get it fixed up. All this communication was happening on the OLX site, after that I asked him for his contact number to send him details for pick up. He told me he is travelling right now, so I can give my number to him, when free he will contact.
I gave my number to him, in a couple of hours he messaged me. The number was not of Oman, I did see that, but then even my whatsapp number is India number so I thought he must have also similarly not changed it to Oman. It was with +234, which is Nigeria code, and we have many people from there working here in Oman, so it's not new.
In the chat he asked me if I had more things to sell, because he was setting up the home and he needed things. I had, but everything had damages, and whatever I was proposing he was willing to buy, even broken things. I was thinking to myself, why would some one buy broken things to set up a new home. Then I thought he must be low on budget, so probably he will repair the things and use. Then one item gave me a jerk. I have one stand fan which is of no use to me, so I asked him if he was interested and to that also he said yes. I told him I had bought it for 10 Rials, he can pay me 5, because it is 5 years old. He insisted he would pay me 10. This felt very weird, that I am saying 5 and he still wants to pay me 10.
With all that we finalized. He told me his shipping guys would come a day later, and he will transfer the money to me. He needed my account number, I gave that as well. After that he told me he needs my email address, and this is where it immediately got me that it is a scam. For no reason, he would need my email ID. He told me he wants to give it to the shipping agent and they will contact me on email. I told him, I do not have email ID and they can contact me on my calling number. To which he resented saying, who does not have email id these days. And he insisted I need to give the email ID without which the shipping agent will not be able to pick up the items.
After all of this I blocked him instantly. I deleted the account number I had sent to him but I am not sure if he has already made a note of it or not. Before giving my account number I did one thing. I transferred all my funds to my hubby's account and kept very minimal amount. Which I normally do when I give account details to anyone unknown for receiving funds.
Later he again messaged from another number asking why I blocked him and he is still interested in buying the furniture. Without any response I blocked that number also. It's scary how these things operate. Email ID was absolutely not required, none of these transport people in Oman ask for it and his insistence was totally showing it is a fraud.
This is some of my chats with him. Here you can see he is insisting to pay 10. The burners he is talking about is a gas stove with 4 burners and not even one of it is working, and he agreed to take that as well, saying he will get it repaired. It was lying with me since a long time, so I decided to give it away free, as it is there is no value of it, because I tried repairing it and the cost of repairing is more then cost of purchase :-)
Here he is asking for my email, so I wanted to clarify if it was email or home address and he said both. I was thinking to myself, why can't the shipping company contact me on phone, which would be much easy
Here you can see his insistence of getting my email ID
And finally I blocked him. It never happens this way. I have sold my things in past also and email is not required at all.
Thank god I removed all the money from the account before sharing the account number also. Within Muscat there are local transport guys and they have no systems of email, it;s all on phone call. And if he wants to get it shipped to another city or country why would he buy broken and non functional things. Crazy how these scammers operate. I need to be more careful with these things :-(
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