Selling my 3.9 Quintrex boat package - some advice please...

[ontourf]

Hi Selling my 3.9m Quintrex Trevally, trailer, motors including electric and heaps of other extras, some of these only couple of years old. Trading up. I put an ad up on Ausfish and Gumtree. Wondering if the paid sites are worth it too, eg Boat Sales? Trading post too old school I'd imagine?

Appreciate any advice

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[lbger]

ive sold two boats on gumtree... and also bought 3.. never used anything else :)

[PixieAU]

When i was looking for a boat I'd regularly check boatsale, gumtree, trading post, boatpoint and I can' remember the fifth one.

They're all as good as the others but some peeved me a little more than others with their useless filtering systems.

[wrip109]

I put mine for sale on Gumtree. I received a text message from a guy who said he was on a rig off New Zealand. He asked for more very detailed photographs.

After a couple of days he said it looked like it was what he wanted but had to arrange freight (to Darwin from Brisbane) and would pay using PayPal. No worries, sounded good to me. BUT, then I got a message saying that the freight people wanted the money in advance and he could not get to a bank while he was on the rig - If he sent me the money($1000) could I wire it for him?

Still sounded OK so I agreed on the proviso that he paid me fist.

Next I got a VERY official looking email from PayPal telling me that the money($5500 for the boat plus $1000) had been deposited but was on hold until I paid the freight via a wire transfer to a freight company in China. The e-mail assured me that the money was mine and that it would be released when I provided the wire transaction details.

Of course it was a SCAM!!! They just wanted the $1000...

I reported it to PayPal but I think that many, many, people would have been fooled.

Just in case you get something similar, PayPal will NEVER hold a payment like this.

Just be careful - all the sharks are not in water :)

[lbger]

[QUOTE=wrip109;1508333]I put mine for sale on Gumtree. I received a text message from a guy who said he was on a rig off New Zealand. He asked for more very detailed photographs.

After a couple of days he said it looked like it was what he wanted but had to arrange freight (to Darwin from Brisbane) and would pay using PayPal. No worries, sounded good to me. BUT, then I got a message saying that the freight people wanted the money in advance and he could not get to a bank while he was on the rig - If he sent me the money($1000) could I wire it for him?

Still sounded OK so I agreed on the proviso that he paid me fist.

Next I got a VERY official looking email from PayPal telling me that the money($5500 for the boat plus $1000) had been deposited but was on hold until I paid the freight via a wire transfer to a freight company in China. The e-mail assured me that the money was mine and that it would be released when I provided the wire transaction details.

Of course it was a SCAM!!! They just wanted the $1000...

I reported it to PayPal but I think that many, many, people would have been fooled.

Just in case you get something similar, PayPal will NEVER hold a payment like this.

Just be careful - all the sharks are not in water :)[/QUOT

this in an old scam that has done the rounds on all the selling websites for years, gumtree has/had a warning about it on the front page of their site.
A simple way to avoid this rubbish is any email you receive that looks a little off just paste the content into google and do a quick search, they are usually nigerian scams and you will see plenty of posts come up with the exact email as they use templates to spam everyone. I nearly got done off carsales about 9 years ago by the same thing.
The great thing about gumtree is you get to go to the persons address speak to the owner and pay in cash after you have done your checks.. Anything other than this type of transaction through a site that offers no protection you are just asking for trouble IMHO.

[ontourf]

Thanks Ibger and Rip109, think I had the same bloke contact me, LOL, :) via text, then email, with exact same scam, "send the $1000 shipping via western union." Soon as they asked for the $1k I twigged, had me going before that. Then same thing, very official looking emails allegedly from Paypal. They scared my wife, but i knew they were nonsense, as demanding legal action 1 day after so called payment, which I know hadn't been received. I sent messages to paypal and called them to be 100% sure. Got 2 similar texts next day telling me to email them details. I created dodgy email account and said due to Gumtree scams, I will not communicate on boat via email, unless we've spoken over phone. Haven't had one since!!
Thanks to others for advice, posted it on boatpoint last night.
Regards

Skip