Gumtree scams

Hootsmon

tonight a dude sent a text to my Wife's mobile ( no senders number in text!) asking  if "musical instrument" was still for sale

I stupidly missed 3 red flags in my haste to sell guitar.....1) referring to the guitar as a musical instrument....2) no number in the text....and 3) sending an email text to the wife's phone instead of sending an email to my Gumtree address

I decided to reply to his original message from my PC and this of course will have given him my personal email address...bummer

2 minutes later the wife gets a text from Gumtree saying she has won a thousand quid......I am on to him by now though, a little slow but I got there in the end

it's a little worrying and scary that there are folk out there waiting to pounce like this.

Gumtree give out mobile numbers as a way of contact so I guess it must be reasonably safe as long as we are savvy to any try out scams, but what concerns me tonight, is me foolishly returning his message and exposing my REAL email address to these fraudsters.

is there any real harm in these guys having my email address like this?

below is a copy of their 2nd email 

Nice Hearing back from you..I'm quite satisfied with the condition and price. I will be paying the PayPal charges from my account and i will be paying directly into your PayPal account without any delay,and i hope you have a paypal account. If you have one already, just send me the address to send it to, which is the email address you use for it or you can send me a paypal money request, so once i receive the details i will go ahead with the payment through PayPal and then i will contact my shipping company after you get the payment. I will need your home address for it to be Picked Up by the Shipping Company..

chillidoggy

I'm surprised you understood it, as it appears to be written in English.

strumjoughlamps

you choose the form of contact thought don't you. when I sell I never have phone contact as a pref, email only, and never include my location on the map,

ICBM

I'm not sure if replying via the Gumtree email system actually gives them your email address, although it might. If they do now have it, there's no harm in replying saying that you don't have a Paypal account or even a bank account, and you only take cash.

In Scottish currency.

That should confuse them…

Or tell them it's sold already. Otherwise just ignore all communication.

viz

strumjoughlamps said:

you choose the form of contact thought don't you. when I sell I never have phone contact as a pref, email only, and never include my location on the map,

or put your location as the local police station.

dchwhite

strumjoughlamps said:

you choose the form of contact thought don't you. when I sell I never have phone contact as a pref, email only, and never include my location on the map,

Yes - it's at the bottom of the advert listing screen, there's a tickbox for whether you want people to contact you by phone or by email (or both if you like. Spot the person who's sold about half their life on Gumtree over the last couple of months). I try not to give out my number at all, but if I have to, it would only be to someone who managed to have at least a few exchanges over email with me, and came across as mostly normal. Ish.

ICBM said:

I'm not sure if replying via the Gumtree email system actually gives them your email address, although it might. If they do now have it, there's no harm in replying saying that you don't have a Paypal account or even a bank account, and you only take cash.

In Scottish currency.

That should confuse them…

Or tell them it's sold already. Otherwise just ignore all communication.

Gumtree say that their system is safe, and will obscure your email address in all communications, but IME it's patchy - it will work for the first message or two, but then if you scroll down the conversation, you can find yours and their email address.

Very much agree with your final sentence

Hootsmon

is there any harm done in them having my email address though?

boogieman

hootsmon;361552" said:

is there any harm done in them having my email address though?

Not really. You'll now just get lots of spam, phishing and scam emails I reckon. I always use a throwaway email address for eBay Gumtree etc.

Hootsmon

ta Boogie