Cyclist warns of clever new Facebook Marketplace scam after receiving fake PayPal email demanding urgent action

In the online world, it is becoming increasingly necessary not to take the words of a complete stranger for granted, especially those of an online seller with goods to sell.

But what about if you are a seller?

Carla Francome from London became involved in a scam, but the buyer’s suspicious language and a PayPay email gave her pause.

The TV producer and avid cyclist had decided to list her prized blue Bobbin Kingfisher bike on Facebook Marketplace earlier this month.

In a series of tweets and screenshots uploaded to her account, @carlafrancome, on X, formerly Twitter, Carla describes her contact with a fraudster via the social platform’s Buy & Sell feature.

The Kingfisher was given as a Christmas present from her parents in 2022, but Francome chose to sell the bike because she “needed something with more gears.”

After choosing to sell the Facebook bicycle marketplace (where sellers can list 150 items per day) for £300, Francome soon received a message from an enthusiastic potential buyer.

The seemingly sincere shopper, named Sunday Chukwudubem on the platform, asked about the availability and condition of the bike, to which Carla responded with honest specifications.

However, the polite exchange quickly turned tense as the buyer insisted on paying for the bike without personally inspecting it.

Sunday claimed he was ‘out of town’ and his wife planned to collect the bike from Carla’s London location, before pressuring the TV producer to accept a PayPal payment.

Francome replied anxiously: “There’s no rush to pay me – check if she likes it – I won’t sell it to anyone else.”

But Sunday claimed that he might be ‘busy’ at a later date and his wife might not have access to his card at that time, and so Carla went ahead with the transaction between the couple.

Carla then gave the buyer her email address and PayPal username, to which Sunday responded the next morning, claiming he had paid the money, and asking her if she had received the money.

The cycling enthusiast told how she ‘kept rushing’ her Sunday by sending multiple messages asking: ‘Are you there?’

After checking her account, Carla noticed that she had not received any money. Instead, she had received a ‘strange’ email from PayPal claiming she needed to ‘top up’ her account with another £200 to release the £300 sent by the buyer.

Another confusing email from ‘PayPal’ had been sent to Carla, claiming that the buyer should send the extra £200 to her account, but that she should return the money to Sunday’s account once the full £500 had been paid. had been paid.

By forwarding the email to Facebook on Sunday, the buyer began pressuring Francome to “follow Paypal’s steps and instructions.”

He then further claimed that he sent the £200 because it was his responsibility as a buyer to ‘upgrade’ Carla’s account to a business account for the total amount to be released.

When he asked Carla if he “could trust” her to pay back the money, the producer quickly realized she was being scammed and called the fraudster out on his actions.

Sunday seemed to react in a frenzy, sending a barrage of messages claiming he “worked hard for money” and that he could “never scam her.”

The final, almost robotic message from the fraudster read: ‘As soon as you pay back the €200 to them, you will immediately receive a total amount of €500 in your account. Are you working on it now?’

Carla stopped responding to the scammer, and now the wary cyclist has warned other potential sellers to remain vigilant and pay attention to small details during online transactions, no matter how pleasant and convincing a buyer may seem.

She said in a tweet: ‘I understand why people fall for this… so please spread the word about how this scam is happening. I can imagine that people who are not used to online sales can easily get into it.’

Carla added: ‘I’m also still selling my lovely Bobbin bike if anyone wants more information. It is a wonderful bike. Only cash for bicycle inspection.’

MailOnline contacted both Carla and Facebook for further comments about her experience.

In September it was reported how another woman revealed how hackers took over her Facebook account when she clicked on a used car ad – before her photos and details were used to scam others out of thousands of pounds on Marketplace.

Ellie White Turner, 20, said fraudsters used her profile to legitimize their attempts to take thousands of pounds from unwilling victims and exclude her from cherished memories.