She escaped an attempted scam on Leboncoin: personal account

Alice, from Luxembourg, recently escaped an attempted scam on the classified ads site Leboncoin while in the process of moving house. She was harassed by her scammers. She told her story.

A classic move

This is the story of a young woman, a company executive, who wanted to move house. As with any classic move, she decided to get rid of all her furniture by putting it up for sale on the famous classified ads website Leboncoin.

This was the first time she had used the site, and she had followed a friend's advice. After taking the necessary photos, Alice posted her first ad, a cherrywood wardrobe for €700. To ensure that potential buyers could contact her, she included her mobile number in the ad details.

Two buyers quickly showed an interest

An hour after placing her ad, Alice received her first text message from a so-called dentist who expressed an interest in the property. The length of the message and its content aroused her initial doubts.

The text message received by Alice

Alice then received a second text message, this time from a woman, asking her to confirm the firm sale price, and to send it to her by email and a specified address. Despite a little hesitation, the young woman nonetheless met her potential buyer's requirements. So she emailed her the firm price of her wardrobe.

The potential buyer replies, this time asking for a lot of personal information. These included her Paypal email address, as well as her postal address. From the content of this email, which was structured in the same way as the text message received by the dentist, Alice realised that she was the victim of an attempted scam.

The e-mail Alice received

Alice decides to play along

Now aware of the attempted scam, and to see how far it would go, Alice decided to play along and give false contact details to pretend to answer the lady's requests.

A day later, Alice received a call, this time telling her that for the final stage of the transaction, she would have to reply to an email from Paypal with the information needed to authorise the money transfer. At this point, Alice decided to stop playing at the risk of really losing money.

One text message too many...

The young woman nevertheless decided to place her ad on Leboncoin, as she really needed to sell her wardrobe. A week later, she received another message from an interested buyer. It was the same phone number and the same approach as the fake dentist. This time, Alice decided to lodge a complaint with the police.

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Classified ad sites are full of criminals. You need to remain vigilant and recognise the "red flags", the items that require your particular attention, such as a request for personal documents, etc.

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