Western Union is often processed via Australia Post at the Post Offices. I have heard staff ask if they are sure it is genuine as once Aust. Post immediately forwarded the funds there is nothing they can do. From what I have overheard, if you are asked to pay via Western Union that to me rings alarm bells as I know some scammers use them. You should also take the paperwork into your local fraud squad, They like to hear about these. If you aren’t able to do that is it possible you could send them copies and a covering letter.

She is very fortunate you checked for her. In fact ebay and Gumtree has warnings about certain scammers and Western Union is one of them . It sounds too complex anyway and just by explaining it puts you off instantly . It is a really sad and disgusting practise .

The whole set up sounds strange. I would have thought that Pay Pal would be a valid payment option.

yes thanks for letting people know. i don’t use amazon though but gumtree

Wow, I hadn’t heard of this, thanks for sharing and good job protecting your sister!

Its horrible that you have to be careful every second of the day for scammers and how easy it is for this thing to happen. Glad your sister mentioned something to you.

Glad you were there for your sister and were able to save her from being scammed.

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  • • mom93821 replied
    • 20 Jan 2015 , 6:14 am

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  Glad you reported the ad too!

yeah don’t be too trusting of strangers when it comes to your money.

Read gumtree buying guidelines they don’t take responsibility I hope she got a good phone.

Thank you all after that incident my sister and I were very cautious and when buying things online I always do a background check with reviews and it really helps when people leave reviews on products or websites and either comment if it’s trustable or not. There’s just way too many scammers nowadays that it can be hard to know if it’s legit or not but I only do pick ups with cash on pickup for gumtree.

Yes if it’s too good to be true it usually is.

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  • • ginoula5 replied
    • 06 Aug 2014 , 6:26 pm

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  that’s how I see it too.

So glad she didn’t go through with it. When I posted something on gumtree I got all of these scam emails trying to get me to release my goods. These people make my blood boil. Those along with the people who ring you attempting to hack into your computer. I kept one on the phone stringing them along telling them I was doing what they asked of me and that I had my computer in front of me ( it was down the other end of the house). The person eventually cottoned on and said “Mam, you are making fool of me.” To which I replied “Yes and you’re trying to defraud me and when I hang up I will be calling the Australian Federal Police.” I had the phone slammed in my ear by the no good so and so.

thanks for the heads up cheers

You have to be careful with Gumtree, there are alot of scams on there from people

If a deal seems to good to be true, then it probably is. Anything using ” Western Union” is automatically suspect, and should be checked. When it comes to buying electrical goods, I’d always prefer to buy from a shop, as you have somewhere to go back to if there’s problems. The old “sell it on the internet, you buy it & send money to the seller, and then you never see whatever it was you bought” scam is becoming all too common these days. The only way I pay for internet purchases is with PayPal, which offers protection to buyers and sellers.

That’s terrible. I’m glad you are smart enough to detect that. Sadly scammers do scam so many people.

Thats so lucky well done to your sister for actually checking it out.
I think if anything has to be paid via western union its a great idea to get it checked out as thats the place most scammers use.

Wow, that was so lucky!! My FIL was recently scammed, it’s not a good feeling.

Anything that requires payment by Western Union is pretty much guaranteed to be a scam these days. Sadly.

good thing she was mindful enough to question it!! i feel sorry for the ppl that get stung…