People selling items on Jersey Insight may be contacted by a supposedly interested buyer going by the name of Matthew James, who claims to be a male from the Royal Navy (he says in the email United Kingdom Royal Navy (RKRN)!). He often claims to be purchasing the item as a surprise for his father’s birthday and will arrange for it to be shipped to the UK. He then ask the seller to use a PayPal account as he does not have access to his accounts on line and goes on to tell them how to set up a Paypal account. He then advises the seller that once the Paypal account is set up he can make the payment a.s.a.p. and that all he requires is the email address of the seller that they set up the registration with, so he can deposit the money.
This is a scam! Do not set up a PayPal account or provide him with any personal details or banking information!
What happens next is that the male ‘appears’ to put money into the set up Paypal account BUT puts much more money than asked for and advises the seller that either it was a mistake or that it was the only way he could do it. Once the money ‘appears’ to be in the account he would either ask the seller to return the money to him, NOT to a Paypal account but to a bank account, or would try and obtain the bank account details from the seller. However, the money would have never cleared the Paypal account before the refund is made.
The States of Jersey Police urge Islanders to be alert to all email scams, where they may be approached and asked for bank account or credit card details, and other personal information.
Never agree to send off money, nor part with personal information to a stranger via email, letter or text.
Unless you are completely sure of any transaction, do not enter into any agreement with any person or company.
There is a UK agency that collates all email and correspondence scams.
Recipients of such approaches should copy the correspondence to www.actionfraud.org.uk or speak to the Police on 612612 who can log it for them.
More advice on being alert to scams is available from the Scam section of our website.
