Bike Trader Scammers

[Yamazer-92]

I was just wondering if any of you have used bike trader before and have received emails from scammers? I have had a few that are clearly and definitely dodgy, but some are not quite so obvious and I'm unsure if they're legitimate or not. It's when they say they are too far away to view the bike then start asking questions about your paypal account and stuff, although then I think well how else can they pay you? Plus that the documents and "necessary papers" will be available along with the bike when it is picked up by their shipper who will sign on their behalf? Just seems a bit dodgy to me that's all and I wondered what your opinion was? I might just take my email off the advert to be safe. I haven't given out any details to anyone yet.

[Stooby2]

No, no and no. Cash on collection only. Never, ever let your bike go to a courier or a "shipper" and take a Paypal payment. Within a day or two the buyer will open a dispute and Paypal will refund them, they close their account and disappear - and you've lost your bike.

[Yamazer-92]

Thanks for the reply, I didn't know exactly how these scammers work exactly but that makes sense. I haven't given out any details to any of them anyway, it's quite fun stringing them along as well. I'm going to remove my email address from the advert anyway to stop the hassle of them. Thanks again for that.

[FuZzBoM]

I had the exact same thing last time I sold a bike on there. odd questions like "what is your last price" etc.
Just don't reply.. I reported them to autotrader but they were not interested.

In truth I had better luck selling as a classified ad on ebay. was cheaper as well.

[Yamazer-92]

Yeah I have ignored the majority but some of them aren't immediately obvious if they're scammers or not. Well I went with bike trader because the past 3 bikes I've owned have all sold quickly and hassle free on there, but annoyingly and surprisingly I'm having the most trouble selling this bike even though its far better than all my old ones. I have just under 2 weeks left on the ad, but if it doesn't sell by then I'll have a look at ebay.