The buyer who paid too much

Selling a dining table online, a young couple got an email that their payment was on hold until they “upgraded” their account.

What happened

Priya, 29, listed a dining table online for $300. A buyer messaged within minutes, didn’t ask a single question about the table, and said they’d pay by Zelle and send a mover to collect it.

Soon after, Priya got an email that looked like it came from Zelle: the $300 payment was on hold because she had a personal account, not a business one. To release it, the buyer needed to pay a $300 upgrade fee, so the email said they had sent $600 in total. Priya just had to send $300 back.

“The email had all the logos. My bank app had nothing. That was the whole answer.”

The scam

This is an overpayment scam dressed up as a payment app email. There was no payment at all. Zelle doesn’t hold payments until you upgrade your account, and it never asks you to pay a fee to receive money.

The buyer’s rush, and the lack of interest in the item itself, are classic signs. Once you send the “refund”, it’s gone, because payment apps are like handing over cash.

What Priya did

Priya opened her banking app directly and saw no incoming payment. She replied that she’d only accept cash on collection. The buyer stopped responding. She reported the account to the marketplace.

Red flags

• A buyer who wants it without asking about it, and won’t come in person.
• An email saying a payment is “on hold” until you do something.
• Being asked to send money back for any reason.
• Emails from payment apps that arrive from a free email address.

How to protect yourself

• Check payments in your bank or payment app, never through an email or text link.
• When selling locally, take cash or a payment you can see has cleared before handing anything over.
• Zelle, Venmo and Cash App are for people you know. Treat sending money there like handing over cash.
• Never refund an “overpayment”. Real overpayments are reversed by the sender’s bank.

Every story is a composite of commonly reported cases. Names, places, amounts and links are changed.