This is the paypal scam in a nutshell: the scammer is trying to get you to send them money via western union. That's it!
The seller thinks they are getting top dollar for their item for just a little bit of trouble. All they have to do is western union money to a "shipping agent" and bam, paypal releases the full amount of the cost of the item, reimbursement for the shipping costs and maybe a little extra for their troubles to their paypal account. Hey, they even got a "legitimate" email from paypal telling them this, right? about how safe and 100% secure it is?
Can't you just hear the scammer/"shipping agent" laughing all the way to the bank with the 450-850$ you just sent them free and clear with no way to trace?
I put an ad up to sell a dress and someone named Kate responded and left that phone number. I guarantee Ill be getting a ton of spam now because I replied to her email
Me too...Same story...I had a wedding dress for sale as well. Someone named Kathy White emailed me about my post. Unfortunately, I read the area code as 404 instead of 409, so I thought the person was located in my area and called/emailed them back. Now they have both my email and phone number.
Forgot to mention that this Kathy person wanted me to send an invoice through paypal to the following account: [email protected]. Luckily, by then I realized it was a scam, but they got my email and phone number in the process :(