I reckon I came pretty close. The seller (of vintage jewellery on FB Marketplace) started off very helpful eg posting extra photos of the items I was interested in & doing me a deal for buying a few items etc. She took a couple of days to come back to me with photos of some of the cheaper brooches that she had left, which was absolutely fine. She had put the more expensive brooches that I’d chosen aside & I just wanted to see if there were any cheaper ones to add to the parcel. Anyway, she’d posted a photo of her business card & I entered her E Bay details into Google to see what else she might have on there - it didn’t exist. When I asked why, she turned a bit nasty & accused me of doubting her - she said if I thought she was a scammer then I could buy elsewhere & she didn’t have to prove herself to me. Apparently she didn’t advertise on E Bay because it was too expensive but a) why not just tell me that? and b) why have the details on your card if they no longer work?
Anyway, I explained that I only looked to see what she had on there & she replied “Whatever”. She’d already said if I went elsewhere it was my loss, not hers, and I was a timewaster anyway! No idea where that came from! Despite her attitude, I tried to transfer the money but a load of anti fraud questions popped up & I couldn’t authorise the payment on my app. I was blocked for security purposes in the end. This was last night & I had to ring my bank this morning. I was already seeing red flags as the seller had asked me to transfer the money to her partner’s account plus if I was to use PayPal, it would have to be Friends & Family. So in the end it was a good job that the payment was declined. The seller did have photos of jewellery on her FB profile, including videos of her & her partner running a stall at an antiques fair, so maybe they tend to diddle customers online. Still might have been ok I guess but I couldn’t afford to risk losing £85. The guy that I spoke to in the fraud department said it was a minefield these days & there were an awful lot of scams on Marketplace. Shame because the brooches are beautiful! I was going to let the seller know why I was pulling out but DH said he wouldn’t bother & just block her. The whole thing was quite unsettling & I felt upset by her attitude.