Ebay - Paypal - Be Careful When Selling

[everton66]

I'm trying to sell a 40gb 3rd generation Ipod on Ebay. I today received a "buy it now" notice from somebody saying they wanted me to send it to a German address. A few minutes later I got a PayPal instant payment notification for the item amount plus an additional £40 to cover international shipping.

I then received an email from the buyer with a convoluted story about her Fiance going to Africa and can I ship it to Nigeria as it's his 40th birthday present. Cue the alarm bells.

I then read the Paypal instant payment notification. It said the payment had left the buyers paypal account but wouldnt be credited to mine until I submitted a shipping tracking number. More alarm bells, but, being the person who gives everybody the benefit of the doubt, I was mindful of another auction site (EBID) that offers an escrow service just like this to protect the buyer from unscrupulous sellers. So I phoned Paypal - and yes it was spoof and I would be surprised by the amount of people who actually send the goods before checking...

Be warned...!

Seems like a well organised scam. The Paypal email was sent to the email address that is registered with Paypal. How could they get my private email address that is used by Paypal from the item I was selling on Ebay (Paypal and Ebay email addresses are different)?