well, it was not that close, but I invested time and energy on it, and I still feel stupid for hoping to believe it was true.
So I was contacted on my private instagram by a person who said they saw my stuff and loved it and asked if I sold things and if I shipped to the states. I said yes, and refered to my “buisness” instagram and they said thet would write to me there.She sent me pictures from my instagram to the chat, alot of different hats, and asked what they cost. I said its different prices, specified for the ones I could tell directly and some of the more advanced ones I said, I mostly do on comission and price depend on material and look. The women said, as close as possible to the ones in the pictures, what was the price.
So I gave a prices for them as well, and she said okay, what is the total. And again stressed that some of these are made from vintage fabric and will be different fabrics if remade.I asked for which hats, and she said for all the she sent and asked if I took paypal.
The total order was for over 800 USD!I was like, this seems to good to be true. Although the profile seemed to be for a older middle age women, and I mean I could see someone like my mum fall in love with someones things and just want to buy alot.
So I proceeded with caution and specified, when I could ship and that I needed prepayment, that would not be refundable, and needed the rest when the orders where ready to be shipped and gave my paypal. Ihave this as standard, usually just so I have funds to buy the material, not because I dont trust the customer, which was the case now. And I thought never she will pay this, but then she wrote I am paying now.
This was early morning and I was on my way to work, but saw the notification on my email:
and I was like what? She paid the full amount??!?! I could not believe it!
But then I opened my pay pal, and there was no money… and then she wrote and said she got an email from paypal the money was held due to that I did not have a buisness account.
i opened the paypal email and saw that it said the same thing,but it also stated that the customer needed to pay 300 USD more and that would open my account and then I would recieve all the money.This I though was very strange, but I also knew I didnt have a buisness account, and having a limit would absolutly be possible.She said she had recieved the same email and she could pay the extra 300 USD, but I said I will see if I can upgrade my account on my part.
Which I could, I could just change the settings in paypal, which I told her. But she said what if it wont work as I upgraded before she sent the money and she will send me the 300 USD that I can pay back.And I got a new email:
However, I still had not received any money, and reading this one it said I needed to pay 300 USD to the customer THEN I could receieve the 850 and 300 back, and I also double checked the email, which was an gmail adress… Iö
I was like, okay yes, this is a scam. I would never have paid 300 USD out of pocket to recieve payment, that is not how things work ever. Still I can see people falling for it, that is not well versed in how things work, and getting really excited for a big order, and also wanting to keep customers happy and have a smootg transaction.
I just feel annoyed, disappointed, dumb for having a hope it could be legit order, even though there where so many red flags. Like not caring about the material or fabrics, having such a random selection of hats. But at the same time I dont want to pre-judge people, and dismiss customer just because they seem a bit odd.
I also feel angry on behalf of actual customers, because it is people like this that makes you need to take payment in advance and be extra careful, and have your guard really high. And on top of that all my orders are very dear to me, and alot of thought goes into it. As soon as she started talking to me about what she wanted to order I started to think about fabrics, colours, execution, and so one. So even though I didnt start actually doing anything I still put thought and energy towards it.
Oh well, these things happen, and will most likely continue to happen. I must say I am really happy about the (real) customers I have, who all are very intrested in discussion their order, and have, so far, never been issues with payments and all been so very lovely, and I am so grateful for everyone and anyone who purchase my stuff.
