Safety tips
Common Scams and Frauds
Have you heard of 419 fraud? You receive a flattering and confidentionally sounding letter which informs you that you have been chosen to help take a large sum of money out of a country (usually an exotic country) but first you must donate certain amount for that purpose yourself. Obviously, if you do so, you will never see your money again. For more infirmation go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_fee_fraud.
Precautions
We advise you to meet in person before buying anything. If it seems too good to be true, it usually is. Do not exchange any funds before receiving goods.
Scam and Fraud Advice
- TapThat.co.uk is not an intermediary and does not arrange any payments or transactions. If you are contacted by someone who claims to be from TapThat and asks you to transfer money for an item for sale the email WILL be fraudulent. Do NOT follow any of the instructions contained in the email.
- 99.9% of fraud is carried out by people who won't meet you. Would you advise your friend to send money to someone they don't know? Why are you going to do it!
- Never transfer money without having first received the goods.
- Be wary of sending money to Western Union to people you don’t know.
- Never pay in part for goods that are supposed to be in transit
- Be careful when dealing with overseas sellers and you only have an email address.
- If using escrow services make sure the escrow agent is legitimate.
- Even if you are a seller, there are scammers awaiting you.
- Be careful when buying expensive items like mobile phones, laptops, plasma TVs, airline tickets and even tickets for shows/gigs.
- When buying airline tickets we suggest you take the seller's name and ticket number, check the ticket exists and take responsibility yourself for changing the names
- Meet the seller face to face and ask to see their ID. We advise only buying and selling with people you can meet. Fraudsters don’t meet people, that's how they get caught!
- NEW scam: If someone asks you to open a bank account to deal with them (usually Barclays), this is 100% sure to be a scam - do not enter into an agreement like this!
- Remember it's BUYER BEWARE and if it seems too good to be true, it usually is.