Is this a scam please help ebay?

Payment Reminder For Transaction Number 97T59133YD753953YDear alex  colon,This email is to remind you of the payment made into your PayPal account by N.Chrystine Olson (chrystine.olson@yahoo.com) for the item:Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket SGH-I727 - 16GB - Black (Unlocked) Smartphone bought from you on eBay. The payment transaction number is: 97T59133YD753953Y and you have the sum of $550.00 pending to be cleared.We have already deducted the money from the buyers account.We have the money waiting in our escrow account for you to clear .To make this clearance you need to verify the shipping reference number ( Tracking number ).This is a must to ensure a safe PayPalexperience.To verify your shipping reference number at this time, please email the shipping reference number to us at paypal by replying to this email as soon as possible.We shall credit your account once we receive the shipping reference number.You will find the shipping reference number on the receipt giving to you at the post office.So send the reference number as soon as possible for fast transfer of your money.Payment Details : SealedAmount : $550.00             Payment With PayPal is easy,fast and reliable.PayPal makes it easy to Send and  Receive money.Yours sincerely,PayPalCopyright © 2012 PayPal Inc. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners. PayPal is located at 2211 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95131.

100% scam.

There is no buyer.

Notice how the scammer doesn't call what you are selling by name? He uses the generic word "item", that is because he sends the same stock copy/paste email to anyone selling everything that he can find and he has no idea what you are selling and doesn't care.

There is only a scammer trying to steal your possession, your electronic item, name brand clothing or jewelry.

The scammer isn't interested in your identity or bank account only in convincing you to ship your possession to him without him sending you a penny.

The next email will be from another of the scammer's fake names and free email addresses pretending to be "Paypal" saying "kindly send the tracking number and we will release the funds".

Paypal does NOT send such emails, ever. Paypal does NOT have escrow or money holding services like that scammer describes. Paypal does NOT demand you send a tracking number before money is sent. EVER. No exceptions.

Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his 'potential sucker' list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of being the perfect buyer, great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.

You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.

Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don't bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn't worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.

Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.

If you google "cragislist buyer scam", "fake paypal email scam", "ebay escrow fraud" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near victims of this type of scam.

Check out the one and only official paypal website, read up on what paypal does and how it really works.

Source(s):

paypal.com

scam.com
scamwarners.com