Now, I know that getting scammed on Kleinanzeigen is a true German experience everyone goes through. However, I have managed to avoid many scams thanks to reddit posts like this one. Since I’m a student and money is always tight, I regularly search for good deals on there, despite the high chance of scams.
But this one truly caught me off guard, so I wanted to make a post, that someone might stumble upon and hopefully not get scammed.
So, I wanted to purchase a DJ controller to learn more on DJing, and saw multiple offers on Kleinanzeigen that sold it for 80-90 euros, when a new one costs like 250-300 euros. Those offers often disappear quick, so I thought people just snagged the deal before me.
After missing a lot of these offers, I was able to catch one of them. The user was Top Zufreidenheit and the account was several years old. I have only had good experiences with users having these ratings, in the past. They’ve been reliable and have been super friendly too.
Now, even reliable sellers expect Paypal Friends, which is understandable because of the G&S Scam from buyers. So that didn’t raise any flags as well. I even ran a image search on the pictures, which came up clean.
[So, I paid the 80 euros. And got scammed. Nothing ever came to my house.](https://i.postimg.cc/L8MSCmfJ/IMG-4120.jpg)
Immediately after my money was gone, all other posts of the scammer were deleted within hours!
I guess hacking old accounts is pretty simple on Kleinanzeigen, because I saw [the SAME ad from another account the NEXT DAY. Was not rated, but was a few years old.](https://i.postimg.cc/DZSPbkxg/IMG-4132.jpg)
[You can see the similar title better here too. Although the next accounts had different title formatting, but the same effortless descriptions.](https://i.postimg.cc/t4tj88t2/IMG-4138.jpg)
I asked them for the paypal to figure this scam out. [The email was a similar email to the one I had got scammed with.](https://i.postimg.cc/SKgpx8P9/IMG-4147.jpg) So, I reported the account immediately and let the scammer know I will report every new account he makes, unless he gives my money back. Empty threat, but worth a shot.
I have been just reporting his accounts for the past few days now, and [Kleinanzeigen finally issued a warning that I have been chatting with a suspicious account](https://i.postimg.cc/NMLv9Fhz/IMG-4163.jpg) a few hours ago after I reported his latest account.
Other that “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is” I have no answer to help save yourself from this scam. Asking it for Paypal G&S seems to be fine by the scammers since they’ll just delete the Paypal account or something, they just simply ask you to send more to cover the cost.
Unfortunately, this put my DJing hobby back on hold, and now I need to budget next month for the 80 euros I lost. But hopefully, this post would help someone in the future! Stay safe out there, and don’t be as dumb as me.