Trade Me targeted by freight forward scams

An increase in ‘‘freight forwarding’’ scams has meant some Trade Me sellers have had their auctions cancelled by the site. Trade Me seller Andy Beck said he has been left ‘‘pretty puzzled’’ after two items were purchased from him in the last five days, only for him then to receive a Trade Me notification that the buyer was a scammer and the purchase had been cancelled. ‘‘I was concerned as an automatic generated email goes out to the buyer containing my bank account number. Having contacted my bank to assure myself that this poses no risk to me, I’m pretty puzzled.’’ James Ryan, trust and safety spokesperson at Trade Me, said 99.99% of its trades ‘‘go off without a hitch’’, but the site had been dealing with scammers. ‘‘There are some devious people online who will try to steal or scam people out of their money.’’ A freight forwarding scam is when scammers purchase an item and concoct an elaborate story about being overseas or in a location that made it difficult for them to collect the item, he said. They would then ask the seller to provide them with money in order to help with the shipping. Trade Me could not say how many auctions were affected.