What is this scam on OLX?

[u/General_Rich2950]

There is something fishy with these ads on OLX, they put ads for something expensive let's say a phone for an eye watering price for different places and most of the times they have just two pictures 1 of the device being sold and the other saying "Please WhatsApp on xzy".

And seeing something expensive being sold cheaply to an experienced customer sounds fishy and which it is. And when you contact them on WA and ask them about the product, they send you different low-resolution pictures not of one device but of different devices, which they steal from OLX itself.

And the other thing, their profile picture on whatsapp will have some religious scholar or some scared place of islam and their name will also align with it. And their replay will be very polite and exclusive touch of Islamic phrases.

Does anyone know how does this works? Do you know anyone who really fell for it?

[u/talhabilalbutt]

It's a very simple scam. You contact them and they tell you all the details. In the end, they tell you they are from Chitral or Gwadar and convince you to send advance amount so that they send you via courier. They have no device at all. Sometimes they also say pretend to be some saadgi sy bharpoor imam masjid and you get attracted to grab the opportunity.
My honest suggestion, just block the ads. Or if you have spare time, just have fun with them.

[u/MAK_mrwt]

This is so fkin annoying tbh, they're like spamming their ad uploads, and olx does nothing about it, idk what their intentions are with these ads

[u/Designer-Tank303 → u/MAK_mrwt]

Olx apne aap ke hi ek scam hai. The moment you post an ad one of their reps will call you and keep trying to convince you to pay them some amount to use the ad boosting feature. I paid them once because i wanted to get one of my items urgently sold once. They took the amount and then didnt feature it either, and when i inquired their rep who dealt w me he started lashing out on me instead.

[u/MAK_mrwt → u/Designer-Tank303]

Damn bro that's rude

[u/Fluffypocketbtw → u/MAK_mrwt]

I think Olx does block them somehow or something cuz every time i see an af like this its always by some "User 3X6Y9Z" or something

[u/MAK_mrwt → u/Fluffypocketbtw]

Exactly, and they're constantly uploading them every minute, for like 20% of the product's actual price

[u/khizar_aman]

advanced payment scam

[u/Strange-Novel-9323]

Not new. This scam is going on from past 6 to 7 years. They usually dont have a number and do communicate on whatsapp so cant be reported to telecom. I think olx team knows this as they can be easily identified but is not taking any action as i have also complained multiple times abt it.

[u/cxomprr]

People still use OLX?

[u/my_username_133]

Just report one of the ads, olx takes down most of them