Usually in the email it’s stating something about how the seller needs to buy gift cards because, magically, that’s just supposed to fix the buyer’s payment issue lol. Seller contacts fake Mercari support email and they write back with a half decent looking email that might fool someone who is naive. After a while of chatting when it’s time to actually buy the item, they will suddenly say “oh no my payment is not going through, it’s a problem on your end, it says you have to contact Mercari.

Sometimes they ask you to send more pics (so they can steal them). Seller contacts mysterious buyers phone number. I highly appreciate everyone who took the time to help a new seller out. I'm not gonna bother, I'm sure they will just somehow tie a target gift card into this or something stupid and I don't feel like wasting more of my time. He said he will send the money through Mercari, and low and behold as u/nochusenpai predicted he said he couldn't process the payment because my account is not verified and I need to contact an email address ending in lol. He asked for a price, I sent him one, he responded 4$ lower, I accepted. (hopefully this should make it useless to them) He asked for a picture, I took one of it with my username written on a piece of paper right in the screen. Now aware of what he was probably doing, thanks to all of you, I proceeded in the name of science, at obviously my own risk and wasted time. (I know, I know, dumb idea, you may punch me once). I sent the second buyer a message before making this post, and before Mercari deleted it.

Mercari buyer with no reviews