Who knew that there was such a thing as recycling scams? If there’s one thing you can count on in this world we now live in, wherever money is involved, there’s a scammer looking to take it. But before you concern yourself about filling up your green recycling bin and setting it out on the lawn to get picked up, that’s not the type of recycling we are talking about. We’re talking about large volumes of various types of business and industrial recyclable material that would otherwise get discarded. It’s big business, and nowadays there are online platforms solely dedicated to helping sellers to find buyers, and buyers to find sellers for these materials. Registered users can post ‘for sale’ listings, or they can post a listing as a potential buyer for certain types of material, much as they would in a traditional classified ad. Some of these materials offered for sale can be worth thousands of dollars to the right buyer.
These scams involving listings for recyclable materials work in much the same way as they do on all other online marketplaces where goods are bought and sold. Typically, the scammer will post a listing for materials that they know will generate a significant amount of interest, and will generally offer the item(s) for sale at a rate that’s well below market value. If you are a reader of the Scam Prevention Awareness Project, then you probably already know how this scam plays out. The scammer will ask the interested buyer to make a deposit on the purchase in order to secure their purchase. And you guessed it. Once the deposit goes through, the scammer is never seen or heard from again. In these scams, the perpetrators will spoof legitimate companies in order to appear more legitimate to the buyer. These scams can work in reverse as well, where the seller is the victim.
The bottom line when buying or selling anything through an online marketplace, do your research on who you are buying from, or who you are selling to. If someone makes an odd request, or asks you to send money upfront using an unsecured or untraceable payment method that offers no recourse for getting your money back, raise the red flag and proceed with caution.
