Margen
You put a jacket on Wallapop for €40. Ten minutes later somebody very friendly writes in, profile picture of a dog, and says they want it, that the payment is already done, and that you two should carry on over WhatsApp because the app works badly for them. Fine so far. The app works badly for all of us.
What comes next has three steps. The third one is in a warning issued this year by the European Consumer Centre and in an alert from the Catalan police.
1. They pull you off the platform. WhatsApp, email, Telegram, whatever. Outside the app nobody is watching and there is no refund. Wallapop does not send payment links over WhatsApp. Neither does Vinted.
2. They send you a link to collect your money. The page is identical to the real one and it asks for your card number, the expiry date and the three digits on the back. Those three digits, the small print almost nobody has ever read, exist in order to pay. They are not needed for money to come in. Ever. If a screen asks for your card so that it can pay you, it is charging you.
3. Or they send you a Bizum request. This is the good one, because Bizum has two buttons that look far too alike. When somebody sends you money, you are not asked anything. It simply arrives. If what pops up is a notice with a "Pay" button, that is a request for money, not an incoming payment. The police put it in exactly those words: the notification says "Pay" or "Reject", and the one paying is you.
The charges that show up afterwards are small one by one. €39.99 from a shop in Latvia, €12.50 from a payments website you have never seen, and every so often one of €1,200.00 that eats the whole month. The police spoke of losses between 50 and 2,000 euros per victim, and they believe most cases are never reported. It happens because it is a hassle and because it is embarrassing.
This annoys me more than any bank fee, because a fee at least gets charged to your face.
Two things that mean nothing at all, so you do not spend your life suspicious. Being paid by Bizum inside the app itself is perfectly normal. And a buyer having few ratings is normal too. We all started at zero.
The real warning signs almost always travel together. They want to leave the app. They are in a hurry. And at some point they ask you for a detail that would only be needed if you were the one paying.
If you already handed over the card, call the bank, have it blocked, and ask for the charge to be reversed. If you confirmed a Bizum, same thing, and the same day. Save the screenshots before you delete the conversation, because without them the complaint is your word against a profile that will not exist tomorrow.
One thing for today. Open your banking app and find where it keeps the request money button. Have a good look at it, because you will see it again. And next time a notice pops up, read both buttons before you tap one.