Whilst we hope all the buyers on Bride2Bride will be genuinely looking for items to make their wedding day perfect, please be mindful that the person you are conversing with may not be who you think.

Top tips:

• Make sure you always have someone else with you when you meet a potential buyer who wants to view the dress.
• Be very careful if you are offered more than the sale price
• Do not post your dress in exchange for a money order, WU transfer or similar or before money has cleared in your bank account.

Be extremely cautious if the potential buyer does any of the following:

• Offers to pay more than your asking price. Scammers will then typically ask for the surplus money to be returned to them or a third party, for example to pay for shipping. The check will clear into your bank account, only to be refused weeks later. At this point, the bank/building society will take the full check amount back out of your account. This would then leave you out of pocket for the amount on the check and the amount you passed on as the difference.
• Offers to pay via money order, Moneygram, Western Union or another untraceable method.
  Sends you a link to PayPal, where you are then asked to re-enter your information. You should NEVER submit your information unless you’ve entered through PayPal’s homepage.
• Sends you a text message with no number to reply to, and asks you to email them back as they want to buy your dress “urgently” or “ASAP”
• Mentions a “client”, “agent” or “shipping fees” or that they will pay by “check” and that they are satisfied with the price and not able to view or collect the item themselves.
• An email allegedly from Bride2Bride (or another company) asking for your personal details – logins/passwords/credit card details. You get an email that claims to be from Bride2Bride or another company and requests that you reply or follow a link to provide personal information. These are fake and are known as ‘spoof’ or ‘phishing’ emails. Any emails which combine urgency with a need for personal details should be treated with caution, no matter whom they appear to be from. Website pages can be easily faked. Bride2Bride and most other companies will never send out such emails. If you get an email alleging to be from Bride2Bride asking for your personal information, don’t follow any links provided in the email.
• Request to use Ukash. Ukash is a payment service for online transactions between customers and merchant sites and not for transactions between private individuals who have connected through a classifieds website. Fraudsters may request that you purchase a Ukash voucher and send the voucher number to them or an alleged “courier” as payment for an item. They may also set-up fake websites and email accounts that appear to be Ukash, or a well known courier company such as UPS or Federal Express as part of the deception to trick you. Our advice is simply don’t proceed with transacting with anyone that you have connected with on a classified website, where Ukash is requested as part of the transaction.
• Fake escrow sites. A buyer/seller suggests using an escrow service to complete the transaction. These escrow websites often may look official, but are actually run by fraudsters. There are plenty of very reputable escrow sites such as Transpact and Escrow that you should use to initiate a money transfer.
• If the buyer wants to see the dress in person, arrange to do so in a public place, or when others are present so that you are not alone.
• Asks you to send the item before the funds have cleared into your bank account. You should always wait for funds to have cleared before handing over your item. Please report any suspicious behaviour to us to see if we can help.
• We would always recommend that you try and meet the buyer in person (with someone else present, or in a public place) before agreeing a sale, but if this isn’t possible, look out for the warning signs above and at try to speak to them on the telephone before going ahead with the sale.

Reliable ways of getting paid include you sending a Paypal payment request from your Paypal account, using an escrow service such as Transpact.