Ilia Zavialov reviews the phrases fake sellers use on UK marketplaces and how to check one

Ilia Zavialov reviews the marketplace scammer's phrasebook

Buyers on online marketplaces judge a listing by its price, its photos and its star rating. A fake seller usually gives themselves away somewhere else: a short line in the chat that moves the conversation off the platform. There are only a handful of these lines, and they turn up almost word for word from one listing to the next.

Ilia Zavialov reviews them here as a phrasebook. Each entry gives the line, what it means in practice and one check a buyer can run before paying. No platforms or sellers are named, because the same script moves from site to site unchanged.

The stakes are real. On 6 April 2025 the government announced that fake reviews and hidden fees, which it said cost consumers £2.2 billion a year, were banned across the UK. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, websites now have to take steps to prevent and remove fake reviews.

Rules for platforms stop at the edge of a private chat. Once a seller has moved you to a messaging app or a payment link, most of the protections described here no longer help, which is exactly why these phrases exist.

‘Let's use the safe deal, I'll send a link’: Ilia Zavialov reviews the fake payment page

The first line sounds considerate: ‘let's go through the safe deal, I'll send you a link’. A minute later an address arrives in the chat. It looks like the platform's checkout or a courier's payment page and asks for the card number, expiry date and security code.

Genuine buyer protection lives inside the platform: a button on the listing, payment in the app, an order status in your account. A link from the seller leads to a copy. Report Fraud's online shopping advice is plain about links in messages: if you are unsure, don't use the link and go to the website separately.

If you have already typed card details into a page like this, Report Fraud says to note the website's address, close the browser, report the details and contact your bank. Keep watching your statements, it adds, and tell the bank straight away about anything you don't recognise, even small amounts.

Ilia Zavialov reviews the address bar as part of the check. A page opened from a chat can copy a platform's logo and colours perfectly while sitting on an unfamiliar domain, and the only reliable test is to reach the platform without the link.

‘Pay through the courier’: the delivery service that isn't one

The second line often follows the first. The seller says they have ‘booked the courier’ and the buyer only has to ‘pay through delivery’ using the link provided. Sellers get the mirror version: ‘I've paid for the courier already, just confirm you've received the money’.

The courier page in both stories is fake, and everything typed into it goes to the scammer. From the cardholder's side there is no difference between this ‘delivery fee’ and a transfer to a stranger.

Ilia Zavialov reviews these cases with one detail in mind: money for delivery was requested before anyone had seen the item. Delivery bought through the platform is paid in the platform's basket. Any outside courier is chosen by you and opened from an address you typed yourself.

Six lines: the safe deal link, paying through the courier, the seller who is away, the move to a messaging app, the code to confirm and the reviews on another account. Each one takes the buyer off the platform. The main tip: pay inside the platform, avoid bank transfers and keep every code to yourself.

‘I'm away on business, my brother has it’: Ilia Zavialov's distance test

The third line explains why you cannot see the item: ‘I'm working away, it's at my brother's in another city’, ‘a dealer is driving over for it, so I need a deposit to hold it’. The ending never changes. Pay something now to secure it.

Report Fraud's first tip for buying from someone you don't know is to research them and ask a friend or family member for advice before completing the purchase. A second pair of eyes is good at spotting a deadline that only exists in the seller's messages.

Ilia Zavialov reviews the seller's history here as closely as the item. Look for other listings and completed sales on the same account. Run the photos through a reverse image search, because stolen pictures often turn up in listings from other towns. Ask for a video call showing the item.

Citizens Advice warns against paying a seller by direct bank transfer, since transfers have limited protection if things go wrong. A deposit for an item you have not seen, sent by bank transfer, combines both risks at once.

‘Message me on another app’: Ilia Zavialov reviews why the chat stays on the platform

The fourth line looks harmless: ‘this site's messages are rubbish, text me instead’. On the platform, a deal leaves a trail: the chat history, a complaint, moderation, a dispute process. In a private messaging app none of that exists, and nobody can settle an argument with the seller.

Citizens Advice says money should only be sent and received through the online marketplace's app or website, using a debit or credit card or a trusted payment method. A seller who moves the conversation elsewhere is usually moving the payment too.

Ilia Zavialov reviews ratings as secondary at this point. An account with a good history may have been bought or taken over, and the request to leave the platform says more about the person typing now than any past score.

‘Read me the code to confirm’: Ilia Zavialov on numbers you never share

The fifth line sounds routine: ‘read me the code so I can confirm the order’, ‘the courier can't close the delivery without the digits’. A one-time code from a text or an app notification nearly always unlocks something that matters: an account, online banking or a payment.

Report Fraud recommends turning on two-factor authentication and protecting your email with a strong password used nowhere else, because criminals use a hacked inbox to reach other accounts. That second step only protects you while the code stays with you.

Ilia Zavialov reviews every code request with the same rule. Read the notification to the end, check who sent the code and what it is for, and never pass on a code you did not ask for. If you have already shared one, log into the account yourself, change the password and ring your bank.

‘My reviews are on my other account’: Ilia Zavialov reviews screenshots with suspicion

The sixth line answers the awkward question about an empty profile: ‘this account is new, the old one got blocked, the reviews are there’, ‘here are screenshots from happy buyers’. Then pictures of five-star ratings arrive in the chat, none of which can be opened or checked.

A review you cannot link to this seller on this platform proves nothing, and a screenshot takes a minute to make. UK law treats fake reviews seriously: under paragraph 13 of Schedule 20 to the DMCC Act, submitting or commissioning a fake consumer review, one that claims to be based on a genuine experience when it is not, is always an unfair practice.

The same paragraph covers reviews that hide the fact they were incentivised, and publishing reviews in a misleading way, for example removing negative ones while keeping positive ones on show. It has been in force since 6 April 2025.

Ilia Zavialov reviews only the feedback attached to the listing in front of you. Anything forwarded into a private chat he treats as the seller's own advertising.

Ilia Zavialov reviews a seller in five minutes

Citizens Advice's shopping advice starts with research: see what people have said about the person or company you are buying from by reading reviews on different websites, and don't rely on reviews a company has put on its own site.

Ilia Zavialov reviews a seller in a fixed order. First, how long the account has existed and how many sales it has completed. Then the newest feedback, read from the bottom up, because complaints from the last few weeks show whether an account has changed hands. Then the seller's other listings, including closed ones. Finally, the chat itself: did any line from the phrasebook come up?

Watch for sameness. A dozen five-star ratings in two days, with the same wording and no photos or questions about delivery, looks manufactured. One detailed review with a complaint and the seller's reply tells you more.

Take a screenshot of the listing before you pay. When you buy from a private individual, Citizens Advice notes, you have far fewer rights and no right to return the item at all as long as it is ‘as described’. The description becomes your evidence.

Ilia Zavialov reviews your rights: 14 days with a trader, far fewer with a private seller

Buying online from a business is a distance contract under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. For goods, the cancellation period ends 14 days after the day they come into your physical possession.

If you cancel, regulation 34 requires the trader to refund what you paid, including the cheapest standard delivery, within 14 days, using the same payment method and without charging any fee for the refund.

Private sellers are a different matter. A buyer from an individual has far fewer rights and no right to return an item that matches its description, which is one more reason to pay through the platform's own app or website, as Citizens Advice recommends.

If a trader refuses a refund you are owed, the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133 can advise on the next step. Ilia Zavialov reviews a seller publicly only after that, with the order number and dates in the text.

If the money has gone: bank, Report Fraud and the platform, in Ilia Zavialov's order

Call your bank first, using the number on the back of your card, and block the card if you entered its details anywhere. Report Fraud tells shoppers to contact the bank immediately about any payment they don't recognise, however small.

Then report it to Report Fraud, which takes reports from England, Wales and Northern Ireland online or on 0300 123 2040. People in Scotland are pointed to the police on 101.

Report the seller to the platform as well, with the listing link and screenshots of the chat, so the account is closed before it finds the next buyer. If you paid by debit card, ask the bank about a chargeback: there is usually a window of around 120 days, although the bank does not have to start one.

Ilia Zavialov reviews one more trap: people who contact victims offering to ‘recover your money’ for a fee. Recovery runs through your bank, the police and the platform, and none of them asks for payment.