u/axeinthesoul

I had a high-value item listed on Gumtree for a couple of weeks with no serious offers. Someone eventually got in touch, we exchanged numbers, spoke on the phone, and he came round with his flatmate.
He checked the item, was happy with the condition, and agreed to buy it. He then made a bank transfer from his NatWest account to my Monzo.
The money didn’t appear. We looked online and saw that NatWest payments to new payees made after 18:30 on weekends can be delayed by up to two hours.

He briefly used the NatWest AI chatbot, got the Faster Payments ID, let me take a photo of it, and showed me his banking app so I could see it was the genuine NatWest app (not a fake or third-party app designed to generate screenshots).

I offered to let him wait the two hours, but he insisted on leaving and coming back the next day once it had gone through to collect the item. He seemed reluctant to ring NatWest properly — said he didn’t have his card with him and would need the details. When I pointed out that the card details are visible in the app, he changed the subject.

He left, saying he trusted me. The item stayed with me. The next morning I contacted Monzo support, gave them the Faster Payments ID, and confirmed there was no pending payment. I messaged him screenshots of the Monzo chat and my recent transactions, and suggested he contact NatWest as the payment might be held under fraud or security checks.

No reply. It’s now been 48 hours since he was here.
I’m trying to work out what happened so I can decide whether to relist the item. My main concerns are:

• Is this some kind of elaborate multi-stage scam?

• Could the money still arrive in my account days later? (I’m keen to sell the item to someone else but don’t want to end up owing a stranger money if it suddenly lands.)

• Was it a scam that relied on me feeling awkward and handing the item over anyway (“you’ve driven all this way…”) so I should be more vigilant next time?

• Or was it a stolen/mule account, and the payment never went through because the real account owner couldn’t complete 2FA — which is why he didn’t want to contact the bank in front of me?

Either way, I’ll be steering clear of Gumtree and using Facebook Marketplace from now on, as at least there’s a name and some profile information attached to the buyer.

Has anyone had a similar experience, or any thoughts on what most likely happened here?

I have a SS 2016 stone island ventile jacket that has done a very very good job of holding up nicely over the years and is still very waterproof.

Unfortunately i’ve gotten a few marks on it this year and needs a clean anyone have any advice on how i should clean it?

My rule of thumb is generally to take anything of value to the dry cleaners, but unsure as unfamiliar with this fabric in the context of washing. Any advice on how other people wash their stoney ventile jackets would be greatly appreciated.

i have tried absolutely everything i can think of and exhausted all my options. I have tried the following:

1. I have tried the native swap feature in kraken wallet and it dosen’t work and tells me (i have insufficient ETH balance to cover transactions even though i do)

2. I’ve tried bridging on Bungee and Superbridge and it appears to work but when i do the two factor authentication to complete the transaction in the kraken wallet app it then fails and tells me i have pressed decline despite pressing yes with the two factor authentication

3. I have tried sending the USDT0 to another wallet in this case metamask as i believe this is a fault of a kraken app. But it won’t even allow me to send the funds. I can only assume there’s a severe issue with the kraken wallet app or my account when it comes to exchanging and sending this type of crypto.

Am i doing anything really stupid here, or do i need to contact kraken support? extremely frustrating situation.