A desperate Dunedin dad feels “devastated”, after he tried to sell his bed on Trade Me to buy Christmas presents for his children — but was scammed three times instead.

Dunedin resident Nathan Richardson was hoping to sell the queen-sized bed he bought in 2019 so he could afford Christmas.

“Even though I’m on ACC and I’ve got a bad back and I’d have to sleep in a chair, I was prepared to do that just so I could have some money to get some presents for my kids,” Richardson said.

He listed the bed and woke to an email a couple of days later, saying it had sold using the online site’s buy-now function.

However, something seemed amiss.

The purchase was made early in the morning by a buyer with an unusual email address and lots of negative feedback.

About six hours later, he got an email from Trade Me saying it was a scam and warning him not to do anything.

“I thought, ‘oh well, things happen’, so I relisted it — two days later, same thing happened,” Richardson said.

He flooded Trade Me’s support inbox with emails, but it took about two weeks to get someone on the phone, who apologised, offered him $50 credit and encouraged him to relist, Richardson said.

The bed was relisted. He woke to another email telling him the bed had been sold.

“It’s a scammer again ... Third time, bang, straight away,” Richardson said.

The email made him feel “absolutely rubbish”.

Trade Me head of trust and safety Lisa Kerr said Mr Richardson’s incident sounded like a classic “freight-forwarding scam”.

That is when scammers buy an item and concoct an elaborate story about being in a location that makes it difficult for them to collect the item, then ask victims to provide them with money in order to help with the shipping, she said.

The scam was hard to wipe out, so Trade Me warned sellers not to send money to buyers or put their contact details in a listing, Kerr said.

- Oscar Francis, ODT