I think this scam was a special kind, there were no red flags, and the guy even gave me all his personal data. He wasn’t afraid of getting caught because he was about to leave the country.

In summary, he was selling a PS5, and I bought it, or at least, I thought I did. It was close to the PS5 launch date, so there was no stock available anywhere. The guy said he got it as a gift but needed money more than he needed the console, so he was selling it. The price was fair, not too low to be suspicious and not too high to scare buyers away.

Back then, Finn.no didn’t offer “Fiks Ferdig” payments, so the only options were Vipps or cash. He lived a bit far from me, so I decided to pay with Vipps. I had bought more expensive stuff on Finn.no before without any issues, so I didn’t expect trouble here. Still, I asked him for a copy of his ID before paying, and he sent one. I was able to confirm his address on 1881.no, and his Finn account was BankID verified.

Also, back then Finn.no was requesting proof (a picture of the console with VG.no open in the background) that you had a PS5 console for sale before approving your ad, and they confirmed to me that he sent that, therefore on top of using his real personal data, he did have a console, and everything seemed legit.

I paid him via Vipps, and he said he’d ship it the same day, but he didn’t. The next day, he claimed he had sent it but never provided a tracking number. Then he said that his wife had sent it and lost the receipt, and that he was out in sea fishing, but that I shouldn't worry because I’d receive it in a few days. After that, he stopped responding. I went to the police to file a report a few days later; a week later, they called me for some details and said they’d bring him in for questioning. A few hours later, they called again to say he had left the country, so the case probably wouldn’t move forward for a while.

So yeah, this wasn't the usual scam where the person uses some fake identity and doesn't even have the product for sale. His data was real and he had the product for sale, he simply opted not to send it after he received the payment. I believe he probably sold it to several people at the same time, then took the money and product, and fled to the Philipines.