New in person electronic scam attempt?

So,

~11

My teenage boys are trying to sell this lil Saturn Ion that they've fixed up.      It's been listed for $2k with expectations of taking ~1200.

They had a trio of three young ..uhmm...inner city ethnic women show up and offer 1700.  

Sure.. No problem.   17 Benjamins please. 

Their response?    We only have CashApp? or Paypal.

My response was, please go to the bank (We have several close by, credit unions as well).

Somehow, they where not able to withdraw the agreed on amount (I'm shocked I tell you).

To me, this felt like a scam attempt. 

Buy said vehicle,  PayPal the seller. take the title and revoke payment?

Only cash in my hand or hand it to my teller with my deposit slip (prior Covid)  

It's gotta be a scam. 

One person  trying it. Well...maybe.  3 trying the same thing? Abort!

Yep, it's a scam. Paypal heavily favors the payee; they hope to get the car and make the "payment", only to drive off and cancel the payment directly after. I think it's one of the reasons Aliexpress holds people's money in escrow until they certify the product has arrived and release payment.

I dunno, I paid for my racecar via PayPal. 

It was the sellers suggestion, though.

Could've been a hacked PayPal account, too. No need for them to cancel it, just go about their lives, and let you deal with the pain, once the actual owner of the account catches up. 

PayPal allows the buyer to put things on credit card. Could be they just didn't have enough cash and wanted to charge it. But I wouldn't  take regular PayPal from someone I don't know for something that pricey. 

Cash app, Venmo or PayPal friends and family wouldn't scare me. They probably needed to pay with a credit card. 

Does anyone know if you can reverse the PayPal "friends / gift" transaction? I know you can when there are good involved but I dont think you can reverse the gifts - plus they are free free.