PayPal Payment Scams

prowla

A couple of rules:

1. Do not pay someone who isn't your friend or family using F&F.
2. Never click on a link in an email.
3. Anything that asks you to send money so you can receive money should be ringing alarm bells!
   

borntohang

Fishboy7 said:

Clearly a scam but I don't get it. Aren't they asking for the buyer to add the extra 200?

There's two parts to the scam:

1. "I'll send you 200 to send back to me to cover the fees". They are using a hacked PP account to send money that isn't theirs and then you're left on the hook when the transaction fails and they nuke the account. This is the scam within the actual scam.
2. The real grift is to send the money they'll ask you to sign into their fake PayPal site and harvest all your login details, which is how they get the accounts for step 1.

If it sounds like an obvious scam to you that's because it is and you're not the target market. They're actively fishing for people who fall for the obvious ones because chances are good they'll also fall for the five follow-up "Hi, we're paypalscamsupport@aol.bim and hear you got scammed. Please send us your bank details and login to recover your lost funds" scams. 

Rog

Very sad that what once seemed to be a safe payment system for both seller and buyer can be compromised and abused. Currently as a seller, I can see no alternative but to ask a potential purchaser to travel to my address where the items can be seen, tried and paid for by cash or bank transfer. This obviously limits both selling and buying opportunities.

If anyone knows a mutually safe alternative, it would be good to hear.

LionAquaLooper

Rog said:

Very sad that what once seemed to be a safe payment system for both seller and buyer can be compromised and abused. Currently as a seller, I can see no alternative but to ask a potential purchaser to travel to my address where the items can be seen, tried and paid for by cash or bank transfer. This obviously limits both selling and buying opportunities.

If anyone knows a mutually safe alternative, it would be good to hear.

This is what I do when selling or buying anything pricey. Face to face transactions. 

JezWynd

Rog said:

Very sad that what once seemed to be a safe payment system for both seller and buyer can be compromised and abused. Currently as a seller, I can see no alternative but to ask a potential purchaser to travel to my address where the items can be seen, tried and paid for by cash or bank transfer. This obviously limits both selling and buying opportunities.

If anyone knows a mutually safe alternative, it would be good to hear.

It is a safe system when used correctly. Problems arise when instructions are ignored, as in using Friends and Family when they are neither.

prowla

Rog said:

Very sad that what once seemed to be a safe payment system for both seller and buyer can be compromised and abused. Currently as a seller, I can see no alternative but to ask a potential purchaser to travel to my address where the items can be seen, tried and paid for by cash or bank transfer. This obviously limits both selling and buying opportunities.

If anyone knows a mutually safe alternative, it would be good to hear.

It's not really the payment system per-se; rather it's social engineering to trick you into giving them your credentials via a "man in the middle" attack.

A not dissimilar technique is what's used in those headline TV stories of people being conned out of thousands being asked to call their banks whilst the scammers are really holding the phone line open.

TTony

Rog said:

 I can see no alternative but to ask a potential purchaser to travel to my address where the items can be seen, tried and paid for by cash 

As long as you've got a reliable note checker available to identify any fakes - which the buyer might genuinely not have realised *were* fakes.  That could get awkward ...

Rog

TTony said:

Rog said:

 I can see no alternative but to ask a potential purchaser to travel to my address where the items can be seen, tried and paid for by cash 

As long as you've got a reliable note checker available to identify any fakes - which the buyer might genuinely not have realised *were* fakes.  That could get awkward ...

Yes, good point. So that just leaves face to face and bank transfer.....