If PayPal doesn’t have a phone number to call, I would just ignore it, don’t touch the money, and don’t communicate with the scammer. Assume at some point the money will get pulled back in some way.
If PayPal does hav ea number to call, and you can get through to the fraud unit (not the stupid front line customer service who will be a glorified version of those stupid options) then call.
I’ve since…
The wording has a slightly weird vibe, it says “thank you for contacting PayPal” but I cancelled out of that process described in my previous post, there’s the typo in “today;s date”, note that the $300 magically became “$3300”, and just as a general weird thing there’s nowhere in here for me to respond? It certainly looks genuine in terms of its placement on the website but still a little sketchy. I googled the phone number and it appears that
“We’re hoping for your kind cooperation to kindly refund…”
That is 100 percent not an email from PayPal.
How important is your PayPal account? I’d be getting to the point of delinking it from my bank account.
Not very, I use it pretty infrequently, and yeah that might not be a bad idea. Don’t think I have any CCs linked.
In before you’re asking for loans after your bank account is drained.
So what happens here? They ask for the 300 back, you send it to them then they revoke the initial 300 they sent and you out 300 bucks?
For some reason I’m reminded of some chump who was begging for money on 2+2 ten years ago, he claimed his poker bankroll was gone because he “accidentally” started playing blackjack and got sucked in. My reply:
Here’s another “kindly”, maybe this is just how they train their offshore customer support agents idk:
There’s just no way this isn’t a scam. PayPal has the ability to reverse a mistake, they don’t need you to do anything affirmatively to do it, and that email has a lot of spelling errors. I don’t know how the scammers are doing what they’re doing, but that’s a scam.
This has to be a scam right???
Why would PayPal need the user to do something? Like I don’t think a bank or credit card would ever ask a customer to manually fix a banking error right? Seems like they trying to exploit fact you can’t just readily walk into a PayPal branch to confirm what is going on
PayPal must have some customer service/fraud dept you could forward emails to see if real? If they have some AI chatbot could you just type “victim of fraud” over and over until something happens? (Assuming you don’t care if your account gets frozen or whatever might happen)
I know PayPal used to have a customer service number because i remember calling it years ago for an issue. They discontinued it?
Looks like this is the number: 1-888-221-1161
Yeah, if a bank accidentally credits your account, they reverse it. They don’t contact you and ask you to reverse it. Somehow someone is sending fake paypal emails from the paypal system. Don’t know how, but they’re doing it.
(it’s just a tease, sorry)
Do they? That would itself be a scam vector, if someone could send you money then take it back. (This is a difference between the send to friends & family vs pay a business thing I think, as PayPal charges a fee for the latter but gives the sender more protections and has dispute resolution?)
This is correct.
Their customer service has been competent the 3 times I have dealt with them.
I have literally been scammed like this. Wasn’t even a friends and family payment, someone paid with a credit card through PayPal then disputed the card charges about 6 months later. According to the internet this is a common scam because PayPal will side with the buyer almost every time. If you’re going to accept payment through PayPal you need to ensure either (1) you actually trust the payer not to scam you or (2) you comply with the long and onerous requirements for whatever type of payment you’re accepting to ensure if it is a scam, PayPal will cover it. And I’m not convinced that (2) will even fully protect you.
noooooooooo
