PayPal Scams: PayPal has really served many ecommerce businesses who use it to accept online payments. It has achieved a certain reputation for safety. Truly there is enough security in making payment in PayPal but the activities of internet fraudsters and scammers have remained. It has been one of the challenges of internet business like ecommerce and PayPal is not left out in the ugly experience.
Preventing PayPal Scams is very important and a set measure should be observed in order to stay safe. There are ways this fraudsters operate and that is why you as a business owner should know the top PayPal scams today in order not to share in such an ugly experience. We are going to spell out the recent ways fraudsters use to operate and scam their victims. Read how to How You Can Prevent PayPal Scams.
Top PayPal scams you should know
Shipping Address: According to Daksina, this set of PayPal scammers operate in a system called chargeback scams. It happens after a purchase is made and the payment has been placed in the seller’s PayPal account, the scammer asks the seller to ship their purchased item to an invalid delivery address.
After several failed delivery attempts, the shipping company flags the item as undeliverable in their system. The scammer then contacts the shipping company and gives them a new, valid shipping address.
When the scammer gets their shipment, they file a complaint with PayPal claiming that the item was never delivered. The seller has no proof of delivery, because their transaction detail shows only the original, invalid address. PayPal’s Seller Protection doesn’t cover shipments made to addresses that aren’t on file, so the seller loses both the item they shipped and the payment funds.
Overpayment: Scammers has recently been tracked to use this method of overpayment wherein they make a payment to a seller’s PayPal account that exceeds the cost of the item they are purchasing. After this they will contact the seller informing them that they overpaid and should be repaid the remaining balance. The seller will check to confirm its true and sends back the overpayment whereafter the PayPal scammers receives the money and file a complaint to PayPal claiming their account was compromised and they never planned to make any payment to the seller. PayPal will quickly pay reimburse them the original payment which will make them gain both the overpayment sent back to them and the original money they paid which PpayPal had on their on side reimbursed.
Fake Email: Scammers may send forged emails to sellers that appear to be from PayPal, stating that the scammer paid money into the seller’s account and that PayPal has placed a hold on the funds and will not release them until the seller sends a shipment tracking number.
PayPal does not work this way; they do not hold funds in escrow. The scammer is hoping that the seller will rush to ship the item and send over a tracking number in order to receive the money. Once the item has been shipped, it’s too late—the scammer will get an item that they never paid for, and the seller will eventually realize that PayPal was never holding money for them.
Phishing Email: Another fake email scam involves sending sellers an email that appears to be from PayPal indicating that funds have been transferred into their account pending confirmation, with a link or button for the seller to click that will make the money available to them.
The link leads to a fake PayPal site that will ask for the seller’s login credentials. If the seller enters their email and password into the fake site, the scammer will be able to use them to log into the seller’s actual PayPal account, from which they can make payments or withdraw funds.
Hacked PayPal: Once a scammer has hacked into somebody else’s PayPal account (as in the case of the phishing email scam), they can make purchases and send payments with the money from the account they have taken over.
A seller might receive notice of a purchase and ship an item, only to later be told by PayPal that the transaction was fraudulent and that the transaction must be reversed. PayPal may reimburse the seller if they are able to confirm that the account that made the payment was hacked.
Source: Google and Daksina
