PayPal scam

DWalt

DWalt

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I nearly fell for a very slick PayPal scam on Wednesday that started with an eMail allegedly sent to me by PayPal. It looked very legitimate and I responded, but fairly soon it became obvious that it was a sophisticated scam to access my checking account. It turned out that I was probably targeted because of a medical records theft from the computer system of a local hospital group in July. Just as a precaution I called my bank and had them immediately freeze my checking account. My advice is to delete any eMails allegedly originating from PayPal without even looking at them. Those guys had a line good enough to fool almost anyone.
 
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I got a odd email from PayPal years ago. I called PayPal and asked them about it.

They said any correspondence from them will start out with your name. The email I got didn't, so I blocked the sender.
 
That's it. If the email starts off DEAR PAYPAL CUSTOMER, or DEAR MY EMAIL ADDRESS, I figure it's fake. If it's addressed to Dear John Smith then there is a possibility that it's legitimate. But even then I'm leery.
 
I get bogus Paypal emails fairly often. All of them state that a large purchase was made with my account and to respond back to confirm if legitimate. And they always address me by my email address, not my name. I delete them without opening.
I also get bogus emails after using an ATM at certain convenience stores. They also state that a large charge have been made to my bank account at the sponsoring ATM bank. Problem is that I don't have such an account. And these too address me by my email name.
Never sign into any account via an email. If I feel the need to check my accounts, whether Paypal, Amazon or my various banks, I do so by going directly to their website.


John
 
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Last week I got two legitimate emails about my credit card. The first was from a manager at a hotel wanting to know if I had intended to prepay $3k for a hotel stay. The second was from the CC company informing me of a fraudulent charge. They were in minutes of each other.
I had a plesant conversation with the manager who was not surprised the charge was bogus and the CC company sent new cards out overnight.
I guess this is life today.
 
In my case, the person(?) I spoke with (definite Indian accent) knew my checking account number. He told me that I had to go to the bank immediately, withdraw $8600 in cash, and take it to a Bitcoin ATM then he would call me and give me more instructions. If I didn't follow his orders he would withdraw everything in my checking account and I would never get it back. I immediately called the bank and had it freeze my account. I doubt that scum could actually raid my account but I was taking no chances.
 
I dumped PayPal when they were "outed" about their terms of service fines for "things they don't like." Quite a dustup and they tried to hide their tracks. So now, anything ostensibly from PayPal gets dumped. I would suggest that the good people of this forum also consider dumping PayPal.
 
DWalt said:
In my case, the person(?) I spoke with (definite Indian accent) knew my checking account number. He told me that I had to go to the bank immediately, withdraw $8600 in cash, and take it to a Bitcoin ATM then he would call me and give me more instructions. If I didn't follow his orders he would withdraw everything in my checking account and I would never get it back. I immediately called the bank and had it freeze my account. I doubt that scum could actually raid my account but I was taking no chances.
Click to expand...

Good move. I figure that if he could have raided an account, he'd just do it rather than demand a bitcoin payment. They prey on people's panic reactions. Rational thought like you had blocks their tactics.
 
My big mistake was calling the number on that Paypal notice. I did report the incident to PayPal's fraud line. Not that PayPal will ever do anything about it.
 
PAY PAL is more worried about their bottom profit line that spending money trying to track/stop scammer which are prey upon their customers. Why should they spend any money which does not increase their profit margin?
 
There was a segment on tonight's episode of "60 Minutes" about scams. It was fairly informative, and the scammers and scams have gotten so good that most victims have no idea they are getting scammed until it is too late. Additionally, the chances of getting any recovery is essentially zero. One highly effective scam mentioned was the "Geek Squad" eMail, but they did not discuss how it worked in any detail. I have received a few of those Geek Squad eMails over the last few months (one was about two weeks ago), but as I was certain I never used Geek Squad for anything, I deleted them immediately.

I looked up the Geek Squad scam to see how it worked. It appears to be very similar in principle to the PayPal scam that I nearly fell for.
 
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There's a significant difference in paying our dues here vs. having a PayPal account. On this site, PayPal acts as the payment processor; you use your own credit card. Doesn't require a PayPal account. A PayPal account is linked to your checking account and poses different risk. I pay my dues here via PayPal and my credit card. I dumped my PayPal account some time ago.
 
Seems like the scammers are always one step ahead of us and the security measures. It has become a full time job to not get caught up in a scam. There is no such meaning to being too careful these days!
 
I just finished contacting everyone linked into my bank account to change to the new account number - credit cards, insurance, social security, utilities, etc. Some were easy, some were not. An experience I never want to repeat.
 
Whether the best strategy or not, I ignore any email concerning financial matters unless I'm 100% sure of its origin and intent, which translates into just about all of them. Seems to have worked so far, although the cowardly slime attempting these scams are getting far more sophisticated in their presentation.
 
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