How to Shop Safely With: PayPal

1. Types of Scams Targeting PayPal Customers
2. Most Common Types of PayPal Scams
3. How to Beat PayPal Scams
4. Protection for PayPal Customers

PayPal's profoundly financial nature has made the company all too tempting for hackers and scammers to trick unsuspecting users. Unfortunately, PayPal scams are all too common, especially since its platform has more than 244 million users. 

It is one of the most impersonated brands by scammers, along with Facebook, Netflix, and Microsoft.

What is PayPal?

PayPal is a money-transferring service. It essentially acts as a middleman, allowing you to send funds directly from your bank account to other individuals or registered companies without either party having to reveal personal bank account information. It also works in reverse, allowing businesses to accept these same types of payments from customers. In return, PayPal collects a fee off of certain transactions.

As one of the original online money-transferring services, PayPal has grown to become one of the most popular of these services globally. The ability to transfer money back and forth between international accounts through the platform is one feature that has made PayPal so ubiquitous.

More Than Just a Money Transfer Service

Over the years, however, PayPal has steadily expanded its services. Besides paying out people or businesses directly, customers today can also extend a line of PayPal credit (purchasing something through the company and paying for it later, in increments, at a relatively steep interest rate). And contractors can also use the service to create and facilitate invoices, with the company handling the lion’s share of the tricky tax information.

Contact Details

PayPal

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• General Enquiries
• Report Fraud

Website: https://www.paypal.com/

Email: [email protected]

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Verified Contact Details

It's important to verify links and contact details to beat imposters.

Types of Scams Targeting PayPal Customers

Services like PayPal have made so many aspects of modern life more convenient, whether it’s paying a friend or family member back for some borrowed money or having a faster and easier way to purchase goods and services from an online retailer.

But its ties to such sensitive information as bank account numbers and other transactional data have made PayPal scams all the more common among imposters and scammers.

It’s important to remember: For every bit of convenience the site provides, you should take care to act with equal parts caution.

Most PayPal scams come in the form of messages impersonating the company. This allows scammers to ask for information that could allow them to hack into your PayPal account directly or possibly even infiltrate your bank account.

But many also attempt smaller-scale scams perpetrated by beating businesses out on details like payment or shipping options. Of course, this works both ways, with some scammers posing as sellers, collecting payments but never actually delivering the promised goods.

Generally, there are two main ways scammers try to intrude into PayPal customers’ lives: by sending fake emails and fake payments.

PayPal Scam Emails

PayPal scam emails are arguably the most widespread scam to look out for when dealing with the company. By and large, these are emails supposedly sent from the company, and they will almost always ask for your personal information in one way or another. (The email may ask you directly for details or include a link you’re meant to click on.)

If the email does include a link, it’s important to never click on it. Enter “www.paypal.com” into a different web browser instead.

It’s also imperative to never give out identifying details—including your address, birth date, and especially your password or any specific account numbers—in response to an email. The company itself says it will never ask for your bank account, credit card information, or password via email.

PayPal Scams Involving Payment

Another class of common PayPal scams includes those dealing with shipping and payment information.

These mainly target businesses that offer PayPal payments as an option. Scammers posing as customers will try to get their goods for free—or at least try to get some money back—through a variety of tricks, including alleging they’ve already paid for their product or that they’ve overpaid.

Most Common Types of PayPal Scams

A few types of PayPal email scams are particularly prevalent—and, unfortunately, continue to be quite effective.

When using PayPal, whether as a buyer, seller, or for a money transfer between friends, make sure to stay wary of these types of scams.

The “Too Good to Be True” Email

Several PayPal scam emails fall into this category, including messages informing you that you:

• Have become the beneficiary of an inheritance
• Have won the lottery or some other type of contest
• Are owed payment

It may sound great—and oh so tempting—to believe that you’ve suddenly come across a bundle of money that you never knew previously existed. But try to push past the temptation to see the truth: These things hardly, if ever, actually happen.

Most of the time, these emails will ask you to make a small payment (via PayPal) to facilitate the money transfer. Sometimes they’ll also include forms to fill out with personal data.

Aside from the apparent “too good to be true” signs, red flags to look out for include lousy grammar and questionable return email addresses.

The “Account Error”

Another popular form of a PayPal email scam includes an urgent message sent to you, supposedly from the company, to alert you to some issue with your PayPal account.

Many times, these include links to send you to a site to “fix the problem.” They can send you to a site that looks very much like PayPal, but be wary of the domain name—it will be slightly different.

However, the best route is to never click on the links at all.

They can easily download spy software or other viral information onto your device, or the sites they lead you to could be feeding your information directly to the scammers. Instead, access your PayPal account by typing in the PayPal URL directly into your web browser.

Other times, the scammers will ask for sensitive information, including your account password or bank account number. It is imperative to never give out such information over email. Remember: PayPal will never ask you for your bank account, credit card number, or password via email.

The Overpayment or Shipping Address Swap

Primarily impacting those who sell items and use PayPal to collect payments, these types of scams supposedly come from—or are on behalf of—customers.

The simplest version of this involves a customer claiming that they’ve overpaid for a product and asking for the difference back. (The easiest solution to this is to cancel the transaction entirely and start fresh, rather than refund anything.)

Sometimes, scammers will send an email, making it appear as they’ve already paid you in an attempt to coerce you into rushing out a delivery.

And sometimes, the scam involves a delivery address bait-and-switch. The scammer will provide the wrong delivery information, then file a complaint after several failed delivery attempts (and finally “correct” the shipping address) to get the product for free, with a complaint filed against you, as the seller, to boot.

How to Beat PayPal Scams

To ensure you’re not scammed by someone impersonating PayPal, it’s important to remember the following:

• Legitimate emails from PayPal will come from an @paypal.com email address. Scammers may try to trick you by having their name as “PayPal Customer Service,” but their email address will not be from an @paypal.com account.
• Emails from PayPal will address you as your first name and last name, or the business name associated with your account—they will never address you as “Customer” or something non-personal like that.
• PayPal will never ask for information like your password or bank account information via email.
• PayPal will never send you any attachments via email or request that you download or install any software.

Protection for PayPal Customers

Thankfully, PayPal has several ways to deal with these types of scams or any other fraudulent or suspicious activity you may notice on your PayPal account.

Report Scams to PayPal

If you’ve been the recipient of—or think you’ve received—a PayPal email scam, the best thing to do is report the email directly to PayPal. Forward the email to [email protected], where the company will evaluate the message. Then, once it’s been forwarded, delete it from your inbox.

PayPal Resolution Center

PayPal also offers a Resolution Center where you can make individual claims or disputes about specific payment activities, including money you sent and money you received. Simply sign in to your PayPal account to access the Resolution Center.

The Resolution Center handles most fraud-based inquiries, but if you don’t find what you’re looking for there, you can send a secure message to PayPal while logged into your account.

PayPal Security Notifications

PayPal will send you an email notification if your account is changed—including a password change—or the company detects what it perceives to be unusual account activity, such as signing in from a unique location or device.

If you receive one of these notifications but don’t remember taking the action in question, it could be a sign that your account has been hacked. Here's what to do next:

1. Sign in to your account as quickly as you can and change your password as well as your security questions
2. Double-check your account information to ensure they haven't changed your info, including your:
   • Email address
   • Billing and physical address
   • Phone number
3. Report the issue to PayPal’s Resolution Center