Very good PayPal scam. Please read so you don't get caught out. I almost gave away £750...

[Hungrycaterpillarsmummy]

Was almost scammed to the tune of £750. This is a good one and I was sooooo close to falling for it. Was on the phone to the scammers! Woke up to an email from PayPal saying there's been what looked like fraudulent activity on my account. I checked the email address by clicking on it and it did look legit. I then decided I'd go to PayPal from Google rather than clicking any links in the email. Logged in and saw a pending transaction for £750. Not one I recognised and definitely wasn't me. So I clicked on the transaction and there is a note saying "this is fraudulent activity" and call this number. So I call the number, go through security, get sent a security code, I am then transferred to someone senior, they tell me my bank card number, confirm all my name and address etc. Then they ask for the 3 digits on the back of my card. I pause, with alarm bells ringing. This is the absolute crème de la crème of information you can give someone because once they have that they can make purchases. I said no, this sounds like a scam. Then all of a sudden the guy is like "well you called us with the number from PayPal. You've called us because you got an email saying fraudulent activity detected and you can see on your account there has been". Whilst I was on the phone I decided to check my PayPal account and I had been logged out and couldn't get back in. He told me that was an added security measure. Anyway, I said no it's a scam and he ended with "ok then you will lose all your money". I said ok and hung up. Changed my password immediately, found the £750 transaction and this is where I had gone wrong. The phone number to call "PayPal" was on a NOTE on the transaction but this note is from the scammers! So they put their number in there and then act as PayPal. Honestly I was sooo close to saying those three digits but that's the only thing that hasn't allowed this scam to be successful. All I had to do was click "cancel" against the money request!

That's what I'm hoping for. If it saves one person then this thread is worth it. It's bloody stressful

You are intent on telling us it's not sophisticated but I guess it depends on how you look at it.

I don't use money requests, make notes sending payments etc so I don't know who the fuck the note is from, ok? So when I see a transaction that says -£749 and then it seems like PayPal have put a hold on it and are telling me to call them due to fraud, it is easy to believe.

Jeez

Thanks for the warning, I'd have fallen for this too!

I had one of these PayPal request messages the other week and started to panic thinking I'd have to call the number given but took a breath and went onto PayPal help centre they actually say what to do so they clearly have known for a while about these scams

'No deity on your account' :)

The thing is, even 'unsophisticated' scams can be easy to miss when you're tired.

And various companies use various systems & offer varying protections.

My Ds is doing the 1st yr of a CyberSec Degree & is horrified by some of the systems that Co's use. for eg I just scrapped a car via a large national Co. It was collected from the garage not me (as it had failed it's MOT). The Co then pay the scrap fee into your account the same day. The method they use is to ask you to confirm your name, address, bank, sort code & account number via email (they already have the Reg of the car & your driving licence number as the email Heading). Not great in CS terms....

Thing is, when you are rushing around, it can be easy to just react without thinking it through. That's what I did. In hindsight I could see the mistake, but at the time it was just one in a long line of problems to solve online (e.g. kids payments, bank authorisations) and I just didn't think properly before I acted.

Thanks for raising awareness of this OP. Ignore anybody insisting they wouldn't ever fall for it, that's easy to say.
I had a similar message from a PayPal scam a few years ago, the amount was less but enough to make you want to sort it out straightaway, luckily I realised in time but still had go change my password etc.
I also almost fell for the "Mum I've smashed my phone" scam, I'd never heard of it & checked my phone at 4am. Dd newly away at Uni & I thought it was her.
When you're tired, stressed or in a rush it's only too easy to fall for scams. We should share not judge.

I had exactly the se thing happen recently- I logged into my PayPal account from my laptop instead of my phone and saw a payment request pending of £599.99 and knew immediately it was scam of some description.

I just cleared my account of all money I had in credit (to be fair it was only about £4) and then closed the paypal account. I've had nothing but trouble from it recently.

When you're tired, stressed or in a rush it's only too easy to fall for scams. We should share not judge.

This

I had one of these requests. I just ignored it and they cancelled it eventually.

Good job you spotted it before you gave that number OP! They would have no doubt cleaned your account out.

Yes that's it exactly.

Thanks for the warning. If you ignore it, will the request cancel by itself eventually? I’d rather not log in and click things if it happens.

I’d like to warn people about a scam that someone tried on me recently. My phone rang and someone claiming to be from the bank said they had picked up what they thought were fraudulent transactions on my card. I gave them zero information; they already knew my name, address and long card number, which obviously got my attention. They asked if I had made the transactions that they listed and when I said no they said they’d block the card and I’d get a new one shortly.

They were well spoken and there was not much to alert me until they then said that they could see that someone was attempting to make a transaction right at that moment, for a large amount of money. This was supposed to make me panic I assume because they then said that the person was trying to set up an (pay via mobile phone) account using my card, and that the only way I could stop it was if I gave them the code that they were going to text to my phone 🙄It was then clearly a scam.

I contacted the bank after I ended the call. They said someone had attempted to use the card to buy things using a pay via mobile phone account (being vague as I don’t want to name brands) but no transactions had gone through because it wouldn’t work without a code to verify the card on the account they’d set up. I don’t use any such technology and find it worrying that they could sign up and get as far as attempting to make transactions without a code though.

This is a card that I rarely use and had only used once in the past couple of weeks, so I have a good idea which (well known and trustworthy, complete with padlock) site was compromised. Most sites will ask for a verification code before completing a transaction but this site didn’t and I’ve also been getting a lot of junk mail since. The transaction went through as it should have but I’m wondering if they were hacked. I have never given out information via other means.

I did wonder how they got my phone number as I don’t think I entered that on the site, but then I remembered that if you enter card details on some sites it tells you the phone number that it’s going to text a verification code to, so I’m guessing it’s something to do with that.

So if anyone calls you always say you’ll call them back and then speak to them that way.

Exactly this. I don't understand half of the comments on this thread. Any platform where people are about to send a message of any kind, scammers would be able to type whatever they wanted. It's hardly PayPayl's fault.

God don't disagree with OP though, you'll get told you're wrong for not saying it was a clever scam.

This almost happened to me a month ago. I posted a warning on a few forums that I use - here it is copied and pasted:

"A word of warning to Paypal users. I had an email apparently from Paypal this morning advising me that a request for payment had been received from some Italian sounding bloke for 699 pounds, and on checking my Paypal account the request was there awaiting approval. The Paypal fraud line number in the email turned out to be the fraud itself! After a long and increasing fraught conversation with some woman I decided that this probably wasn't Paypal's number despite the payment request appearing in my Paypal account. Eventually I cancelled the invoice request via my Paypal account, cancelled my credit card pinned to my PP account, and changed my PP password.
The lesson is do not call the fraud line given in the apparent Paypal email if you get one. It's a clever scam and I nearly fell for it. The origin of the email was apparently Paypal and the links contained in it were to Paypal, not some gibberish address as is usually the case when you hover over them.
A bit of research suggests this is new and the real fraud is the fraud line number which puts you through to what you assume is the Paypal security centre."

This is very clever and I'm sure lots of people fall for it. Even the IP address was genuine! It was only when the woman began to lose her cool that I hung up and did all the password changing and card cancelling.

I got scammed a few years ago for £2k against my credit card. Got it all back as Tesco Money were on the ball.

However, recently I got an email which looked totally valid at first glance. I always click on the email address. This one said microssoft.com (notice the extra 's' in the address. I almost clicked on the link. These scammers are getting increasingly clever. Very worrying.

Of course everything was legit. The email was from PayPal. It was a PayPal notification email telling you that you had a money request. It says "You have a money request from Joe Bloggs. Here is the message from Joe Bloggs." And then a message in a bubble wirh quotation Mark's is shown.

That message is what contains the fraud nonsense and phone number. That is not from PayPal. That is from Joe Bloggs. Which the email clearly tells you. It is a money request and here is the message from the person requesting it.

It is a really obvious scam. Not clever. Not sneaky. All the hysterics over the email being legit and the IP being legit is just silly. Of course they are; it is an email from PayPal. It contains a message send from someone requesting money. You dont need to response to them at all.

Financially illiterate people need to start learning.

Gosh I had this exact thing today right down the the amount being £750. I rang, stupidly gave them my email address and then he asked me for which hospital I was born in, I gave it but then he asked me to spell it and suddenly I thought "shit if he could see it on the screen he wouldn't need me to spell it because it doesn't sound different to the spelling", while on the phone I googled the number I'd taken from my PayPal account and saw it was spam. Hung up and thankfully hadn't spelled out the hospital name

I'm really cross with myself because I'm usually so spam aware and savvy. It's thr fact that the number shows up in your PayPal page. Password changed and lesson learnt

@SecondRow yes I understand the email from PayPal was legitimate and I understand that op mistook the note from the requester as a note from PayPal, my question is why would she think it was from PayPal when the email clearly states it's from the person requesting the money not PayPal

I had a request on my account for over £900 just recently. I stupidly tried ringing the number on it too but it was disconnected thankfully .
I rarely check my account so I don’t know how long it had been there for . I cancelled it and messaged PayPal through their chat .
They asked me to forward any emails to them but I don’t seem to have received any . This was just sitting in my activity

Op are you going to get a new bank card? I feel like I'd want to do that given how much info you've given out... And change security questions across all websites. If they have your email, card number and security q answers its better to change them. Remember no legit security check will ask for your full security answer, password etc, they'll ask for letter 1, 5 and 7 for example. That's an instant red flag.

You are Captain Hindsight and I claim my five pounds. 🤔

It's not really hindsight, more just being able to read.

Sorry if I've missed this @Hungrycaterpillarsmummy but please do contact your bank and get your card replaced!

I work for a bank and it's what we'd always do if someone contacted us for this kind of issue 🙂

Well the scam works, as lots of posters have said, on provoking the recipient to act out of some initial panic and confusion. The content of the note is information you would expect to receive from paypal/a financial services provider, if they were genuinely informing you of suspected fraudulent activity. On the surface, it doesn't make sense for the person carrying out the fraudulent activity to inform you they are doing so :) in a moment of inattention you can be bounced into believing the service provider has flagged the note to help you.

This is an old scam but doesn't mean it isn't worth bringing to people's attention.

I will say though, the times I have been genuinely hacked (complicated ebay account theft and once abroad a card was cloned) you do actually have time to pause. Don't feel like you pressured into disclosing anything you don't feel comfortable with or taking action.

Breathe. Wait. The AI algorithm software the banks use is very clever at detecting fraudulent activity. But if you hand over your authentication details it risks making the activity appear genuine. E.g. if you authorize a large transfer it makes it very difficult to recover.

With my American express card cloning I didn't even realize it had happened until a month later. The bank still rectified everything.