• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Audit My PC - Free Internet Security Audit

Firewall Test and web tools to check your security and privacy

  • Firewall Test
  • Anti Spam
  • Internet Speed Test
  • Sitemap Generator
  • Whats My IP

Pay Pal

Pay Pal Fraud is very common and there seems to be a new scam every day. We have examples below.

Note: We have received so many of these fraudulent paypal scams that we wanted you to be aware of what is circulating around out there.

Social Engineering is used among hackers for cracking techniques that rely on weaknesses in physical security rather than software; the aim is to trick people into revealing passwords or other information that compromises a target system’s security.

Here is a classic example that we receive on a regular basis. This letter is designed to entice you into giving away your account information:

Pay Pal Letter

Date: Wed, 21 March 2007 03:12:29 +0300

From: PayPal Billing Department Billing(at)PayPal.com>

To: billing(at)auditmypc.com>

Subject: Credit/Debit card update

Pay Pal Scams

Dear Pay pal valued member,

Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the pay pal account we have issued this warning message.

It has come to our attention that your account information needs to be updated due to inactive members, frauds and spoof reports.

If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.

However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension

This notification expires on 48 hours.

Once you have updated your account records your pay pal account service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

Please follow the link below and login to your account and renew your account information

PAY PAL Link (which really takes you to a fake pay pal page!)

Sincerely,

Pay pal customer department!

——– End of Fraud letter ————–

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your Pay Pal account and choose the “Help” link in the footer of any page.

To receive pay pal email notifications in plain text instead of HTML, update your preferences [here] (which take you to the real paypal.com).

Pay Pal Fraud

Whenever you receive a message such as this one, play it safe and call the company – Do Not follow links. Any legitimate company should include a contact number for similar messages.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Julianne Surace says:

    My son changed his email address so when I sent him money through PayPal he was unable to receive it. I’m not sure why but he cannot use that email & simply asked me to send it to new email address… why won’t PayPal do this for me?? Obviously the funds were never recovered yet PayPal refuses to either send it to his new email or SIMPLY PUT IT BACK INTO MY BANK, what is the problem & how can get them to wake up?? This has been probably 5 months already… I am so very upset about this & I honestly feel they are stealing my money because WHY NOT GIVE IT BACK TO ME THE SENDER WHO HAS BEEN WITH THEM FOR PROBABLY 7-8 YEARS NOW!!!!! RUDE ONE PAYPAL

  2. Kathleen Mccusker says:

    I sold a wheelchair on June 16 and the person failed to pay for the wheelchair which I still have. EBay had the gall to charge PayPal $78 and I didn’t see you sent of it. I want to put this into a case dispute at this time as eBay is ripping people off right and left. Please let me know as soon as possible !since I didn’t receive a sense from this wheelchair because the guy didn’t pay for it then why should eBay receive almost $80?

  3. Uttra Felix says:

    I am getting frawd emails, asking me to enter the links… from pay pal. I m not sure if it is genuine. I never use pay pal. I had used long ago. I want to delete pay pal pl help.

  4. Cheryl says:

    I just checked my bank statement that showed the following:
    Pay pal e-check GPS City Dimitriy Bobrov in the amount of 549.99 that I did not authorize or have any knowledge of. I contacted my bank and disputed the transaction. I also contacted Pay pal-I haven’t used it in years and was told there is no transaction on the account. Can someone tell me how this happened so I can try and prevent this in the future

  5. Tia says:

    I just put my vehicale up for sale on a popular site & within a couple hours I got a email stating the person was very much interested in purchasing my vehicle and didnt need to look at it or want information about it. The person stated that they can only purchase the vehicale through Pay Pal & they didnt have access to the internet. I was very lucky because if I didnt forward the emails to my family member I would have believed the spoof email notification. I will be very careful about how I buy & sell stuff online from now on.

  6. Jack VilloYakouess says:

    Here is another example;
    You place a add in a well known website autotrader and start to receive emails after emails from the same person, never call to get details about the item, insisting that you open a account with Pay Pal. Even if he mention that he really want the car;

    Thanks for the prompt response,the price is okay by me,I am ready to buying it now for Birthday gift for my Dad and i am at sea at the moment as i am a marine engineer and due to the nature of my work, phone calls making and visiting of website are restricted but i squeezed out time to check this advert and send you an email regarding it. I really want the car to be a surprise for Dad so i wont let him know anything about the car until it gets delivered to him,i am sure he will be more than happy with the car.

    I insisted on PayPal because i don’t have access to my bank account online as i don’t have internet banking, but i can pay from my PayPal account, as i have my bank a/c attached to it, i will need you to give me your PayPal email address and the price so i can make the payments asap for the car and pls if you don’t have paypal account yet, it is very easy to set up, go to WWW.PayPal.com and get it set up, after you have set it up i will only need the e-mail address you use for registration with PayPal so as to put the money through. I have a pick up agent that will come and pick the car up after i have made the payments.
    Cheers…

    You could read similar stories over and over again, Pay pal is often used for electronic fraud, that it!

  7. g robbo says:

    PAY PAL biggest load of junk!!! I HATE PAYPAL WITH A PASSION!!!!!!!!

    I sold a top of the range phone on ebay and posted it to the confirmed address that paypal provided!! £400 it was, 1 month later paypal withdrawn the funds out of my account took £232 out of my other bank to pay ebay fees and left my paypal account in minus £254!!! turns out that the buyer had been scammed and im left out of pocket!!………sorry PAYPAL not my fault you cant handle the truth….. NOT MY PROBLEM!!! YOU GIVE THEM THERE MONEY BACK!!! PAYPAL GAVE ME THE ADDRESS TO POST TO, THAT WAS CONFIRMED!!! BY GUESS WHO??? **********PAYPAL********* WHATS THE WORLD COMING TOO??

  8. Mike is Awesome says:

    EYF, this is a BLATANT scam. Whatever you do, don’t ship the ring or do anything. PayPal *NEVER* “holds funds for tracking information”. I had someone from Nigeria try and get me with the same thing. They send you a very official looking page but it’s fake. Also, because it’s international, you can’t do anything once you ship the package.

    Money sent to your email address linked with PayPal will ALWAYS show up in your list. If it didn’t show, it’s either a scam or they didn’t pay yet.

    Forward that email to: spoof@paypal.com

  9. EYF says:

    Hi, I just have a question about using PayPal as a seller. I have recently posted a wedding and engagement ring set online and was contacted by a buyer in Beijing china. He sent the funds to my PayPal account and I received notice via email that the funds have been received and will be released as soon as I send the tracking info, etc… My question is, on my PayPal account there is no notification of payment pending or anything like that. Also, I cannot tell if the address is legit. Here it is:
    Chuan Mei da xue, Dingfuzhuang,Chaoyang District,
    City: Beijing,
    State: Beijing,
    Zip code: 100024
    Country: P.R. China

    If anyone has some insight it would be greatly appreciated!! :)

    sorry, so my question is, once the buyer makes the payment to my paypal account and I have received email confirmation of this (before I have sent the item), would anything show up on my account about payment pending?

  10. Victor Dugas says:

    For those concerned, PapPal is not a scam. It is a very secure, maybe the most secure method to send and receive money online. The problem is, PayPal is SO secure that scammers will send spoof emails out to unsuspecting (often) random people as a means to gain control of their account and/or receive funds that they do not deserve. I have been scammed on e-bay one time. I bought a box of ram and it was a good deal, except none of the ram worked and much of the ram was much older (way out of date and unusable). I blocked the payment and PayPal had a collection agency contact me to collect the funds. When I informed them that I received a box of junk for $75, they canceled the collection agency situation and reinstated my account. Since if they do not know the situation, as per any bank in North America, they will react to a situation based on the information that they have available to them. Keep in mind, I have been using PayPal for at least 12 years and have only had a single situation which was rectified quickly once they were informed of the situation.
    Again, keep in mind that scammers will attempt to scam you. When we see this happening, this suggests that PayPal or the bank that you are supposedly receiving the spoof email from is too secure for these bags of garbage to hack so the easiest solution is to trick the end user.

  11. lolz says:

    I tried injecting some javascript on your paypal information here but it looks like it didn’t work. It was my hope that I could start adding some links but no luck :)

  12. Pam says:

    I received this email today

    I clicked on the link and my anti virus popped up a warning and would not let me open it. Thank God for Kaspersky Anti Virus the best one I have ever used.

    Dear PayPal Costumer,

    It has come to our attention that your PayPal® account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.

    However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension. Please update your records before August 15, 2011

    Once you have updated your account records, your PayPal® account activity will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

    Click here to update your PayPal account information

    Copyright © 1999-2011 PayPal. All rights reserved.
    Information about FDIC pass-through insurance

  13. Patricia McClain says:

    Problem with these Paypal scams is that the scammers don’t even check to see if the person they are scamming even has a Paypal account. I get tons of these scam e-mails, and I don’t even have a Paypal account.

  14. Benita Jemison says:

    To me, Pay Pal is a scam! I sold a laptop on EBAY (five years ago) and after Pay Pal notified me of instant payment and told me that the funds were available, I shipped the laptop to the seller. Within a week, Pay Pal emailed me to tell me that the transaction was fraudulent and they attempted to withdraw 800 from my bank account. Needless to say, my merchandise had been shipped already. I put a stop payment on Pay Pal with my bank. I told them that this was their mistake….releasing funds and then coming back a week later asking for the money back. I do not owe them anything…where is my laptop?

    A month ago (after five years) Pay Pal emailed me to tell me that my account is limited until I pay the $800 back..,guess what? I am NOT paying Pay Pal anything…get my laptop back!!! My attorney and I are filing a case in Small Claims Court. PAY PAL IS A JOKE!

  15. Raman says:

    Unfortunately one of my relatives have also been victim of such a scam. But other way around, his system’s IP was used to send such mail. How could this be possible. He uses a 3G USB datta card from a telecom service provider. One of the mails were found to be from the IP addressed during the period it was dynamically assigned to his data card.

    how to legally prove that it was a con-job by someone else. His laptop, that he was using has also been confiscated by legal authorities.

  16. Robert Davenport says:

    received an email on yahoo account saying Trans32GH38373AQA42426J Plimus Ltd $134.76 CAD
    Order # 204117910 Invoice# 204117910 PayPal ID120 for Dec.18,2010.My account was closed on dec12.2010 so how can this be we never ordered anything for these people,Please help, is my Bank Account in jeporady? Sent copy to your psoof@paypal.com.
    thanks Robert

  17. Emma says:

    Is this a scam email??

    Dear *****@hotmail.com,

    PayPal customer Verification Department is using this medium to remind you of the transaction between you and our Officially Kevin Mark about an eBay item.

    We are please to receive the shipment tracking details of the transaction and your money is still in our Account Database ready to be credited into your account once we verify the western union transfer information (s).
    Once again the buyers Transfer address has been confirmed by the buyer and PayPal is as stated below:

    Shipping Information

    Name:***************.
    Address: **************************,
    City: **************
    State: **************
    Country: Nigeria
    ZipCode: *****************
    Phone Number: ********************

    Address Status: Confirmed

    Note:
    We will need the details of the transfer once you have sent fund
    1.The MTCN number that is the 10 digits number on the western union receipt
    2.Sender’s name and address used in sending the money
    3.Actual amount sent.
    4.Text Question and Answer
    5.Scanned Copy Of The Receipt
    ==============================

    ***ATTENTION***
    The order has been CONFIRMED AND APPROVED,So you can now proceed with the money transfer of the money to the buyer’s shipping address. You are expected to make the transfer within 24 hours AFTER receiving this Money Transfer reminder and get back to our Customer/Technical Dept. with the western union Evidence for Verification.
    Your buyer has provided another confirm transfer information.
    We embark on this measure in order to protect both parties involved in this transaction and to reduce the occurrence of Scams and Fraud within eBay and PayPal Community, Feel free to contact the PayPal Seller Verification department at verified_secureonline@accountant.com
    Thank you for using PayPal® We look forward serving your online auction payment better in future.
    ______________________________
    Thank you for using PayPal®
    The PayPal Team

  18. Rokee(Software Programmer) says:

    Here is a scam that someone sent me, they are trying to trick me into giving away my information by telling me I can obtain a person’s paypal information, so if you receive this, then beware and don’t fall for it!

    Want to know paypal user details!!

    Why U send mail into server, directly send a e-mail into paypal database and trace all account details with CC and bank account no..

    Everyone use this method, just U have a valid Email ID and a valid Paypal Account (No limitation).

    First,

    ** log into your paypal e-mail account and send a e-mail to “Paypal Database”.

    In subject line type”0yahpE5752paypaldatabase details”

    Then type exactly 14 lines as…

    1> content-type: text(plain)/

    2> charset=US-ascii%%default

    3> address000%% confermation eas57520yahp. yahoo.com (because paypal store all data into Yahoo with

    .txt/html/doc format)

    4> paypal%%default::00remvalue defaultsp0054ed==null-32f24!!(This is how you confuse the yahoomail mailerbot)

    5> haznull09%%”http://paypal.com”&&%%float;

    6> Your primary paypal ID;Password(like:-“abcd@gmail.com”;”12345″)/(To retrieve information from PayPal and check validation)

    7> start(retrieve-database>0)

    8> Your E-mail ID & Password(for get all account details)

    9> #searcmsgendT2Hr database%%//www.paypal.com//(For retrieve & store details)

    10> send&&idallpaypalus%%20034-tsa-0583

    11> 8hot34mail%%tqui3-paypal-35fe2==0; (check lit line)

    12> /start*a-z%%retrieval/(For heritage and hang database)

    13> set user information%d&&check!

    14> #end of line&lit();

    It is 100% working….

    Send it and get user details with Credit Card but remember for send information Paypal database check all information like “Paypal ID & Password” (For check

    U are a paypal user or not) and E-mail id & Password(For send information)is genuine or not.

    ****Hack and N-JOY E-shopping with paypal…….”IT IS 100%REAL”
    Paypal Database ID is- paypaldatabase@yahoo.com

    I am also got >25000 paypal account using this method.

    For more details visit “hubpages. com/hub/Hacked-Paypal-Account”

    ##Remember….It is not work without minimum paypal balance, why ?Read carefully upper paragraph….

    And I also received this message from same person!

    In Internet you can see a lot of software for hack paypal account of money. They all are fake because most of softwares are created by Trojan and when they try to access,the system security detect the Trojan and remove permanently and block this address. Some programming method can relay hack any account, Generally hackers are break the system security using some languages like C++, HTML, VC++, PHP(using this Software hackers break system or hang mailbox)and it is not possible for everyone.

    “paypaldatabase@yahoo.com is a real concept, using this concept an Indian hacker win 2.5core (US $543478.26) from paypal in a Hacking competition in Bangalore named “Green” using two software(Language).

    Paypal can’t retrieve any account details without minimum paypal balance (Minimum paypal balance is US$200),because this concept hack details from paypal database as a database member. This method convert your paypal account to a database member account and this minimum paypal balance is make genuine your account for access database. After access database this method send directly all information to your Email account with your balance.You really can trust this method.

    It is really work and also you have no risk for loss your information or balance,because it is auto generated script,not run/done by someone. Remember never give any information wrong. If you not believe this,don’t do this but if you do this for checking with wrong information and system once detect it,you permanently loss this,database block your get way IP.

    Or if you have some knowledge in programming or if you want to do this own, I will give you the HTML/PHP/C++ script/Program for access paypal database or add money into your account. Contact with me at: r[snip]

    I will sell you this at rs….

    1>Hack paypal database script(HTML)with gide book(how you can use it) at $150(100%working)

    2>Valid credit card with cvc(VISA/AMEX/MASTER) at $25

    3> Indian & US Bank account with $500(verified) at $25

    4>Money Hacking Script (you can add in your account upto US $1500) at $50 (Any verified/Unverified Account)

    5>Paypal accounts with Bank/CC at $15(verified)

    6>Golden Paypal Account Pack(25000 account) at $50.

    7>Remove limitation from Paypal Account or Get back your Hacked Account at $20

    8>Want “Green” hacking concept with Script/Software at $250(100% working).

    If you want “green” Hacking concept and software in CD?I will send you at your postal address. Postal charge extra.

    ##Places where we can give home delivery…>All over World.

    ##Remember Hacker can’t hack without your help directly or indirectly.But hackers still hack your account using Programming,Because program can do anything.

    ##Accept payment only via “Paypal”.

    Paypal Account is ..[snip]

    ***Bonus***

    Gide book of how a hacker hack and how we will save our important information from hacker. Free on every parches.

    If any script does not work send a mail to me,I will return your money within 5 days.

    Any Doubt or Question? Tell me….If you want to parches send a mail,I will contact you within 48 hours.

    …YOU REALLY CAN CHANGE THE WORLD IF YOU CARE ENOUGH…

  19. darian says:

    these are pretty good fake emails but here my “warning.”

    Dear darianschubring98,
    PayPal wishes to inform you that It is important we know the status of the item bought,otherwise legal action may be taken against you since you have not replied to the confirmation of payment made to your account by this particular buyer shady4seed@hotmail.com by sending the shipment tracking number /scan copy to us on time for verification.
    We believed you entered into Question buying agreement by requesting money through PayPal,and by non response to the payment confirmation made to your account and you have violate PayPal agreement.

    However the buyer has already contacted us in other to make report about your non response,We are ensuring to make PayPala safer place, therefore we neeLegal action notice from PayPal with quick action:You are given 48hrs to respond ***(9GW755953N953920L)***d to set confidence on our users.
    We request for the Scanned Receipt and the Tracking Number to prove postage of the item in less than 24hours and we will fund the money into your account or face the consequences of LEGAL ACTION,and we all know that this bad activities causes an implication to innocent people especially those who deal with buy and reselling and we are assuring all the sellers that this activities will eradicated and the money is ready to be remitted into your PayPal account until you send us what we are requesting for,you are secured with us..

    Note:We have tried our best to make everything secured but we discovered you are an intruder seller but and if you refuse to do so,that shows that you must be among those fraudster,and your PayPal account will be disable in the next 24hrs without hesitation except you send us the tracking number for verification.Get back to us now without delay.

    This is done in other to protect both the seller and buyer.

    ========================================

    Thank you for using PayPal!
    The PayPal Team
    ========================================

    PayPal Email ID: **********

  20. Dianna Nally says:

    i wish to have my pay pal canceled immediatley. someone is already using my pay pal and i am stuck with the charges of over $100. i am very upset about this and will never use pay pal again. the card i was using has already had a stop put on it a week ago. cancel my pay pal account now .

    sincerely upset
    dianna nally

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

Miscellaneous

  • Free Address Finder
  • HTML Encoder Decoder
  • Website Monitoring
  • Whats My IP Address?
  • Yes or No

Copyright © 2001-2021 Audit My PC .com All Rights Reserved. Our Privacy Policy and TOS

  • About
  • Acronyms
  • DLL Files
  • Ports
  • Computer Security News
  • Email Scams & Spam
  • Internet Safety
  • Free Software