PayPal Order Scam: How It Works
Did you receive a PayPal order statement for a purchase via email? You are not alone. PayPal is one of the most useful platforms out there, with 286 million active users and revenue of $15.45 billion. Unfortunately, scammers find easy targets amongst the account holders, especially since not everyone is tech-savvy and many people are still gullible when it comes to accessing their online information. One of the latest PayPal scams is using the name of the company in a fake purchase. How does it work?
Watch the video below to see the PayPal Order Scam exposed:
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The scam works like this. You receive an email in the form of a PayPal alert claiming to be from the PayPal headquarters (see pic below). The subject title is: “Order was successful”, while the content of the message states that you have sent a $225.00US payment to Playwith Interactives, Inc, a random company.
Scammers rely on the fact that victims fight back knowing it was a mistake since they didn’t purchase anything. The scam message provides the victims a few links to the “PayPal login page”, in order to cancel/dispute the fake purchase. The buttons may say “Resolve now”, “View details of the transaction online”, or “Resolution Center”.
What happens if the recipient clicks on these buttons? The links open a fake PayPal website (see below), which will ask the victim to log in by providing both the email address and the password. Once that happens, the accounts are compromised.
Here is an example of a fraudulent email: “Hello, You have sent a payment of $225.00US payment to Playwith Interactives, Inc. Please note this transaction will take a few moments to appear in your account overview. View the details of this transaction online. If it was not you who did this transaction you can dispute the transaction by clicking Resolve Now”.
PayPal Order Email Scam: How To Avoid
You can easily detect the red flags on this PayPal instant payment notification warning. If you look at the image above, check out the domain name that appears up in the browser. You notice that the email address that claims to send this message ([email protected]) doesn’t actually come from paypal.com but from “supergelomaneh.com”. Scam.
Then, they only say “Hello” in the welcoming phrase, which is always a dead giveaway. Delete the message. Always log into your account straight from PayPal’s website, by typing paypal.com in your browser first.
In a different variation, we have the PayPal Bitcoin Invoice scam.
PayPal Order Email Scam: How To Report
Make your family and friends aware of the PayPal Order Email scam by sharing it on social media using the buttons provided. You can also officially report the scammers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or even PayPal using the link below:
How To Protect Yourself More:
If you want to be the first to find out the most notorious scams every week, feel free to subscribe to the Scam Detector newsletter here. You’ll receive periodical emails and we promise not to spam. Last but not least, use the Comments section below to expose other scammers.
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I was scamed by a paypal transaction of $245.00 U.S.D. THE FUNDS were sent per email: to: ” [email protected]” Please be careful, with this, as paypal doesnt even try to assist “one” to recover funds! So I lost $360.00 CAN.D.!
Recieved a e-mail from PayPal, for a purchase of an HP Envy Wireless Printer for 559.69 usd Order # B2162151 I CALLED +1-855-604-1700, I TOLD THEM THAT I DO NOT HAVE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT NEVER HAD ONE. They got upset cause I didn’t give out any information and said this conversation is being recorded..They hung up on me. SCAM ALERT
PAYMENT DETAILS
Item
SpaceX Coin
Quantity
1
Total
$542.66
Subtotal (1 item)
542.66$
Estimated Tax
$ 0,00
Order total
$ 542.66
ORDER SUMMARY
ORDER: KBEpp-OaNQK-2pRN
ORDER DATE: July 18 2022
ORDER TOTAL: $542.66
CUSTOMER INFO
Erma Smith
[email protected]
ID: 5985546
I received another Pay Pal scam receipt for payment today.
Paid Successfully
Hi Erma,
Thanks for the order. Your payment was approved by the bank and your order is getting ready to ship.
Transaction Support
888 298 5945
PAYMENT DETAILS
Item
SpaceX Coin
Quantity
1
Total
$542.66
Subtotal (1 item)
542.66$
Estimated Tax
$ 0,00
Order total
$ 542.66
ORDER SUMMARY
ORDER: KBEpp-OaNQK-2pRN
ORDER DATE: July 18 2022
ORDER TOTAL: $542.66
CUSTOMER INFO
Erma Smith
[email protected]
ID: 5985546
I received this scam email. I forwarded it to PayPal and they did not address the "scam" or "fraud" issue. They responded by saying they could not "determine if this email is considered phishing because the email did not claim to come from PayPal." ? So, it doesn’t appear to do any good to report to PayPal. Thanks.
I also received a $225.00 charge letter from "PayPal" for a payment to Playwith Interactive, Inc. but when I tried to go to the resolution Center it sent me to a page saying "[0,0] Notice Antibot you do not have a visitor quota or your visitor quota has expired. please upgrade your account. IT Security" with a" back to home (/)" spot to click, and when you click on that it sends you to a page that says" HI ready to launch Website is ready to launch Please upload your content to public_html directory We hope you have a good day!" Everything in " " is exactly what they had in the email spelling, punctuation etc.. The punctuation is what caught my eye. You don’t capitalize if the sentence has not ended, that and it did not sound business like so I went online and logged into my PayPal account which didn’t have any activity on it. I will be contacting PayPal Customer Service tomorrow when they are open to let them know what is going on. I will also contact my bank too.
I already had to cancel and have reissued all of my AX platinum and Blue Cash Back cards because I already had been charged for several items I did not order or receive. I do not use PayPal anymore. I canceled my PP acct last May and they never did my cancellation. I do not trust them and I hate that if you want to purchase almost anything on Facebook, the PayPal app is very near where you can put in your debit/credit card info and scammers can access your information that way. Of course there is no way to alert FB itself bc they hide all ways to contact them. Very exasperating. Over 40 yrs in law had taught me to never just anyone out in the ether. Thankfully, AX is a trusted institution and takes care of its customers.
I just got one from "Paypal" lol. It says: "You sent a payment of $75.00 USD to Microsoft Corporation on September 2, 2019. Invoice ID#CXWFJIRM for order $75.00 Xbox Digital Gift Card (U heeft op September 2, 2019 een betaling van $ 75,00 USD aan Microsoft Corporation gestuurd. Factuur-ID #CXWFJIRM"