The internet is awash with scams these days, and scammers continue to devise more ways to trick people into handing over their cash or personal info. One of the top tricks in many scammers’ arsenals at the moment is the “Pay a fee, collect a prize” PayPal scam.
How Do Pay a Fee, Collect a Prize PayPal Scams Work?
The “Pay a fee, collect a prize” scam is exactly what you would expect from its name – it involves asking victims to pay a fee (usually dressed up as an “admin” or “processing” fee) to obtain some wonderful prize that they’ve allegedly won or earned.
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Often, the scammers pose as legitimate companies or simply make up their own names, pretending to be in the business of awarding prizes or giving away lump sums of cash to lucky people. In reality, they’re completely fake, and as soon as they receive the “fee” from you, they disappear.
They’ll often ask you to use PayPal as the payment method to cover the fee, as this is such a quick and easy way to send money almost anywhere. In many cases, the scammers may be located in a different country from you.
Another reason they opt for PayPal is so that scam victims don’t have any bank details to report once they discover that they’ve been tricked.
The reason why this scam, and so many others like it, tends to work is because it preys on people’s desires and needs. Victims may be people in financial difficulty who are excited by the prospect of winning a prize and pay the fee without thinking too much about it.
Red Flags You Shouldn’t Ignore
Demands for Payment Before Receiving a Prize or Winnings
Legitimate contests will not ask you to pay a PayPal admin fee, processing fee, or any other type of fee to receive your winnings. That’s simply not how it works, and there’s no logical reason why a contest runner would demand such a payment. So, if anyone asks you to pay before you can get paid in a situation like this, it’s almost always a scam.
Emails About Contests You Don’t Remember Entering
Often, scammers who run these “Pay a fee, collect a prize” tricks just send the same generic “You won!” email out to many people. So, you might receive it even if you’ve never entered any online contests whatsoever. If you’ve apparently won a big prize for a competition you weren’t even aware of, you’re likely being tricked.
Typos or Mistakes in the Message
It’s common for scam messages to contain typos, grammatical errors, and other inconsistencies, either due to the person writing them not having a high level of English or because they simply rushed through the message and didn’t take the time to spell-check it. Real, official contest organizers wouldn’t usually make such simple mistakes.
How to Stay Safe from Pay a Fee, Collect a Prize PayPal Scams
- Never make a payment to receive contest winnings.
- Always verify that companies are real and trusted if they contact you about contests.
- Don’t click on any links in emails from people or brands you aren’t familiar with.
Report the Scam
You can report suspected scammers to PayPal by forwarding their emails or information about them to the [email protected] address. You can also:
- Report to the FTC.
- Report to the FBI Internet Complaints Center.
How to Protect Yourself More
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When my sweet old grandmother got caught up in an Amazon gift card scam, I decided then and there that I needed to do whatever I could to inform as many people as possible about the grifters of the world. That’s what I do here – writing about modern scams so you don’t get caught out.
I received an “offer” from Temu, a company I have been dealing with for years. Only it wasn’t Temu, it was an outfit called “Blog Companion Support” who removed the payment intended for Temu. They then attempted to take 2 further payments but my bank blocked them for me. So beware of online companies you know as they are being infiltrated by these scammers & fraudsters.
About a week and a half ago I got a call that I had won 9 million 800,000 thousand dollars ,7000 a week for life plus a new Mercedes. I said thanks, what about the taxes? The company would pay 99 percent of the taxes which if I was taxed 50 percent would be about 49,000,000 dollars approximately. There were people in my area right now passing out the prize money the only I needed to do to prove that is was really me was to go to a dollar tree and purchase some kind of card for the mere sum of $125.00 dollars, give it to the person who is in my area right now giving out checks and get mine. I told them when they came to my house they could follow me to DT, it’s only 2 miles away but no. I told him that I didn’t have 125 and he hung up on me. The last week twice I won 21 million, a little different setup but only this time I had to pay 400 dollars. All three times there were a Chinese type accents.