Examples of Suspected Fraud or Fake Emails

[PayPal_Andy]

Hey Everybody!

In an effort to make things easier to find and research, I'm going to consolidate as many threads as possible where we have examples of people trying to defraud hard working sellers (Craigslist emails, 'PayPal' emails asking you to send money outside of PayPal, etc).  This will also be used as a master thread for future posts regarding this same situation.

When you post your examples here, please remember to not include last names or contact information of whoever is sending these emails.  There's no way to confirm if that person has been defrauded as well and the name is being used fraudulently.

Thanks for your cooperation and remember, keep the conversation productive, on task, and above all, keep it clean. I know these things can be difficult and frustrating, but bleep filled posts or posts that look like government redacted files will never benefit anyone. 😄

Andy

[Diamondcat1]

I got one which had the strapline

Case ID Number: PP 442-828-936-021

It's a scam.  Drivel.  It has nothing to do with changed IRS regulations or increased security and everything to do with stealing your money.

When I received it, I did the first thing you can do easily - went to PayPal through my own login and lo and behold, nothing wrong with my account.  Everything functioning as it should be.

Really can't bear scammers - bottom-feeding scum of the earth.

[SukebanVenus]

I just got an e-mail claiming to be from PayPal Services telling me that I now had a limited account and was going to get banned from not logging in enough. It also said that my account had been logged into from Denmark. It included a link to "log in and update my account" in order to "restore it to normal".

Obvious scam, I did not visit the link.

Also, I checked my account activity, no unusual payments or anything and my account is not limited.

[Seymour-]

Forward it to spoof@paypal.com to have it checked.

(I can tell you right now, it's a scam)

[cowhauler]

There is one that continues to be a pest. He states he is from Microsoft and i am sending error messages from my computer. With having these errors my computer is running slowly and i need it to be cleaned and updated. So i told him with your last conversation i just said the **bleep** with it and purchased a brand new out of the box computer. so now i wont have anymore errors to bother you. I can say he was very upset. as his scam did not work

One other day my mom was over at the house and she picked up the phone. The same person i would assume told my mom that her computer was doing the same sending errors. He asked her which windows system was she using? she goes idk but it is and ipad so which system is it? He hung up haha.

[Seymour-]

Heard that one at least 100 times before! LOL the MS scam. (I've been doing this a long, long time. heheheh) Good for your Mom 😉

[Boston_Cowboy]

Dear Customer, Your PayPal Account Access Has Been Limited For The Following Reasons: ________________________________________ The security questions and answers for Your's PayPal account were changed.To help us with this and to see what you can and can't do with your account until the issue is resolved, log in to your account and go to the Resolution Center. • Sign in to your paypal account , update your account info • Please read the Policy Update carefully. It contains important legal information about when and how the changes to our User Agreement will become effective. • If you agree to the changes, you need to do anything as any updates will automatically come into effect. If you do not wish to accept the changes, we have also provided you with the steps you can take on the Policy Update page. If You Do not Comply with Command we will close your account ! ________________________________________

[gandog56]

Got an official looking email purportedly from Paypal saying your account has been closed. If you did not close your Paypal account please click logon to fix this problem. Go to our website and click Contact or Contact us on any of our web pages. Sincerely, Paypal.

It even had the Paypal logo in the email. Needless to say instead of clicking on the link in the email, I opened up a new browser page and logged on. Nope, nothing there about my account being closed.

I just forwarded the email to spoof@paypal.com and dumped it.

[philou01]

PayPal Secure Authorize Iog-in attempt Dear CIient, An attempt to Login to your account from an unknown browser. Please review the Iog ln details below: Date: 2016-12-29 Thursday 00:13 AM IP Address: 114.121.160.98 (Indonesia) Browser: Chrome 48.0 User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/48.0.2564.116 Safari/537.36 please Iog ln and verify your account now about your IP adresses access

© 1999-2016. ® - All Rights Reserved 1601 Trapelo Rd. Waltham, MA 02451

[Seymour-]

'Tis the season. 

[DEast0716]

I received the following email from service(AT)payapal.com, it seems fishy and I definitely didn't make the purchase. You paid Animal Hospit, Pelzer, SC, $180.00 USD Your PayPal transaction ID for this purchase is: 94604862A8227392C "Merchant" "Amount" Animal Hospit, Pelzer, SC, $180.00 USD Please keep in mind that the amount above may not be the final purchase price. We’ll email you the final amount once the merchant completes the transaction. Any preauthorization amount may place a "hold" on your available funds until the merchant completes the transaction. The payment sent to The Animal Hospit, Pelzer, SC is Under Review. If the payment was made without your knowledge or permission you can cancel the payment and receive a full refund. Cancel this payment online by confirming that you are the account holder. Thanks, PayPal. Please do not reply to this email. Copyright © 1999-2017 PayPal. All rights reserved. PayPal PPC000590:e2f8b164e6f0