Here in the Philippines, there are hundreds of thousands of freelancers, being paid through PayPal. One lucrative business here is to "encash" PayPal funds for a fee.
How does this work? PayPal funds take 2-4 days after withdrawal before reaching our bank account. These so-called PayPal encashment guys will ask a person who needs money but don't have 2-4 days to spare for the withdrawal to get to his bank account, to send him the PayPal fund for a hefty 5% of the amount as fee. I accept this kind of practice since it can help people who are really in need of the cash fast (remember, people here are poor and earning less than USD500 a month).
However, because of this practice, unscrupulous individuals came up with an idea to prey on these desperate people out of -their hard-earned money (me included).
The scammers will make a facebook page using fake and usually stolen identity, they will make several PayPal accounts using bogus email addresses and the names of people's identities that they have stolen, then wait for their unsuspecting victim. The victim will usually chat with the "encasher" in facebook, asking more about the service offered. After which the scammer will give out several information including screenshots to so-called successful transfers, etc... Once the scammer gains the victims trust, he will then ask the victim to send the money to his PayPal account. Most of the time, the victim will simply transfer the funds thinking that PayPal will protect him/her in case something goes wrong. However, once the fund is transferred, the scammer will just ask to wait for the funds and block the victim from facebook.
Here's the fun part, the scammer will usually say transfer the money by clicking "Send to Family and Friends" because as you know, PayPal doesn't do disputes in these transactions.
In my case, the scammer used several email addresses before the transaction got completed. The first two failed and he kept giving my friend another email address. When we tried searching for the scammer in facebook, we found out that there were more people who got scammed through the same modus operandi. So far there are more than 15 people who got scammed by this individual, who never got their money back because of.... yep, you guessed it, NON-DISPUTE OF PERSONAL PAYMENTS, so thanks PayPal for PROTECTING THE WELFARE OF THESE SCAMMERS. When I asked the people who posted their woes in facebook about their transactions, some said they needed the money to pay their house rent, buy medicine, heck one even told me she got scammed out of a hundred bucks that he needed to pay for his daughter's chemo (she's got leukemia) that day. Please know that here in the Philippines, one hundred US dollars is already a lot of money, for the average person here, that's two weeks pay!!!
From what I know, he conned these 15 people (not including me) out of a few thousand US dollars in total. Currently, he is still very active in facebook, stealing other people's identity and making paypal accounts with them.
The irony of it all is that the scammer will then withdraw the PayPal funds by having it ENCASHED by legit encashers, then file a dispute with them since the scammer does not send it via "Personal Payment" and get double income!
TO PayPal, if you are willing to help, I can send you chat logs, links, screenshots to his posts, and the posts of other people who got scammed by this person.
He is dragging down your name in internet financial security. My current case filed is PP-005-281-588-059, if you want to talk or communicate with me, please feel free to do so anytime. You can call my contact number listed in my account, you ca n email me, or simply chat in skype. I am really **bleep** off right now and already asked my boss from the US to send my wages through MoneyGram instead.
