Text message from <removed>

Rutro
New Community Member

I received a txt from <removed> asking the following is this from paypal?

Msg from PayPal: Transaction of -$**.00 USD with The **** **** on May 9, 2017 has been marked as suspicious. Reply "Yes" if authorized or "No" if not authorized.

 

I did make the transaction but have never received this before and in todays world, one never knows.

 

THX

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75 REPLIES 75

netvisionz
Contributor
Contributor

This is totally unnecessary. If I'm sending money to someone why flag it when I logged into my account to send it? Moreover replying to the message fails probably because it's a short code rather than an actual phone number.

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Lana56
Member
Member

I followed a FB link to a Shopify Page to a Soaring Store page where a 'Reclining Sofa Home Theater Seating Power Sofa Theater Recliner Sectional Sofa' was listed for $99 with free shipping. The same item is at Walmart's site for $1,099. Long story short: I'd usually just dismiss something like this as a hoax. How could any business sell and ship an item like this for $99 and stay in business? But then I saw the Paypal logo so I said, 'Well, what the heck, I'll bite.' After making the payment via PP I received the <removed> text so I started researching that online. I decided to call PP rather than respond to the text and I'll have to say, quite honestly, that the rep I ended up was difficult to understand so not extremely helpful but she did see the $99 transaction and told me to notify them down the road if I don't receive the item, etc. I suspect that I'll be notifying PP down the road. As to the text I received, I don't think it was legit. I've spent in excess of $99 via PP numerous times and never in the past have I received a similar text. I'll keep an eye on my credit card transactions and wait to see if this item is shipped but believe me, I won't be holding my breath. IMO Shopify is also quite shady and I'll avoid them in future unless my father really does receive this sofa. GLTA!

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TXGRunner
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for clarifying the number belongs to PayPal, but that response is insufficient.

 

- Why release a half-baked system that sends non-sensical texts with glaring spelling errors (e.g. "ahorized")?

- Why is there no matching notification when we login to validate the transaction?

- Why, in response to "yes" answer to the original text, are we then instructed to send a command to transfer money with no designated receiver?

- Why, when contacting PayPal support via secure email, do they not know anything about these texts?

 

When dealing with finances, security is extremely important. Given all the phishing and spoofing scams out there, PayPal needs to act more like a financial institution and less like a mom-and-pop diner trying out new ideas on the customers before proper testings is done. That could start with a more cautious approach to statements like "...if it's from that number, it is a legitimate message and a legitimate link." Is that always true, 100% of the time? Google "SMS spoofing," read some of the articles, and then please reconsider your statement. 

 

When responsible organizations, like financial institutions, take an action that raises suspicions among their customers and has unintended consequences like generating inexplicable error messages, they suspend the action until proper testing can be done. Actually, responsible companies do enough testing in advance, they never go into production with a disaster like this.

 

PayPal is not a software publisher. Paypal is a company offering financial services. Pushing out buggy alpha code to users and asking us to live with the bugs until the next patch or service pack is released is irresponsible and undermines PayPal's brand as being a secure method of making payments.   

 

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BenGunn
Contributor
Contributor

Like TXGRunner I am seriously disturbed about the superficiality of Paypal's responses to this issue.  They are making no attempt to deal with specific questions.  Either their new system is defective in which case they need to acknowledge the problems and fix, or if not defective then there's some attempted scamming going on here.  

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PayPal_AshleyM
Moderator
Moderator

Hi TXGRunner,

 

Thanks for bringing these issues to our attention. I apologize that my first answer wasn't sufficient. I'm going to ensure we get your feedback passed along internally so that we can have this addressed. I appreciate you taking the time to raise these questions, and hopefully it's resolved soon.

 

- Ashley M


If this post or any other was helpful, please enrich the community by giving kudos or accepting it as a solution.
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DemDemDem
Member
Member

why am I being charged by a <removed> number thats sent me all of my confirmations in the past to reply with 1 if yes and 2 if no, and a cost of 99 GBP to send it?

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nashi-kamara
New Community Member

I got this message 3 times. I have confirmed that I did in fact make the purchase and replied 1 (yes) each time. When will the messaging stop as I have received a fourth message asking the same thing

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Lana56
Member
Member

Is there a difference between <removed> and <removed>?

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JNav
New Community Member

I got a text yesterday morning from that number saying "PayPal: Are you trying to complete a purchase of #857.00 GBP right now? Reply "1" if yes, "2" if no." I pressed 2 and didn't hear anything. I love I the US. It is now 11:40pm and I just got another text asking if I made an attempt to make a payment for ? Again, I press 2 for no and get nO other message. This is so shady I've never gotten these before and I see no activity on my account

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BenGunn
Contributor
Contributor

Re. my earlier messages.  I emailed Paypal about the text I received stating one of my attempted payments was "suspicious" and requesting that I respond "yes" if the transaction was authorised.  I pointed out that all attempts to reply "yes" simply generated a message "not delivered" and I asked them to clarify if this was an error in their system or a scamming attempt.

I received an automated reply from Paypal that was completely irrelevant. The message said I was receiving error statements because all messages are deleted after 90 days.  In other words, rather than bother to read my question someone hit a button and sent a reply that has absolutely nothing to do with the questions I asked.

I will email them again and perhaps this time I'll get a human who is knowledgeable and has the good manners to send a constructive reply, but remain concerned that, apart from poor customer service, this is indicative of a flaw in their system.

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