A Widespread Fraud / Scam that Needs Urgent Attenion by PayPal

[nicholas_jo]

PayPal and moderators take note this requires urgent and decisive action for many users of your service!
 
In using PayPal as a payment method for online shopping I have recently fallen victim to fraud for the amount of £144. I sought Resolution through PayPal customer service but have to date received no real help. I turned to the community and I see now that exactly what happened to me has happened to many others. The scam relies on loopholes in PayPal's Claims system via their Resolution Center and exploits PayPal's lack of Customer Service and Buyer Protection.
 
Here are a few links to PayPal community threads of well written accounts by others who have fallen victim to the same scam in recent weeks. Here and here. Pertaining users and solution attempts are: @kernowlass and @jajm2015 Neither of these seem to have been addressed or resolved by PayPal with users turning to their banks where applicable for any real help.
 
This is how it works: A fake website is set up, fake contact details - email and phone - are provided on the website which appears to be located in the UK (this differs of course for other users in the US e.g. but who still believe they are buying from a domestic business). The website appears to be a domestic business, when you check out you pay with card or PayPal, if you choose PayPal they take the payment directly. No receipt or confirmation email is issued and it is not possible to contact the fraudulent seller. The PayPal account the money was transferred to is Chinese or abroad, i.e. not a domestic business, and not who you thought you were ordering from. In my case it was a Chinese PayPal account connected to a website that appeared to be based in the UK.

This is the security loophole on PayPal's end: Following the 'purchase' once you realise it is not legitimate the next step is to raise a fraud claim with PayPal via their Resolution Center. Here you are given several options as to the nature of the claim 1) The Item Was Never Received 2) The Item Received but Was Not as Described 3) Unauthorised Transaction. In my case I chose Unauthorised Transaction because neither of the other options applied. Asked to explain the details I explained: I placed an order, the money was taken, and I received no communication from the seller. PayPal then makes a decision to Close the Case, because in essence the transaction was 'authorised' by you but never completed by the seller. I.E. they take your money, the IPs and logins check out and PayPal closes the case. You can not then reopen the case, and PayPal Customer Service is only accessible by a frustrating Chat Bot, to date I have received no real response from PayPal.
 
It seems possible that there is a bot checking these claims by looking over IPs, account activity, and making the decision, not an actual person reading the details of the claim, please correct me if you know better. 



If you choose one of the other options 'Item Not Received' the seller provides a Tracking Number to PayPal, literally any tracking number to any address and PayPal Closes the Case in favour of the seller because they provided what appears to be a legitimate tracking number. What the fraudster then does is to post a paper face mask, or sticker or some other essentially valueless item, from China with a tracking number they provide to PayPal, the buyer does not receive what they paid for PayPal closes the case, the fraudster keeps your money.

In my case specifically: I attempted to purchase some shoes from the website cozxs.com DO NOT BUY FROM THIS WEBSITE IT IS A SCAM. The link to cozxs.com was provided through Google Shopping and the business name listed as 'Fashion Products' in the Google Shopping interface, so it appeared to be legitimate. On looking them up, after I realised I had been cheated, ALL reviewers on TrustPilot have fallen victim to the same scam. The link to TrustPilot profile is here for the fraudulent business cozxs.com
 
This business and connected PayPal account are clearly, demonstrably, fraudulent but PayPal has closed my claim and I have no recourse apart from the non-responsive chat bot. In my case I paid out of my PayPal balance so very likely have no recourse to my bank - which I have transacted back and forth between for the better part of a decade - and my money has been stolen.
 
Some users who use their credit cards via the PayPal payment interface have managed to get their banks to cover the stolen payment. So one lesson learned is not to pay directly out of your PayPal balance, as PayPal's Buyer Protection will do nothing for you. But that lesson is too little too late, I have transferred the remainder of my balance to my bank and will be very wary of using PayPal again if at all. Unless I receive some satisfactory solution from PayPal - and many other users who have fallen victim - I can't see much need to use PayPal again.
 
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I implore you PayPal to please address this problem for me and other users of your service and to help me get my money back from a fraudulent user of your service.

[nicholas_jo]

The more I look there are just countless examples of this happening to people. Literally in the time since I have posted, about 25 mins there have been four new posts claiming Fraud in the same fashion from brand new users with 1 post on their profile.

In 2017 PayPal banned Class Action lawsuits in their fine print. But one still has recourse to Small Claims. Has anyone out there pursued a Small Claim citing their Buyer Protection terms and conditions against PayPal owing to a similar fraud? Was there any result?

[Lindy7]

I also bought trainers 2 days ago, have sent emails to the seller and also to cozxs but had no reply, I have asked for the payment back on paypal but it is pending, I am hoping I get my money back but this site should not be on google and the seller should have her paypal account closed

[Lindy7]

It is just an update, I received an email from cozxs saying my order has been dispatched and giving me the tracking number for DHL, I checked it but saying not available yet, I still think its a scam but I am not going to order cheap trainers again, if it looks to good to be true it is, if I get the parcel I will let you know

[nicholas_jo]

HI @Lindy7 Cheers for getting back and chucking your lot in with mine! Yes as a matter of fact I also received an email last night with a cryptic non-working tracking number. It is crystal clear they, in accordance with every other example I have seen here, are going to send us both a piece of rubbish and use the bogus tracking number to clear PayPal's bot-driven Resolution centre and Claims system. I hope you get your trainers as do I mine, but I'll wager we will not. I'm just going to send them an email telling them what I really think - that they are criminals - with a link to their Trustpilot profile from above where, as we have both seen, every single review outs them as scam artists.

Out of curiosity, Lindy, how did you claim your money back on the PayPal system? As it sounds like yours is still pending... I opted for the 'Unauthorised Transaction' option which I see now was a mistake, and it was almost immediately returned as case closed. And I have no further recourse. I still after 48 hrs have not heard anything back via the message centre.

I have informed family and friends as politely as possible that PayPal, whom everyone seems to have falsely believed is a legitimate financially regulated transaction system. Is unfortunately not. And that they are merely a platform for scam artists, an outdated and unworkable platform, that harkens back 20 years to a time when everyone had doubts about shopping online owing to just this sort of problem. It's time to update to something a little more contemporary and secure.

A question for Pay Pal community Moderators who took the time to read my verbose post carefully enough to flag and remove a single line which you felt violated the terms of your community: why did you take the time to read and remove that rather minor detail from a post, and then move along without bothering to answer?  @PayPal_Olivia I initially tagged you with a technique you previously advised for getting a post seen, but perhaps it was another moderator. Regardless, Lindy7 and I both anxiously await your replies to what we hope will be a satisfactory resolution to our plight. We have both been scammed and have had no response from PayPal.

[Lindy7]

I have not started the resolution yet but I sent a message to paypal advising them of the situation and have tried to get money back from the email which it was paid to which is pending at the moment

[nicholas_jo]

In reply to the non-working tracking number I received, I said I'd like to cancel the order and I requested a full refund. I'll let you know if they come back. Also, promisingly, I have just been contacted by a PayPal agent via the Message Center saying they are forwarding my case to the disputes team. I'll keep you posted and I hope you are making similar, ever so slightly hopeful, progress. We shall see.

I'm predicting that if I do hear back from cozxs.com whoever they are, they may claim the item has been sent and cannot be cancelled. They issued a tracking number that returns no result and that 'they had accumulated too many goods' and 'would urge logistics for me'. They also requested I cancel the dispute with PayPal. If they reply that it's too late, the item has been sent, I will request a receipt detailing the item I ordered. I haven't yet received from them any confirmation or receipt of what I paid for.

If you're listening at Paypal, I know you are busy, and there are a lot of people on here clamouring for help, hang in there ...

[nicholas_jo]

Making progress. Judylene and Gretchen at PayPal have been responsive and helpful on this case for me. They updated the payment from Unauthorised Transaction to Item not Received, and they have contacted the seller requesting a response regarding the non-working tracking number and lack of order confirmation and communication etc. I don't know exactly what kind of response they requested, nonetheless we are now waiting. The payment they told me reassuringly is held in a kind of escrow and the seller does not have access to it until the dispute is resolved.

My concern at this point is if the seller replies e.g. they have sent the item, is there anyway of waiting until I confirm I have received it? I suppose we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I hope that will help you as well @Lindy7 and that you have received some contact also.

Lesson learned here for the future, is to contact the Message Center and be patient I guess - they are probably overwhelmed without a call centre or I don't know. But they have been helpful so far once I got through. It was a mistake to flag it Unauthorised Transaction, they said more appropriate would have been Item not Received or As Described.

[Lindy7]

Just an update, the tracking number is saying in transit and I have had a few emails from the seller so I am trying to be positive, I will let you know what happens

[Lindy7]

Just an update, I received the trainers but they are not the colour I ordered, they are good copies but the lining of the trainers are not good and cheap lining, I have sent an email to ask where I send them back to get a refund but my son does like them, I hope you get yours