I received and invoice from Direct Relief for $35 to help those affected by California wildfires.

[SF_RodT]

Hello Community,
I received an invoice from Direct Relief for $35 to "help those affected by wildfires". I did not order anything from anyone in the US. I live outside the US. It is marked as pending, and I have no intention of paying it willingly. Is this fraud? A scam? I tried to open a dispute and was not able to. What is this? Am I obligated to pay it? Thank you all for you help. Has anyone else received this invoice? I changed my password immediately.

[silvamayflower]

Just to let you know - I had a reply from Direct Relief.  They are aware of the problem, and have reported it to PayPal.  So it is definitely a scam, and I suggest we warn all our family and friends not to click anything in this email if they receive it.  I contacted Direct Relief by googling them.  I have now been to my paypal account and deleted this invoice.  All should be ok now.  Thanks for contributions, and good luck to everyone else who has had the same problem.

[SCHS]

Today I received an unauthorized invoice in my PayPal account, for $35, supposedly from Direct Relief, supposedly for California Wildfire Relief.  PayPal was no help, but I was able to cancel the invoice by logging on and going to my account activity, and eventually saw the button to cancel invoice.  It has now become obvious that this is a widespread issue.

Does anyone have any idea how to hold PayPal accountable for allowing unauthorized invoices into user accounts and to get them to block such unauthorized use?

[kernowlass]

@SCHS 

Anyone can send you an invoice or a money request, it does not mean you have to pay it OR that your account was hacked.

If a scammer has a list of email addresses then he can send invoices or money requests to anyones paypal account.

[tabneys]

got one today, I canceled it , scam or not I wouldn't send nothing to CA , they have regulations that hurt the environment and helps the spread of wildfires , CA is led by fools and they need to deregulate so the fires cant spread as bad or even start in some cases , hell you cant even clean up dead wood , the people need to kick out the leaders as they are not fit to lead

[PayPal_Olivia · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your posts. We are very sorry for the confusion and frustration you may have experienced regarding the recent unsolicited donations invoices you may have received. Our teams are actively working to detect and remediate this fraudulent activity. Our customers should never pay an unsolicited invoice.

Customers may also cancel unwanted invoices from your account by following these steps:

· Log into your PayPal account
· Navigate to the “Activities” tab from the header options
· Locate the invoice and hit “Cancel”

After locating the invoice, if you see that it is already canceled, no further action is needed. If you have any questions about your account and wish to speak with a representative, please visit the Contact Us page to find contact options.

Olivia

[ayufan19]

Same issue here...I've just received a similar invoice yesterday.  I couldn't find an option to cancel the invoice on the PayPal mobile app.  Logged on to the PayPal web site and cancelled it that way.

[doctoroh]

Hi, I received a similar invoice.  The real problem seems to be that Paypal does not have a decent way to report the invoice as fraudulent because it somehow adheres to some abstruse guideline that protects it from being reported.  This is the root issue that needs to be addressed or more criminals will take advantage of Paypal's poor fraud protection reporting system to bilk Paypal customers.

[SopoB]

I received two invoices from Direct Relief, both for $35 and can’t cancel them. There is an option to cancel, however nothing happens when I click it. It still takes me to Pay the Invoice.

[androrphin]

I got one of these today and cancelled it via the website. However this also send an email to Direct Relief advising them of my cancelling their invoice. So not only do they have my email address I have now verified it for them.

Not cool Paypal.

Can someone explain how they got my email address in the first place please @PayPal_Olivia ?

[kernowlass]

@androrphin 

They send out 'invoices' to thousands (i would presume) emails on a daily basis in the hope that a lot of those emails that they have gathered are linked to a paypal account.

How they got your email address in the first place is unknown as folks normally use their email addresses on a daily basis to communicate with companies / friends / colleagues / family etc.