Additional fee

[Langlang2x]

Good day, I really need your help. I am a freelancer and was about to receive downpayment for an order, so I made an account on Paypal for me to receive it and she then replied to me that she sent it but then I receive this email. "Hello valid customer. We are sorry for the late response. We encountered a little problem while crediting your account, you have a pending payment $xxUSD but we have a problem crediting your account with that amount because your account is not a premium account and cannot receive funds that add up to $xx.00 You can take these few steps to expand your limit: Contact the last payer to send an additional payment of $300.00USD for your account to be fully expanded to a business user. Soon as this is done we will credit your account with the total sum of $390.00 with a free compensation fee of $56.00 for this inconvenience caused. Note that an alert has also been sent to Da**ta in regards to the $300.00USD additional payment, we will secure this transaction with high priority so that neither the payer nor the payee will lose their funds in this transaction." I then message the sender and she allegedly sent the additional fee, then I received this email. "CONGRATULATIONS!!! you have received an additional payment of ($300.00 USD) Payment Details: (Routing Code:[removed]) Your PayPal account has been Upgraded/Expanded to a BUSINESS ACCOUNT: You have received an additional payment of ($300.00USD) form and your account will be fully credited with the total sum of ($390.00 USD). Your funds are now safe with us and for the buyer's safety, the additional payment has to be refunded for your account to be fully credited with the total sum of ($390.00 USD). Final steps to follow: 1. Get your PayPal account ready. 2. Contact the sender for the information to refund back ($300.00 USD). 3. Take a screenshot of the total sum of ($300.00 USD) been successfully sent and reply to this email for verification of refund so we can release the total sum of ($390.00 USD). to your account immediately. IMPORTANT NOTE: YOUR FUNDS HAS BEEN APPROVED AND SECURED SO YOU ARE TO CARRY ON WITH THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN ABOVE FOR YOUR ACCOUNT TO BE FULLY CREDITED WITH THE TOTAL SUM OF ($390.00 USD )" I panicked since I don't know where to find that kind of amount as a refund. Am I being scammed right now because I don't know what to do next.

[kernowlass · Accepted solution]

@Langlang2x 

SCAM

You never pay any upfront fee as a seller or to receive payments into a Paypal account.

Ignore scammers that send fake Paypal emails telling you that you need to pay an upfront fee to verify/upgrade to a business account/or any other reason to accept a payment.

You would certainly never have to send funds especially via another payment processor/bitcoins/ or tokens/vouchers of any sort.

Any fee is auto deducted by Paypal at the same instant the remainder of the payment is credited to your Paypal account balance.

No funds in your balance = you have not yet been paid, even pending/held payments will still show in your Paypal account activity.

[BIM360]

Yes, Paypal forgets that we are their clients..  here is what they did to us...a dispute was reported by a buyer on 9/11 then immediately escalated to a claim by the next morning. What is the emergency here? The alleged purchase was made 6 weeks before the c laim was reported. Who waits 6 weeks to claim they never received something? Why do you allow 6 weeks to them and not even a week to us? We are YOUR CLIENTS!!! We did reply to it on the same day rec eived, 9/12. 7 days later..midnight today the claim was decided in favor of the buyer. This is not just, as we were given a notice in writing that we had until 10/1 to respond. We request a thorough review of the mishandling of this case and a fair chance to defend our position. The information you requested was very detailed and takes time to compile. including screenshots of private communications, ip addresses of our client...???  is that even legal??  is Paypal liable for seeking this through us by extortion/???By making this action against your own procedures you have caused us great pains. Our CEO is out on medical leave and we have a huge amount of evidence to counter the fraudulent claim. If you are not concerned with justice and fair dealings and respect for YOUR client then we will remove ourselves from ever doing business with paypal again. We will post every detail of your illegitamate business practice online in every social forum available in 6 countries where we do daily business.