Examples of Suspected Fraud/Fake Emails

PayPal_Adrian
PayPal Employee
PayPal Employee

Hello everyone!

 

One of the greatest strengths consumers possess against fraud and phishing is education and collaboration.  To help support your safety online, I'm going to open this special thread up for you.  Here, you can post examples of what you believe to be attempts by individuals to defraud you or others of their hard earned valuables and money. 

 

Before we begin, a few housekeeping points:

 

  • We will be using this as a "master thread," so if we find an example in other areas of the boards, we may merge the post into this one.

 

  • For everyone's safety, please remove any last names or contact information (including email addresses) from your examples.  In many instances, the names provided by fraudsters are fake or may actually be the name of someone they already defrauded. 

 

  • On that same note, please don't ever attempt to confront a fraudster or attempt to track them down.  Instead, turn the information you do have over to your local authorities. 

 

  • Please also remove any links from your posts, as these could potentially go to spoofed or phishing websites.

 

Other than that, we only ask that you keep it productive and stay within the Forum Decorum and posting guidelines.  I'll be stopping in on a regular basis to clean house and comment on posts, so don't be surprised if you see my mug - or another moderator - stopping in to say hello! 

  

 

With that said, I'm going to start moving posts in, so you might see some older examples mixed in with the new posts.  I hope this thread becomes a great resource for everyone!

 

Stay safe,

 

Adrian

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PayPal_Olivia
Moderator
Moderator

Hi folks,

 

This is great feedback.

 


laino wrote: I agree.  There should be a direct link at the home page, that says Examples of Scams or Scam Information or something of the like.  Would save some people like me from posting questions and then finding out through many clicks later that they were right about it being a fraud. Or worse yet, not finding the info and getting scammed.

I encourage you to go ahead and post ideas like this to the Feedback forum. The Help forums are for questions and answers and are not mined for feedback by the folks who are making improvements. The best place to have your constructive feedback and suggestions seen is the Feedback forum.

 

Thanks!

 

Olivia

If this post or any other was helpful, please enrich the Community by giving kudos to its author, accepting it as a solution, and/or coming back to assist others. Members make this Community great!
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gl13
Contributor
Contributor

My "marine engineer" got rather nasty when I told him that his western union payment to the contact was too complicated and suggested he pay the agent direct instead of me taking the payment out of the on supposedly hold funds at PayPal

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kevinm2011
New Community Member

I too have received an e-mail almost word for word to this one, of course I questioned it at first but decided to proceed with caution. The real problem occurred when I got a second e-mail from a different person that was almost a direct copy of the first one, I contacted both my local police and paypal about it. The fraud division  had never heard of this type of scam and paypal assured me that once I got a payment e-mail from them that the money was mine with no way of reversing it. Now not so sure!!!!

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pitaylo
New Community Member

great string of comments, i was contacted today, all the same comments, full asking price, want to send via paypal, want to make sure i'm not missing anything, will have shipping company pick up the car. Thankfully after reading these posts I have told the person apparently from Regina that I can only complete the sale in person. we'll see if I ever see a reply now.

 

 

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Annette5
Member
Member

Wow - so glad I came across this board.  I too a selling something on Kijiji and received the exact same email.  I thought it seemed too good to be true, and it seems that I was right. Thanks!

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ahaskill
New Community Member

OMG.... I am sooo happy I seen this forum thread. I have been talking with someone who has been "interested" in a vehicle we are trying to sell off Kijiji and all seemed good until we replied to him today and received an identical reply back as per his previous email minus one sentence. Now that I have read thru all the posts on this thread it has exact sentences already posted. I will send the forward emails to spoof@paypal.com  - only issue is there are 4 seperate emails and there is two emails used from him 

 

Emails received were as follows:

 

 

From: <removed>
Anything to add or ads say it all?

 

 

From: <removed>

just wanted to make sure nothing has been left out
I will purchase at your listed price.Payment will be sent using PayPal and ill handle the PayPal surcharge if they are any.Let me know if you are ok with this,so that I can arrange for pick up as i wont be able to do it myself as i am out of town at the moment.I would appreciate if you email me with more pictures (if available) too,since i won't be be able to see this in person,what's the PayPal email to send funds to in order for me to pay you ASAP.

 

From: <removed>

am inside the base making calls is restricted pls ask me any question here..I am sorry but i can only get to pay you with PayPal . It is easy to get an account,just go to www.paypal.com , all they need from you is a valid bank account..i hope you don't mind getting one.you can make one in mins.

 

From: <removed>

I am sorry but i can only get to pay you with PayPal . It is easy to get an account,just go to www.paypal.com , all they need from you is a valid bank account..i hope you don't mind getting one.you can make one in mins.

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gl13
Contributor
Contributor

This is a growth industry. I now have 7 replies in one week to my ad for a Crown Victoria. Five from Kijiji and 2 from Backpage.

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TOJess
New Community Member

Wow, I am also SO glad that I stumbled upon this thread!!

 

I'm trying to sell my car via autotrader/kijiji/craigslist and have had a couple people inquire about paying through paypal (one of them is a 'sailor' at 'sea', with no access to a 'phone'). I came on here to learn about HOW to accept payments as opposed to using my account to shop online, and here I am!

 

Thanks so much for all the info guys, and I'll be forwarding that email to the spoof team for sure!

 

Jess

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Steph64
Contributor
Contributor

Just so you know that since I got that e-mail, I changed all my ads to include NO PAYPAL PAYMENT ACCEPTED and I haven't got any e-mail like this since...

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spudnik1
Contributor
Contributor

just got afew e-mails from a sailor same as yours all e-mails were worded alike  with a lot of "to like" "would like" alot of poor english.willing to pay $75.00 more for a set of $350.00 winter tires and will have shipping co. pick them up.and only pay by PAYPAL.the cost of the tires plus shipping would be more than a new set.this was one of many red flags.there seems to be a lot of this shared on this form.thanks

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