Scam or not?

[oksanatnk]

Spoiler

Hi, wanted to ask the following: I've was involved in a project, which said that the payment will come to my paypal account. I've provided details to receive my payment, but the "employer" said that since I'm not a client of Citibank, my Paypal account requires syncronisation with their Citibank app. For that, they requested a payment of USD300 and promised to sync it, so I can get my payment. They provided an invoice which showed that the transfer to my PayPal account is "pending". I have some doubts that this is a genuine transfer, so want to ask it there any so-called syncronisation process of a PayPal account with a bank, when there is no card of that bank and whether it really requires any deposits and payments. Asking, as they sent me info that my account is 83% sync'd but they required additional USD200. All sounds like a scam and I lost my money. Thank you for helping. Maybe someone dealts with a company called Amex (not American Express). Thank you

[sharpiemarker]

@oksanatnk 

Total scam.

The scammer never paid. They are trying to get you to pay them instead.

When someone sends a PayPal Invoice, the status always starts out as Pending and updates to Paid once the invoice is paid. And only people who are receiving payments send out Invoices, people who are supposed to pay, do not.

There is a process of linking a bank account or a card to the Wallet page of your PayPal account, but not in the way the scammer is explaining it.

PayPal also does not ask you to send payment in order to receive payment. PayPal fees (which are a % fee + a fixed fee, not an even-number amount) are automatically deducted if applicable when someone REALLY sent payment.

If you paid any money then yes, you unfortunately lost the money.

And by the way, Ukraine PayPal accounts cannot accept payments for goods and services (business transactions). Only friends and family/personal transaction payments.