Scammed through Friends & Family

jforbes15
New Community Member

recently scammed due to my own mistakes of not doing much research, he told me to send through friends and family. is there anything at all i could do to get my money back? 

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94 REPLIES 94

Yuyuurameshi
Member
Member
This is correct. Similar circumstances fell on me and the dispute was immediately closed in light of this friends and family policy which in my humble opinion, PayPal needs to amend as soon as possible. This leaves a wide open back door for hackers and scammers to use remote access or IP spoofing to send money to their drop account then eventually their personal account without much recourse for the victim. Outrageous. Clearly scammers would quickly find a way to exploit this policy. Best situation that you may be able to leverage is if you were scammed through a website. Make a case with them and push on them to rectify the situation with a refund due to lax vetting on vendor/sellers accounts which allowed you to be scammed by a user that seemed otherwise legitimate. Happens all the time, so companies would rather not have a class action to deal with that forces them to overhaul their processes and procedures for account membership or vendor rights.
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rchho_
Contributor
Contributor

it kinda **bleep** to be honest, one can finesse anybody at any moment.

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Loony_Phoenix
Contributor
Contributor

That’s why scammers use friends and family because PayPal doesn’t seem interested in protecting its end user.. wake up Pay Pal.. of course Scammers are going to use friends and family.. why wouldn’t they.. the person getting scammed believes wholeheartedly that the person they are sending their hard earned money too is legit… That’s How Scammers Work…. The rest of the world can see this so why can’t PayPal… please start offering protection to people getting scammed this way… You only need to read these forums to realise how often it occurs..

 

edited for spelling 

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@Loony_Phoenix 

 

No one forces you to use that option, if someone tells you to use friends/family then alarm bells should ring.

If you continue to do so then you have negated your own buyer protection and allowed the seller to negate paying their seller fees all against paypal rules.

It clearly states when you click the friends/family option on both the web AND the app that there is no buyer protection if you select that option.

So knowing that if you choose to continue doing so why would Paypal have to bail you out??


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FrankP1
Contributor
Contributor

Unfortunately PayPal endorses scammers on their platform. I was scammed today, not knowing that there is no recourse when paying F&F. A company as big as Paypal should be ashamed and should be working to solve this problem, not telling me to take it up with my bank. I'll be closing my account and encouraging everyone within earshot to do the same.

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@FrankP1

 

The clue is in the name, if they are not a family member or mate then why would you pay that way.

Equally when you do select that option it shows you x2 options and on x1 of them it states that you have buyer protection.

Lastly if you bothered to read the 'short' section on buyer protection before you started using paypal to buy items then you would have seen what coverage you have.

Paypal gives you buyer protection but you chose to negate that protection.


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FrankP1
Contributor
Contributor

The internet is riddled with people telling stories of being scammed through F&F on the PayPal platform. It is a problem that needs to be addressed. I don't want to hear about "well if you are using F&F you should know the person". I honestly took it as transacting with a person vs. transacting with a company. Easy for PayPal to just look the other way and shrug their shoulders, but people should expect more from them, their customers should expect more from them. It is an obvious problem when scammers know exactly how to use the platform to scam people!! Defend them all you want, it's a **bleep** way to do business, and I'm done using the platform. I won't be a blip on their bottom line, but of all the complaints that I see here as well as growing options to transfer money, hopefully they become irrelevant, just for the simple fact that they don't protect their customers. 

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FrankP1
Contributor
Contributor

And to be clear, when you select F&F, there are no warnings about being scammed; they promote it as a transaction with no fees!! Who isn't going to look at that and say, well that probably makes more sense to use. 

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@FrankP1

 

The warnings are on 'buyer protection' that you are supposed to read before using paypal to buy goods AND when you go to send money > it clearly states buyer protection on goods / services BUT DOES NOT say that on friends / family so you can read both before you select the option that you want.


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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@brittanyparker 

 

If they were not a 'friend' or a close 'mate' then why would you use that option?

The clue is in the name FRIENDS and FAMILY.


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