Where can I report a paypal account for attempting to collect funds raised by email scam?

[Floriginian]

I get an email from a friend's account that I know has been compromised. Sender asks me to buy niece a birthday and send to an email account. 

I say, "Sure... how about a couple thousand? Send me your paypal account." 

And they did. So now I have the paypal account for the person trying to defraud me. 

Is there anywhere to report this information?

[NBandQueerRen]

I'm curious about this too. There has to at least be a way to report the scammers accounts -- I mean obviously to send money we have their info. It's not like they are completely protected in their identity

[Floriginian]

Yes! Thank you for agreeing that there should be someplace to share this kind of potential fraud and there just isn't anywhere to share it.

I guess it would be bad to share it here, right? Maybe there could be a community thread for reporting potentially fraudulent paypal accounts?

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi @Floriginian and @NBandQueerRen,

Thank you for your posts and welcome to the Community Forum! I understand that you would like to report a scam/scammer, and are looking for a way to do so. Please take a look at this article about spotting common scams, and see the bottom for instructions to report them to PayPal. The article is in the US Help Center, but it applies to any such issue globally.

It would be best not to report any fraudulent accounts publicly here in the community, as full names and email addresses are not permitted to be posted here, and sometimes the information being used to conduct the fraud is itself stolen information. To post it publicly would be to propagate the information of a person who may themselves be a victim to the actual scammer.

I hope this information is helpful!

Olivia

[Floriginian]

Thank you for your info and links. I know how to spot a scam and that is how I spotted this one. I collected info on the scammer, and no one wants it.

I followed the out-of-date instructions on reporting in the link you shared. The emails bounced and the bounce reply said those email accounts are closed.

Do you have any other ideas?

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi @Floriginian 

I'm sorry to hear that! The email address phishing@paypal.com is the one to which emails should be sent to report a scam, and it is currently functional. I'm not sure why you would have received a bounce message. Please try again. If you forwarded the email as an attachment, try sending it as a quoted message, and if you sent it as a quoted message, try sending it as an attachment. If you included any other email addresses in your last message, please check if the bounce messages came from those emails rather than the phishing@paypal.com address.

I hope this helps!

Olivia

[Floriginian]

Thank you. It was spoof@  and another, SPCX@ or something like that that bounced. The phishing@ email did indeed go through and I received a response with a number.

We'll see what happens next!