PayPal Community

While a very few people report being able to cancel it, the vast majority cannot. My personal test recreating a similar invoice to my brother has the same result. He is unable to cancel it, only takes him to the payment screen. Only I as the sender can cancel it. This seems to be an issue in their system.  With the moderator continuing to merge threads (this is infuriating and makes it impossible to follow conversations) it seems a number of new people are in this thread.  This is NOT from the WHO. You do NOT need to pay it. There is no hack. Anyone can create an invoice with any logo and sent it to any Paypal user. I would leave it alone-it will just sit there and my guess is Paypal will catch on and finally remove these from all users. ... View more

@TheGreen wrote: Be careful, the WHO is sending out unsolicited invoices to people that look like bills. As far as I know though, as long as you don't click 'Pay invoice' nothing will happen.   Also, even though there is a 'cancel' button on it on the 'Activity' tab, the invoice in not cancelable and will stay in your activity tab as 'pending'.   This whole thing smells of 'scam' but is apparently real. Define 'real.' We have confirmed WHO is NOT invoicing people on Paypal or any payment platform. Anyone can create these invoices and attach any logo they want. This is nothing more than some person invoicing random Paypal users.  ... View more

@jb1961 its not a hack at all. The invoices are created in the Paypal system and can only be sent to valid Paypal accounts. Somehow the spammer got a list of valid Paypal account emails and went to town. I am beginning to think this is not very widespread due to the few people complaining about it on various platforms. No big news outlet has picked this up yet, or even the tech press. ... View more

@bargainbandido the person I invoiced could not cancel or dispute it either. Only I as the sender could cancel it. This seems to be an issue with their system, and not something specific to these "WHO" invoices. This appears to be nothing more than someone having an email address and using Paypal to send you an unsolicited bill.  ... View more

So I was able to invoice my brother using the WHO logo and similar language. He received it as an email exactly like these we've gotten. Per the WHO's website:  There have been some cases reported of people fraudulently presenting themselves as WHO or the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, and/or sending invoices requesting payment on behalf of the Fund.  WHO, the UN Foundation, or the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation will never contact you for your credit card or banking details. Please see our FAQ to learn more about the ways you can legitimately give to the Fund. You may also report scams here.   So the info I and others have been given by Paypal Support is false. ANYBODY can make up one of these invoices and send them out.  ... View more

@bargainbandido wrote: Exactly. So where are the paypal support statements calling these genuine requests for donations? Sorry for being lazy. But it still seems to me they've allowed an imposter to penetrate their defenses. And as far as definitions of underhanded spam go, if this politicized org was officially permitted by pp to solicit, it seems far, FAR below standard to pose these requests as 'invoices' instead of simply sending a request as a message, etc. They the statements have been verbally told to callers, or in my case, via direct chat. No one has penetrated their defenses. You can invoice someone if you want, all you need is their email address. Per the other poster I just responded to, I am beginning to think these are not legitimately from the WHO, and Paypal reps are handing out conflicting information.  ... View more

@FedUp24 wrote: From the link in the invoice to a website , I emailed them and got the following reply: Thank you for your message. Please disregard this email. It is a phishing attempt and is in no way associated with the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. The COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, WHO, or the UN Foundation have never and will never issue invoices requesting payment. If you receive any additional phishing emails, please report them here. It is not a phishing attempt. We all have confirmed with Paypal it is not a phishing attempt. It takes you to TO PAYPAL where the invoice sits in your account. Now, it may be a bad actor is sending these invoices, not associated with the WHO per what you report they say. Paypal Support has told me and others otherwise. They really need to make an official statement on this. ... View more

@FedUp24 wrote:  as they know the PayPal account that the money is going into. I just get the feeling that as they will get there fees from those who fall for this, they don’t give a damn. They should block these as part of there anti fraud process. Not following on this...we know at this point these are actual donation requests from the WHO. I and others have confirmed this with Paypal Support. Incredibly spammy and underhanded...but it is not a scammer impersonating WHO. ... View more

@lawandus wrote: Not sure if you're on the latest version of the PayPal platform, but the method above worked for me and the request is no longer visible in my account. What 'version?' ...whatever version is being served to me on the website. How would I know what 'version' it would be, or that there would be different versions of Paypal.  ... View more

@lawandus wrote: I received this invoice a few days ago and just noticed it in my PayPal account today. I was able to successfully cancel the invoice request by doing the following:   1. Click "Activity" from the nav bar 2. Scroll down to the transaction line item 3. Click the drop down arrow next to "Pay" on the right side of the transaction line 4. From the dropdown menu, select "Cancel" 5. A dialogue box opens up and allows you to cancel the request and also add a note   I put "UNAUTHORIZED REQUEST" in the notes section and successfully canceled it. Hope this helps you all! I have no dropdown arrow next to this line item. Only completed transactions have this. The WHO invoice has a side arrow > which takes you to the invoice with the only option being to pay it. The Cancel button on the line item takes you to the invoice with the only option being to pay it. ... View more