Is my mum about to get scammed?

Monkeymatt

Monkeymatt

Monkeymatt

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Joined
2 Jan 2010
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2,307
Hi guys,

Not very knowledgeable about Paypal so looking for some advice.

So my mum received an email the other day from paypal saying she'd received a payment for £45 and was very confused as she wasn't expecting any payment. I didn't see the email but assumed it was a dodgy scam email so told her not to worry about it.

Fast forward to today and she's received an email from a lady asking for that £45 to be returned to her as it was meant to be payment for a cake and had been sent to the wrong person. So I get my mum to open up Paypal and there is legitimately £45 in her account that she has received from this woman, although the payment came from her @verizon email address and the email asking us to return the money came from the woman's @gmail account.

I've got no issue returning the money, I'm just concerned that this may be a big scam. Say if we send the £45 back to the account it came from, the @verizon account, if the lady attempts a chargeback would we then end up having the £45 payment to us cancelled and so we'd end up £45 out of pocket? If that is possible, what options do we have to avoid that happening?

Thanks.
 
Monkeymatt said:
Hi guys,

Not very knowledgeable about Paypal so looking for some advice.

So my mum received an email the other day from paypal saying she'd received a payment for £45 and was very confused as she wasn't expecting any payment. I didn't see the email but assumed it was a dodgy scam email so told her not to worry about it.

Fast forward to today and she's received an email from a lady asking for that £45 to be returned to her as it was meant to be payment for a cake and had been sent to the wrong person. So I get my mum to open up Paypal and there is legitimately £45 in her account that she has received from this woman, although the payment came from her @verizon email address and the email asking us to return the money came from the woman's @gmail account.

I've got no issue returning the money, I'm just concerned that this may be a big scam. Say if we send the £45 back to the account it came from, the @verizon account, if the lady attempts a chargeback would we then end up having the £45 payment to us cancelled and so we'd end up £45 out of pocket? If that is possible, what options do we have to avoid that happening?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

SCAM
 
This is a classic scam and your are right to be careful.

You best bet is to contact PayPal so all communications go through them and they can contact the original account the payment came from to find out if it has been compromised
 
Is there a refund option to the original payment address ?

I had this before. I reported it but still had to pay Paypal fees and £14 because the compromised person did a chargeback.
 
As above just report it to PayPal and let them deal with it - under no circumstances send the money back, let PayPal debit it back and return.

Assume they are doing small amounts so it looks less suspicious, but if they are doing this on a large scale the money quickly adds up.
 
Just go to the payment and hit refund/return. Dont send it back manually, use the refund/return button.
 
Use the refund button (or whatever it's called), it goes back to the sending account. Job done.
 
I'd speak to PayPal about what the safest option is (probably the refund button as mentioned), I think scam lies in the scammer hoping you'll send the money back manually as a separate payment and then the orignal payment is reversed.
 
Notify Paypal, do nothing.

My sister got taken for a lot of money on a scam like this :( despite everyone telling her it was a scam.
 
MentalSharps said:
So if someone did this, and you did literally nothing at all, you would end being charged fees by eBay at the end of it?
Click to expand...
Not eBay NO as it has nothing to do with them, but paypal fees probably if she kept it
but shes needs to inform paypal about it and they should deal with it, even if she refunded it back to the original payment email she will pay 3% + 30p i think
 
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