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I just got an email from ""PayPal"" which starts out as follows: "As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the
PayPal system. We recently noticed the following issue on your account:We would like to ensure that your account was not accessed by an
unauthorized third party. Because protecting the security of your
account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive PayPal
account features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please
understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection."I tried to close out my Paypal account recently without success, which is proof that either there are attempts to scam me by those pretending to be Paypal, or that Paypal itself is unreliable/unresponsive. Now I get this supposedly from Paypal. I'd like to get others' opinions as to whether this is from Paypal, another scam or both before deciding whether and how to respond. Regardless, I want to close out my Paypal account and would appreciate advice from others how to sidestep the scammers when doing so. Regardless of Paypal's actual or perceived integrity among other Aylum Inmates, scammers have poisoned that well for me and I want nothing to do with Paypal henceforth.
TIA -
Tom Dawson
Follow Ups:
Hi,I have just been getting the same emails. If you check the internet links on the email, you will see that it is not a PayPal address (just place your poniter on the link and see the address that shows on the bottom). But if click the link it will take you to a site that looks exactly like PayPal's which of course asks for your credit card info to reverify your account. I am just amaze at how creative scammer can get.
Beware and be careful.
Addicted to Tubes
The fact that Paypal doesn't shut these scammers down reflects poorly on Paypal itself. It shows that Paypal has no concern for its customers beyond taking their money.
How do you expect PayPal to shut them down? And them - whom? Who are those scammers that need to be shut down? They can try to shut down a server. But... Even if you shut down one server, they will have another up and running in 5 minutes - that's Internet, don't forget about it. C'mon, PayPal can do things to try to solve the problem by educating people, but they don't even have an authority to SHUT them down. PayPal is a payment processor, not a law enforcement agency. ;)
Paypal should find out where these scammers are operating from, then contact whichever governmental agencies has purview over such activities to shut them down. Repeatedly, if necessary.Right now, Paypal is reacting exactly like the Chicago CTA spokesman a few years back who, when asked about the CTA's official attitude to a commuter who was mugged on one of their trains: 'Well, that's not our concern.' The resulting public outcry made the CTA see things very differently right after this insensistive response.
Hmmm. Find out where they are operating from? And how do you expect them to do that, may I ask you? Please understand that it is very difficult and almost impossible to do anything like that. Even if you are law enforcement agency. And PayPal, like I said, is NOT a law inforcement agency. They do not have an AUTHORITY to do things like that. They can report accidents of fraud to appropriate authorithies - and I believe they do. But besides that they are very limited.To give you a scope on the level of difficulty of the task you are asking them to do, let me give you a simple example. Let's assume I am a scammer. I buy anonimously a list of "private proxies" from someone on the Web - that's a list of somebody's machines infected with troyans that can work as proxies. Now I do all my scamming activity, say, from Moscos, via a CHAIN of those proxies, let's say, 5 in 5 different countries. Computer owners are not even aware that something is going on. Let's say I manage to get a bunch of suckers that click on the link in my scam emails and enter their real login/password info (of course I host the scammers website where I collect the data, on legitimate hosting provider, but I pay with a stolen credit card). I get to their accounts via this chain of proxies, and transfer the money to a separate account. Then I use one of automated e-currency exchanges to transfer the stuff to egold, then to something else, then to webmoney, and finally I get cash in Moscow from legitimate webmoney agent.
Now let's say PayPal has recorder the transaction and got the IP address of the last machine in the chain. It is a computer in Singapore. How do you expect them to find out the rest of the stuff - the computer owner is an innocent sucker who doesn't even know he's got a troyan. Besides, like I said, PayPal can not even APPROACH the person with a request to investigate anything - doesn't have an authority. PayPal files a case with law enforcement people. They finally manage via their colleagues in Singapore to find the sucker (computer owner whose machine was used to access PayPal) only to find out that he is just an innocent lover of free porn who got infected on one of free porn sites. Of course his computer doesn't have ANY logs - this type of troyans don't keep logs of activity, as you understand. Let's say by some sort of miracle they manage to get his ISP logs (most likey they were deleted months ago, but let's say they did manage to get an IP address of the machine that connected to sucker's computer).
Guess what? That's ANOTHER innocent sucker infected by troyan, this time from Chile. And there is 4 more in chain - in UK, France, Belorussia and Indonesia. And the initial connection was made from a computer on a dialup connection with a pre-paid cellular account (anonymous) and with prepaid internet card.
And if they try to investigate a website - it was, like I said, paid with a stolen card, and access to the hosting server where I put my scam site, was made through another chain of "private" proxies. ;)))
NOW you tell me how do you expect PayPal to find out WHO they are, Iam not even asking about shutting them down. The things you are asking are IMPOSSIBLE. They only thing PayPal can do is to report fraud to authorities, and try to educate their users.
Scammers do the same phishing thing with banks, too. Does this mean that banks should start playing detectives and try to "find out who are the scammers and shut them down"? No way. It is simply impossible. Technically and physically impossible.
I don't like PayPal myself (and their customer service do suck big time), but I look at the situaton realistically. There is NO WAY they can do anything. The only possibility (and very slight, by the way) to catch the scammers is to follow the money chain and see where it ends. However, with 1000's ways to get money out anonymously these days, it is almost impossible task. And definitely not what PayPal can do alone.
And while there are suckers, there will be scam. Always. It is a human nature and I don't think anything can be done about it. All you can do is to try to educate people around you, and educate yourself.
As for scammers - believe me, they will pay. Sooner or later, they will pay. And they will pay it all - that's universal law. Scammers are poor idiots, they just don't understand that they sign own death warrant. ;)
Thanks for the detailed explanation, but I don't really buy that intelligent applications of Sniffer type tools couldn't isolate and trace these spoofs from whatever network nodes that they pass through and eventually isolate the ISP, if not the particular user from which this abuse emanates.
It is next to impossible to trace due to the resources required & PayPal does not have those tools within the US. Our US Gov't does have the resources to find persons.As for overseas emails, PayPal is again helpless as the local gov't of authority usually does nothing. Parts Africa & all of Romania are good examples of gross lawlessness.
PayPal does nothing to protect sellers if just one of three details below are not correct regarding item never received claims. Per PayPal-
1- Must ship within seven days
2- Buyer must have confirmed address
3- Seller must prove shippingThe newer overseas (outside of US) trick is to buy fairly expensive items with an uncomfirmed PayPal address. If you miss one of the three items, you still lose. Be aware most overseas buyers have uncomfirmed PayPal addresses!
Of course, other PayPal fraud options exist beyond item not received.
A link would be just fine to a statistics of non-US buyers having confirmed vs. unconfirmed address. ;)))A lot of foreign buyers have a confirmed address. Besides, PayPal won't let you send more than a certain (rather small) amount of money UNLESS you confirm your address. So, paying with PayPal for an expensive item would be quite a problem...
I get a PayPal unauthorized activity notification almost everyday in my email 'in box'. I ignore it.
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the message said this was from service@paypal--and that I added a new email address --it was jerry54@aol.com--I have no idea who did this but please cancel my account. thank you judy couvillon
my Paypal account too. No success. Let us know if you accomplish it. As for the message, ignore it. I get that message every week at least.....
How is it possible to be unable to eliminate paypal account? It is done automatically in TWO minutes.All you needed to do is to go to Help, enter "close account" in search box, and instantly learn following:
=================================================================
How do I close my PayPal account?You can close your PayPal account from your Profile. If you close your account, all of your outstanding transactions will be cancelled immediately.
Here's How:
Click the My Account tab.
Click the Profile subtab.
Click the Close Account link in the Account Information column.
Click Continue.
If you wish to continue, click Close Account.
==================================================================
Thanks for the info. I walked far enough through your instructions to satisfy myself that almost all the 'Paypal' emails I was getting were from the little spoof mother sh*t eaters and mother sh*t f*ckers, so I decided not to close my Paypal account after all. But I still intend never to use it unless as an absolute last resort.
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