Attention, a new, particularly perfidious scam is currently circulating at PayPal: Criminals are now acting directly in the app and in the accounts of the payment service and want to rip off users.
PayPal customers have been repeatedly warned of fraud in recent weeks. Messages and invoices are sent on a large scale via e-mail in order to obtain sensitive data or the recipient’s money.
The consumer advice center had repeatedly warned of phishing attacks in which deceptively real e-mails were sent in the name of PayPal. In the messages, for example, the scammers shared that a payment of €7.99 was allegedly being made to Netflix or that the account had been restricted due to suspicious activity, which required identity verification.
However, the e-mails were always recognizable by the fact that recipients were not addressed personally by name. But now the Watchlist Internet portal, which specializes in Internet fraud , is warning of a new, particularly insidious scam.
Fake invoices directly in the user account
It’s fake invoices. However, users of the payment service will not only be sent them by e-mail as before, but according to the experts also directly in their PayPal app or in their account. This could suggest to some that these are real invoices.
Because anyone who normally doubts the authenticity of e-mails is usually advised by experts not to click on anything in the e-mail and instead to register directly on the website of the respective provider or their banking app.
If there is no message there, you can be sure that the e-mail is a phishing attack.”Usually, the invoices cannot be found there and the case is thus resolved. However, in a current scam, criminals issue invoices via PayPal, which not only appear in the e-mail inbox, but actually also in the open PayPal invoices,” warns Watchlist Internet .
Also, beware of a second trap in the bills
The fact that the invoices are not only sent by email, but can also be found in the PayPal account or in the app, is due to the fact that retailers can also use the payment service to send invoices and payment reminders. “So in order for the criminals to send the fraudulent invoices, it’s enough to know your email address associated with the PayPal account.”
And according to the experts, there is another trap lurking in the bill. Because invoice issuers can add a “Notice from the seller to the customer” or “Seller note to Customer” in English to each message. The criminals would currently take advantage of this and ask them to dial a phone number in order to clear up any misunderstandings or cancel the bill. “Only under the fraudulent message can you find a real warning from PayPal, which reveals that it could be fraud, no phone call is necessary and no automated debit is made,” explains Watchlist Internet .
This is how they behave properly
The experts advise simply ignoring invoices with an unknown background, since automatic debits do not take place and urgently warn against dialing telephone numbers contained in the messages.
Watchlist Internet advises those who have already fallen for the scam to contact PayPal customer service to see if the money can be recovered. “If, on the other hand, the money can no longer be retrieved, we must advise the police to report it.”
(c) Sandra Alter
