So I went through the process and said sure, sure, ok, whatever.  But then I got to the screen that told me I was denied and they couldn’t do my $10 off on this purchase.  I figured it was because they didn’t want to give me $10 off a $10.80 purchase.  Whatever, paid my $10.80 and was done.

Then about 3 weeks later, I got a letter in the mail.  “Dear Valerie…

…We regret that we are unable to approve you for the service at this time for the following reason:

The amount of your purchase required a credit bureau report.  We were unable to retrieve a report from a consumer reporting agency.

Our credit decision was based in whole or in part on information obtained in a report from the consumer-reporting agency listed below.  You have a right under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to know the information…

There are a couple of things that I find to be absolutely hilarious about this.

1). The amount of my purchase required a credit bureau report.  For $10.80!?  $10.80 required a credit bureau report!?  That’s hilarious.  I understand them wanting to get a report for opening an account period, but the letter states that the amount of purchase is what triggered getting a report.  Hilarious.

2). They couldn’t get a report on me.  I guess this isn’t all that funny, just #1 is funny.  However, it doesn’t make any sense, either, unless the reporter’s site was having trouble sending back the info to PayPal, because I KNOW that they have me on record.  I also know I don’t have bad credit (certainly not bad enough to require getting rejected on the basis of $10.80).

I just think the whole thing is funny.  I only did it because they’ve been harassing me relentlessly about it and I thought I’d take $10 off my purchase and never use the service again.

Now they’re back to harassing me about trying the service again.  I need to find out if there’s a way to say leave me alone regarding the Bill Me Later service…

So we set up a new account and started taking donations on it only to find out that we are unable to add his bank information for withdrawal or anything else. The reason? It’s already attached to the previous PayPal account. So back we go with trying to log into the old account and remove that bank account, but nope, it’s locked, can’t even log in and now the message reads: “This account has been permanently locked with a $0.00 USD balance. All information associated with this account has been blocked from the PayPal system and cannot be registered with another account.” (Thank goodness there’s no money stuck in there!)

Finally we get an email response back that helps and we’re told to email compliance@paypal.com and state in some “official” jargon that we authorize removal of bank account with the last four digits of xxxx to be removed from that account and our reasons why. That was what we were told to do and that was it. So when I was at his house the other day, I sent the email for him from his account.

The response we got back was less than helpful. Now we’re told that we have to submit a bank statement to them! I mean, really, is it PayPal’s business what’s on his bank account? I’m sure they’re using it as a way to verify that he owns the account but, really, the email was sent from his account that is associated with the PayPal account and had all of his information in it and applied to an account that one can see is not even used. So that should be enough. But to make things even more wonderful, they want us to either upload the bank statement into the account or fax it in with a specific cover letter that can be downloaded from within your account. See where this is going? We can’t get into the account!

It is so frustrating. In part, because this is just plain ridiculous and in part because they should be up front about the hoops we’re going to have to jump through to get this resolved. Stop adding new requirements whenever you want to and just tell us what is going to have to happen.

So now he has money in his new account that he can’t withdrawal and he can’t even use to pay for an Ebay auction because you still have to add bank information. Pretty ridiculous. I’m about ready to give up and I’m wondering what other payment gateways we can use to take some donations and start fresh. I’m sure I can get his money out of there even if I have to open a temporary bank account to do it. I’m hesitant to try to remove my business account from my PayPal and add it to another one but maybe that would work. Unfortunately, none of the ways I can get the money out of there are going to look good – it’s going to look like money laundering or something (which is why he’s hesitant to do anything but get his bank account removed from the old account and to the new one). And I’m also left wondering what might happen with my accounts – not because of this situation spilling over or something but because PayPal seems to wield way too much power over people.

Ugh!!

You Have One New Private Message.

To view your message, please download the form attached to this email and open it in a web browser.

Thank you, Pay,Pal.

And a file – PP-ACC.html – was attached.

There’s no virus in the file or anything like that but if you download it and run it, you’re presented with a contact form, of sorts:

So it looks pretty professional, but it’s running from your hard drive and if you fill out the form and submit it, it uses http://sosetephpone.com/tmp/bar-on.php or possibly http://sosetephpone.com/tmp/netsol-form.php to process. So if you send the form through, you’re sending all your info to those people – then you’re redirected to PayPal’s About Us page. (I did send the form through with false information telling them how much they sucked after removing the verification part of the code from the html so it would send through whatever I want. Otherwise, it tries to prompt you to enter in a valid pin, etc.)

Of course, we know from the email itself that this is NOT from PayPal. Remember, you can always tell right away because PayPal will ALWAYS ALWAYS address you as Dear First Name Last Name….

If you got this email, just spam it and/or delete it. And don’t fret, they don’t have your info already!

This has been another public service announcement, brought to you by the letters S, F, and the number 4.

Yesterday I listed my SLR camera on Craigslist. Since I have a dSLR now and the fact that I haven’t shot much film since 2004 anyway, Steve insists I try to sell it (even though I don’t want to). Anyway, within hours, I had an email from someone who was asking if it was still for sale, that it would make a great Christmas gift. Nothing about the email was suspicious, or the emails following where we discussed payment and shipping, etc.

Some might say the whole idea of shipping things with Craigslist is strange, but I actually live an hour away from the area I “subscribe” to with Craigslist, so I don’t have a problem shipping things. I always mention that I can meet the people in such-and-such areas or ship but since I often get responses from people who are on the North end of the area and I on the South end, if the item’s shippable, I assume that’s what’s gonna happen.

So the guy ends up telling me that it will be a gift for his son who’s away in college that I ship it there. I really don’t think anything of it because, again, it’s Christmastime and there was nothing red-flaggy about the emails.

But when I got the payment email this morning, I knew right away it was a scam. How?

– He “paid” me for $200 when I was asking $125 for the camera and a max of $12 for shipping.

Anytime someone sends you more money than what you are asking for, it’s a scam. I’ve never heard of this NOT being a scam.
A friend of mine who I do her website and she breeds dogs recently had this happen. Actually, I just called to verify and they’ve had it happen in excess of nine times now. Of course, it was only the first guy that got the farthest, the others were nipped in the bud right away. But basically, someone sent them a check for more than twice the cost of the dog and shipping and they were supposed to cash the check (which turned out to be a legitimate check, stolen from an airline) and give the difference to the courier who was supposedly coming to pick up the dog. Of course, if it all went to the scammer’s plan, they would have lost the dog and been out all the money when the check came back bad.

If someone sends you a check/cashier’s check/money order for than what you’re asking for and what has been agreed upon, report it right away. If the check looks legitimate, call the company or person on the check and verify. That’s how my friends found out the check was stolen, and the airline was very happy to hear where it ended up. If it comes from PayPal and it’s really in your account, report it to PayPal immediately.

– The email didn’t address me by name, it said dear [email address]

PayPal will ALWAYS address you by name. Never “dear member” or “dear anything else” – ALWAYS by your name that you have on the account. The ONLY time I have received mail from PayPal that didn’t have my name on it was when I forwarded this spoof email to spoof@paypal.com and got a response that it was fraud and thanks for forwarding it. Then they responded with Dear name that appeared on my outgoing email, aka my company name.

So any time you get an email from “PayPal” that doesn’t address you by name, just delete it, it’s fake!

– The subject line of the email was non-PayPal-typical, every word was capitalized and it had misspellings and said it was a payment for an “auction.”

Proper PayPal emails actually spell things right and usually follow the same format that is to say, basically, “Notification of Payment Received from [name] [(email address)].”

– The email header image was not the one that PayPal uses for payment notifications.

This good:

(followed by solid blue line)

This bad:

– Email said it was from Service@paypal.com

Also a dead giveaway. The email claims to be from service@paypal.com but it’s actually from some address at mail2pal.com which is apparently a free email service much like Yahoo or Hotmail.

– Shipping address was:
Name: Kevin Innocent F.
Address: #26 Peter Okoye Street Uwani,
City: ENUGU,
State: ENUGU STATE,
Zip Code: 400001
Country: NIGERIA

Need I really say more?
Now I don’t know that that’s a real address or not (Engu is a real city, the capital) but, well, I feel sorry for those legitimate Nigerians ’cause those scammers really have ruined it for them. I am very wary of anything that claims to be from Nigeria. That’s just the way it is.

But let’s say I’ve fallen for the scam? And I do ship to Nigeria? Then not only have I lost any income, but I’ve lost the camera, AND I’ve spent a buttload of money in shipping. I have a friend who was a missionary to Nigeria and now is in Niger, trust me, it’s not cheap!

– Besides all that, the bottom of the email said:

This PayPal. payment has been deducted from the buyer’s account and has been “APPROVED”but will not be credited to your account until the shipment reference/tracking number is sent to us for shipment verification and this is done to secure both the buyer and the seller against any fraudulent activities. Below are the necessary information requested before your account will be credited. Send tracking number to us or email us through this Mail paypal_service@mail2pal.com our customer service care will attend to you. As soon as you send us the shipment’s tracking number the money will be credited to your account and this is done for security purposes and the safety of the buyer and the seller.

This payment is Approved but it will stand as payment pending until we receive the shipment reference/tracking number from you.

First off, not only can you note that that paragraph has bad grammar, spacing, punctuation, etc. Second, note the bad email address to you. And third, it’s their last ditch effort to get you to fall for it. Let’s say you’ve been iffy so far. You read this paragraph and go, oh, that’s why there’s no money in my PayPal account yet.

No, it will never be in your account! Real PayPal payment notifications say this on the bottom: “Have you lifted your withdrawal and receiving limits? Just log in to your PayPal account and click View Limits on the Account Overview page. Sincerely, PayPal” At least mine do. But even beyond that, the rest of the email is just clearly not legitimate. Here is the email I got alongside an actual one I received yesterday:

You’ll have to click to get the full images.
I’m sure if you really picked at it you’ll find more reasons the email is not legitimate. Also, sorry for the pixelation, but gotta have privacy. :)

So, anyway, just another reminder, be careful out there! They wouldn’t try to pull this crap if it wasn’t productive to them on some level. And always remember, don’t just click on links in emails claiming to be from PayPal, mouse over them and see what the link really is. But more importantly, just open a new browser window/tab and type in paypal.com.

And in conclusion for me, I’m not out anything. I wasn’t going to mail anything until the money was in my account completely from PayPal anyway.

There’s a scammer out there who wants my PayPal login information! The only link in this email is a supposed “cancel this transaction link” and, strangely enough, it currently doesn’t point to a PayPal wannabe site as is typical of these emails. The link points to resultagreeent.tk, but visiting that site gives me a, “yes, this domain has already been registered,” notice and that’s about it. The thing about this guy is not just that he’s a spammer but apparently a stupid one. How can he possibly benefit from sending out these emails?

Typically these emails contain links to PayPal look-alike sites that are only set-up to steal your login information and from there your balance, credit card info, etc. So don’t click those links! They may be disguised inside of domain names, stupid things like, my–paypal–com.info or something, or they may be IP addresses and just look like random numbers, or they could be anything. I’ve heard tale of a certain get-a-phone-call-from-Santa website out there hosting PayPal scams, actually… If you are ever unsure about the veracity of a PayPal email, go to your PayPal account by typing in the address in your browser, not clicking email links!

But take a look at the email, if you’ve gotten one. Whenever you get an email that claims to be from PayPal, always look first at who is addressed. If it says, “dear Member,” like this one does, then delete it – it’s completely fake and you have nothing to worry about. A valid PayPal email will always, always, always greet you by your first and last names!

Now, that right there is enough evidence, but there is one other thing I notice about this email. In fact, I notice it before seeing the whole “dear member” thing. They hid the “to” field. My address and name are not listed as being who the email is to.

There are many more, what do YOU see? :)