Paypal scam?

[dennis thompson]

i Got a call saying my paypal was charged for $399.99 and was given a number to call if I hadn't made that charge. I hadn't but I didn't call the number they gave me. I looked up Paypal and called them directly and there was no charge for that amount. I also called my credit card company, and they didn't have a charge for that amount either. I guess it was a scam but I'm wondering how it would have worked if I did call them back?

[Brian Elfert]

They probably would have needed your account number to credit back the $399.99, or needed your social security number to access your account. Paypal is an online company at heart. Paypal would probably send you an email or text before they called you. Paypal might very well ask you to log into your account to see your message.

[Barry McFadden]

I constantly get calls in the morning supposedly from my credit card company. They leave a message that there is a $300.00 charge from Amazon and a $1200.00 charge from another company. It's been going on for months.... same message every time.

[Bob Turkovich]

We had a similar call yesterday only it was from Amazon. $1279.99 charge on my credit card listed in my Amazon account. Checked online both my Amazon account and credit card account and found nothing. Googled the phone number that the recording said to call and it was some medical insurance company.

[Jim Koepke]

My tactic, until recently, was to answer the phone and say hello. Many of the scam callers have a system that has a pause before their system connects. I would wait for the person on the other end to say hello and hang up.

Lately it was discovered most telemarketers who call my number will disconnect after the third ring without leaving a message. My thought is they do not want to leave a message.

Since they have no honor and call sometimes before 6:00am we have turned all but one ringer on our phones off. The remaining one is turned low enough that it doesn't usually wake us.

These mutton heads make telephones almost useless.

jtk

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Unless we are up late like last night, I get up at 0600 while my wife likes to sleep in until 1100 or later thus, after I get up, I take the home phone off the hook until 1100. It rings busy until I put it back on the hook.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Unfortunately, I do get calls every few months from my credit card company asking if I or Mrs. made a charge at such and such. Somehow an old credit card number for us is floating around and stupid people attempt to use the number. The last was a 22 yr old trying to buy $140 worth of baby stuff at the mall. The police station is across the street and she was picked up while i was on the phone with the credit card company and the store. The officer called and asked if I wanted to press charges. Sure. Happened four more times. The number has been expired since 2014.

[glenn bradley]

I looked up Paypal and called them directly . . .

This. Always. Do not reply to suspicious emails, calls, texts, etc. If you want to know what's going on extract yourself from the thread, call, text thing you are on and use a side channel to check with the actual company. Well done!

[Keith Westfall]

Had the same issue over an Amazon charge. He wanted me to log on to amazon .com and then go to another link. I asked him to send me an email on it and he hung up...

[Scott Clausen]

I get so many scam calls at my office it is difficult to get any real work done. My favorite is the "power utility is going to disconnect the power for non payment". This is most likely to be followed up by a request to buy a gift debit card for whatever amount they want. I put them on speaker and mess with them to waste their time while I keep working. After I waste enough time I explain that I live off the grid and only have solar power but I don't want them to turn off the sun. Click!

[Chuck Wintle]

i Got a call saying my paypal was charged for $399.99 and was given a number to call if I hadn't made that charge. I hadn't but I didn't call the number they gave me. I looked up Paypal and called them directly and there was no charge for that amount. I also called my credit card company, and they didn't have a charge for that amount either. I guess it was a scam but I'm wondering how it would have worked if I did call them back?

I have had similar calls usually for a credit card purchase. Ignore them as paypal will never phone you. its a scam and by calling them it confirms to them that areal person is at that number.

[Ron Citerone]

My wife attended a talk given by a man who is in the business of computer/phone security. One point he made loud and clear is that everytime you answer a scam call, someone is keeping track that you have a legitimate phone, and the time that you answered. Future scammers use that info to target you at times you are likely to answer. So, while you might try to be clever and mess with the scammers, you are also giving information about your availability and willingness to answer unkown numbers, encourging more calls.

On a side note, he said card readers at gas pumps are way more common than people think. Any time a card reader seems even slightly larger than the others at other pumps they are most likely nefarious card reading devices. They ususally put them at the pumps farthest from view of the clerks in the store and they only take a few minutes to install.

[John K Jordan]

I don’t get calls like that (maybe because I never answer the phone) but I do get emails like that about big charges. They all go to spam. I regularly monitor my accounts and have never seen an unauthorized charge.


i Got a call saying my paypal was charged for $399.99 and was given a number to call if I hadn't made that charge. I hadn't but I didn't call the number they gave me. I looked up Paypal and called them directly and there was no charge for that amount. I also called my credit card company, and they didn't have a charge for that amount either. I guess it was a scam but I'm wondering how it would have worked if I did call them back?

[Jerome Stanek]

I got a call saying that I bought some Apple stuff and wanted to know if this was the case I just said yes that is right and they got upset and hung up

[Barry McFadden]

There has been a warning going around that you should never say "yes" to these scammers because they can use a recording of that and make it appear that you agreed to whatever they want you to agree to. They may have hung up because they got what they needed.... you saying "yes"

[Kev Williams]

When I buy anything online I immediately get an email from the seller, usually Amazon or eBay, but even with one-off buys I'll get an email from the seller. If I DON'T is when I worry...!

Scam calls, I have a Tracfone I use pretty much ONLY to comm with the wife, that phone never gets scam calls. The wife's iPhone, she simply doesn't answer most calls she doesn't recognize. Most scam calls she DOES answer are usually recorded messages, so she just hangs up. The only in-person calls are the 'you're social security account is bad and you're about to be arrested' calls. She just hangs up...

As to 'your account has been charged' phone calls, it's been my experience that unless the bank calls and says 'come to the bank', those types of calls are bogus.

As to accurate info about your buys: Awhile back I noticed our credit score kept dropping. Started happening after I paid off most of our loans and ALL our credit cards. We weren't putting anything on charge cards or borrowing money, which causes the score to drop. I inadvertently discovered a neat trick that insures that I'm alerted to all sales, AND boosts the credit score: Whenever possible, I pay thru Paypal- and, my Paypal default payment method is now one of my bank's Visa credit cards, which I have set up to auto-pay $1000 per month. The result: I always get a record of the sale immediately emailed to me, in most cases I pay no interest, our credit score slowly goes up, and my bank's "rewards points" just keep piling up - which isn't exactly chicken feed, it's gone up 4000 points in the past year, and each point is worth 10 cents towards anything I buy using Paypal to pay. Amazon doesn't do Paypal, but I recently switched from using my debit card to the same credit card for Amazon payments. I'm past $900 worth of reward points right now, our credit score is almost topped out again, and between my bank, Amazon and Paypal I have stellar records of everything we buy. All the above, and keeping daily tabs on our bank activity seems to work well for us lately.

[Bill Dufour]

In the last month I have gotten several odd scam calls on my voice mail. They seem to purposely act like I missed the introduction portion. Sounds like I broke into the call after they announced who they were.
Interesting they warn me my "services" may be cut off. But no mention of what those services might be. I suppose that is more likely to get a call back then telling me my services from XYZ company may be cut off wehn I do not use the XYZ company for anything.
Bill D

[Jerome Stanek]

I didn't actually say yes I said that is correct when asked.

[Ronald Blue]

I almost never answer a call from a number that is not in my contact list. Many legitimate businesses even if they aren't in the contact list will show also. I haven't gotten any calls lately about my car warranty and I'm getting worried they don't care about me anymore. I look at the spam folder in my email accounts regularly and I apparently won a 25,000 dollar settlement in a lawsuit I never participated in. That and several emails daily about my anti virus subscription expiring. That seems to be the most prevalent spam lately. Who your phone carrier is with is irrelevant because the robo calls just call numbers at random. The only thing is they try to pretend that they are in your area code to make it seem legitimate.

[Alan Rutherford]

I didn't actually say yes I said that is correct when asked.

Or you can say "Who's calling?" That's pretty rude but 99 times out of 100 it's someone I don't mind being rude to.

Most of the time I say nothing. If I don't hear something that sounds friendly and human in about half a second after I say "Hello", I'm done. If it doesn't sound right when I pick up the phone, I don't even get that far.