PayPal fraud, part two

I mentioned last week that I received a strange payment via PayPal that appeared to be fraudulent. I rejected the payment, and then the buyer decided to send me $1.20 instead of $0.20. I accepted that payment just to see what would happen.

Sure enough, it was fraud. I got email from PayPal today confirming my suspicion.

Dear Michael Radwin,

It has come to our attention that you may be the recipient of potentially fraudulent funds. We have initiated an investigation into this event. In the meantime, we have placed a pending reversal on the funds in question until the investigation is complete. This pending reversal will show as a deduction in your available balance. In the meantime, you are free to continue transacting using your PayPal account.

Transaction Date: Mar. 8, 2004 21:03:59 PST

Transaction Amount: $1.20 USD

In the past couple of weeks I’ve received several of these transactions (more recently they seem be sending $1.00 instead of $0.20), and many have the distinguishing feature that the person sending the money’s name is spelled out in CAPITAL LETTERS only.

KENT CORZINE

SHAWN STINGEL

MIHAIL NEHOROSHEV

DONALD BIGGS

Moreover, all of them have @yahoo.com email addresses. If you’re going to try to commit fraud, you’ve gotta do a better job of looking like a legit user.

2 thoughts on “PayPal fraud, part two”

  1. Ange

    “This pending reversal will show as a deduction in your available balance.”

    What exactly is “pending” about that?

    Paypal is the only web place that has ever resulted in the theft of my credit card. It happenned twice. I send Money Orders now. But it’s nice to know they actually keep an eye out for fraud.

    -Ange

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