Scam watch: PayPal T&Cs exploited to defraud seller

I must admit I’m equally confused. How did the victim not check who had transferred the money? I admit it was a very slick scam but surely more careful checking would have revealed the problem? The Police said no crime had been committed, but surely fraudulent misrepresentation had occurred? Yes – the members’ daughter had the cash n her account, but the person who took the laptop in effect stole it, as it wasn’t her who’d provided the cash. A lot of unanswered questions…

I can’t see how any bank details have been passed on, simple fraud

Person A selling laptop
Person B says they want to buy and asks for paypal details
Person B advertises iPhone
Person C buys iPhone and pays money to Person A’s Paypal account
Person A hands over laptop to Person B
Person C complains iPhone not delivered

Person C gets refund as iPhone doesn’t exist, person B has laptop, person A has lost out.

Person C doesn’t know who they have paid other than Paypal address, Person A likewise

Yes – so far as I can see this was a telephone trick. I can’t find any suggestion that PayPal had been hacked.

I am innocent of this form of trading so I don’t know how PayPal set out their terms and conditions, but they ought to make bold and highlight the rules about handing over articles for sale – (a) what should buyers present as verifiable proof of identity, and (b) what identity checks should sellers carry out on their doorsteps; and what is the procedure when (a) doesn’t satisfy (b)? And what rules do Gumtree have – why are PayPal calling all the shots?

As my post says Beryl- -quote- “whats the point ” ( of my post ) that Paypal is not secure . What you are dealing with here Beryl is the technical means used to access somebodies account in Paypal there is no “simple ” way of putting it , much as I would like to simplify it I would need to go through it a step at a time and therefore provide a means for all Which viewers to become hackers.

John , once the hack occurred the scammer THEN had the ability to call Paypal and arrange the transaction as the convo said -quote- the scammer provided my daughters bank details .

No hacking was required in this case. The scammer already had the bank details for the fraudulent iPhone sale because she had offered to buy the laptop. There was no iPhone for sale – that was the ruse. What we don’t know is who collected the laptop.

I agree with Ian. This was a criminal act and the police should have pursued it back through Gumtree’s and PayPal’s records.

No hacking needed at all. Paypal was secure. Fraud was because you should never hand over goods in person for a Paypal transaction, send by post or accept cash on collection

Paypal hold all your bank details anybody gaining access to Paypal then has the ability to influence money transactions. Unless somebody is saying they were obtained by accessing the bank or somebody intercepted any transactions taking place on the web to obtain the bank details . This isnt a case of the bank details appearing out of thin air.

Agreed, Malcolm. Tommy Cooper used to do pieces like that . . . well, not like that . . . his tricks made sense.

Duncan, PayPal was brought into the case by trickery. They were used by the woman who wanted to buy the laptop to give credence to the fake sale to an accomplice of a non-existent iPhone in order to get back the money she had paid for the laptop. The accomplice got the money back for the false iPhone sale and the scammer got the laptop for nothing. The laptop buyer and the accomplice could have been the same person. If the laptop was going to be collected then the seller could have insisted on cash instead of a money transfer, but we have a psychological tendency to trust someone who has agreed to pay us for something.

You guessed right Beryl.

Good point Beryl. I wonder if a court would decide that PayPal’s terms were not legally binding under Pt 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Terms must be fair – not weighting the contract unfairly against the consumer. They must be transparent (if written) – enabling the consumer to make informed choices for instance using clear, jargon-free language consumers can understand [HMG Guidance]. I think even a High Court judge would stumble over this case but it’s time some of these labyrinthine terms and conditions were put to the test. PayPal can afford the best lawyers to tie the customer up in knots in order to deter any claims against the company and drag out any legal action until the claimants run out of money.

If you dont mind a slight deviation from the convo but directly related to your post John . Britain’s culture of secrecy and information denial could be fueling widespread corruption – Transparency international . Hackney Borough invested in projects costing £14 million but the documents were so heavily redacted that it was impossible to tell who received the cash the NGO could only decipher around one third of cases .The “counting the pennies ” study found that it was so complex it defied analysis –information presented with –quote- no fewer than 81,057 different column names used by public authorities to describe how the money was spent . Director Duncan Hames said it was so blurry it could succor and protect corrupt individuals. The study analyzed £2.3 Trillion of publicly available transactions by local government – 2011 – 2015 .

I am not sure how your comments are related to my remarks on unfair terms and the CRA nor to the PayPal scam. And I do not accept that the UK has a “culture of secrecy and information denial”.

There is a Freedom of Information Act and an Information Commissioner.
Most official bodies are transparent and forthcoming.
Government writes in plain English.
Transparency International UK is described as an NGO as though that makes it in some way official but it is not a government organisation and is not acting on behalf of the UK government; it therefore has no powers of disclosure or examination of legally withheld information.
If £2.3 trillion of contracts were examined and only £14 million attracted comment as possibly open to corruption that sounds fairly creditable to me.
I have no knowledge of the matters you are referring to at Hackney Council but I
presume the council offered a justification, which has not been reported, for redacting text in documents in accordance with the law.
The council, or if necessary the court, could authorise disclosure to official investigators.
All local authorities are subject to independent external audit and the public has a right to inspect all relevant documents before the audit commences.

I note that Transparency International UK states publicly that “whilst public finance transparency is much better in the UK than many other places globally, poor quality, inaccessible and redacted data is preventing the public, journalists and investigators from scrutinising public spending”. I think that is a fair comment as there is always room for improvement.

Interesting though this might be to some, I don’t think we should deflect attention away from the appalling scams that seem to be associated with private buying and selling through the internet, and how American companies like e-Bay and PayPal [now separate but previously joined at the hip] have terms and conditions that make it difficult for buyers and sellers to receive fair treatment when their transactions go wrong, and do not have robust measures in place to prevent and act against dishonest trading.

I think the error here is saying “bank details”. No bank details appear to be given, it’s purely Paypal account not bank info.

Thats who I get emails from Ian -Kreb – and who said man had a “superior ” brain ? – Thats some bit of intrigue by a female .

Shame that great brain wasn’t applied to an honest purpose in life.

Thanks for the partial elucidation, Joe, but your header says this:

“‘They agreed and the scammer provided them with my daughter’s bank details.

So from that it would seem that bank details were exchanged. Or your header is wrong.

Ian – thats what got me confused , as has been said , when you join Paypal you must provide details of your bank account to them thats why I thought it had been hacked either Paypal direct or the daughter,s through less than secure Internet practice or her computer or device was hacked . But I seem to be outvoted here on that point.

To be honest the real story seems very different from what’s been printed above. Joe says only Paypal details were exchanged, yet the headline article claims Bank details were exchanged in at least two separate places. Joe needs to address this as it seems the entire story above is laced with inaccuracies and confusion. Why do we want accuracy? Because this article purports to be about avoiding scams, yet the information in it is somewhat inaccurate, to put it mildly.

Ian- I have read over the years and even recently on “security issues ” websites that it is not the policy of big banks to devulge that they have been hacked nor for that matter Paypal or websites that are seemingly “secure ” , in most cases they pay out just to keep it from the public . I also know our own security departments wont devulge much info to the public and I know of some of the means they use to trace people but also they too dont like lowering public confidence . I couldnt post a few of the cases that showed ,shall we say, less than secure practices by institutions that are held in regard. Maybe this is a case here but its all supposition isnt it ? Your right of coarse we need a full defining answer to this to allay public confidence.

Credit card fraud is published, from my recollection. If the data is true of course. I don’t see why bank account, or PayPal fraud should be withheld.

Maybe if they had put Noddy’s friend Mr Plod onto the case he may have come up with a better solution 🙂

He may have suggested that any potential scammer can deduce that the ordinary man in the street on his patrol can (a) read all of Paypals T&C’s and (b) understand them.

Oooops! A slight correction should read “DOES NOT read all of Paypals T&C’s and understands them.”

See how easy it is to put the wrong information on line. I suggest the problem with any online contribution – Convo, email, bank account details – is that it is all too easy to send it before we’ve properly reviewed it, and we then don’t look at it again as a routine. We need some way to review before we send like “read this carefully before you press submit” or “………….post comment”. It is just too instantaneous and the damage is then done. It took a while, if you remember, to get an edit facility – albeit for only 15 minutes – on Convo, thanks to @patrick.

We do need the edit time extending. Long posts need studying in a different setting, because one often misses summat that appears fine in the original composition.

The Member Community forum allows editing at any time, which is handy. The claimed downside is that the gist of a comment can be changed after replies are received.

Beryl, your last paragraph reminds of a cartoon of the misinterpretation to build a swing. If you goggle images for ‘The project management tree swing’ you will see what I mean.

Brilliant stuff alfa! Is this why my addled old brain keeps telling me to type Alpha instead of alfa 🙂 ?????

I’m sure you can do beta, Beryl. 🙂

I have no iota Wavechange of whether you meant better or beater 🙂

This is an early version. There are colour ones.

Glad you liked it Beryl. I think there is only one of me on here whichever spelling you use, so don’t worry about it.

Malcolm’s version is the one I remember, but I see there are modernised versions around now.

Looks like Ms Hunniford has been listening, Ian – she has started a new Conversation for us on scams using banks.

Spot on Ian. When accepting payment by Paypal never allow collection in person, always cash on collection

Both the laptop and the iPhone were advertised on Gumtree. As I said at the beginning, if the laptop was going to be collected there was no need for any money transfers and stories about not having a bank accoint. The buyer should have turned up with the cash – not doing that should have rung an alarm bell somewhere.

Sounds like a case for DCI Banks.

But we’re still missing vital facts, surely? We still don’t know

1. If bank details were exchanged
2. If Paypal was used
3. Why the victim accepted the absurd story that the scammer had to transfer the money to the victim’s account when she was clearly able to pick the laptop up
4. Why Paypal say it’s the victim’s fault if their system was used to perpetrate a fraud
5. Why the Police said no crime has been committed.

I don’t think anyone should be attempting to suggest solutions until we’re reasonably certain about what actually occurred. And that’s the one thing about which we can be sure: we don’t know what actually happened.