PayPal Scams: Common type of scams

Very popular for online payments and especially thanks to its guarantee feature, Paypal inspires confidence. It is from this fact that scammers have decided to use its image to set up scams and thus trap unsuspecting Internet users.

We explain here the 2 main scams that rely on the notoriety of the famous payment intermediary.

The most common scam is the Phishing: scammers massively distribute emails with the image of Paypal and invite you to come and enter your credentials on a fake site. The scammer then gets your login information and can connect to your account to empty it. To avoid this, you just have to be particularly careful about the sender's email address and not to click on the internal link of the document. If you have any doubts, just check the official website. It is only on this site that you have to login!

The second scam using the Paypal logo is used for transactions between individuals, particularly on classified ad sites. The scammers use fake websites or emails to trap sellers and buyers:

• If you are a seller, the scammer will send you a fake email confirming the transfer in your name. The most advanced forms even use fake "PayPal" sites to make it more credible.
• If you are a buyer, they will ask you to make a transfer to them. To do this, they will send you the address of their fake website (the same as the one used for phishing).

Bonus tip: Some scammers invite buyers to use the real Paypal platform to get paid, but encourage you to check the "friends and family payment" option. This is a trap because, in this case, the insurance integrated to Paypal is not able to cover you and the recovery of funds is not possible!

On this page you will find many examples of scams that are similar to the ones explained above.

If you are a witness or a victim of a scam that uses the image of Paypal, we invite you to report it using this online form.