Fake PayPal Payment Confirmation Emails Sent to Writers by Their "Customers"

Today I received an email from someone asking for an "update" on a project that was (supposedly) scheduled for delivery today. There's nothing for that project on my calendar so I check my email for prior messages.

The same person had contacted me for a quote a few weeks ago and then asked me to confirm payment receipt. I confirmed at the time based on a payment notice email (supposedly) from PayPal. My first thought is that I screwed up and just forgot to schedule it. Then I checked my PayPal account and see that there's absolutely no record of the payment.

Since I see that the original payment notice was in GBP instead of US dollars and that it had a link to "claim your money now," I still figure it's a real payment from a client and that it expired or something because I never claimed it. I sent the supposed client an appropriately apologetic email immediately explaining that I do all my scheduling by going through my Pay Pal account for payments received, asking him to contact PayPal, and promising either to do the project ASAP as soon as the payment is straightened out or to provide whatever assistance might be necessary from me for PayPal to figure it out and refund whatever he paid into PayPal if that's his preference.

Then I checked the email notice more carefully and notice that there's no Transaction # where all PayPal payment notices display one. So I called Pay Pal myself to find out what's going on, still thinking this might be a real client who's going to be very upset to find out that his project was never scheduled. The PayPal rep asked me for a few other details on the notice and then suggested that it's probably a bogus email based on my responses. I forwarded the original payment notice to spoof@paypal.com immediately and received confirmation shortly afterwards that it was a fake notice. I changed my PW immediately because I'd tried clicking the "claim your money now" link in that email when I still thought it was a legit payment notice that just never showed up in my account or that got cancelled because I never claimed it or whatever.

It's hardly the first time that someone who never paid me for anything emailed me urgently asking where a project was (probably hoping I might scramble to do it without checking first to confirm that it was actually paid); but it's definitely the first time anybody actually went so far as to use a spoofed "PayPal" notice.

It must be a scammer from Kenya (they may work in herds; I'm sure they are reading this thread right now). They prey on naive students and writers.

The best advice is to avoid them completely (thumbs up to the EssayChat team for introducing the country flags). If you give them even a small piece of information, they may use it against you.

Btw. There's yet another trick against freelance writers and research companies they resort to; they send fake invoices and hope that nobody notices and pays them.

Yeah, but they might not have checked here yet because now they're saying they paid from another email despite the fact that I have no payments from anybody in GBP for the whole month (let alone just on the date of the "notice"), nothing from that other email either, and PayPal already confirmed that the original "notice" email supposedly from PayPal was fake.

Just a question for the forum moderators:

Why the need to edit the title that I chose for this thread to substitute your choice of wording instead? The original title violated no rules; it referred to no individual or group; it reflected exactly the tone that I chose; and if I wanted to express myself using the word "customers" sarcastically like that (or to make it more inflammatory), I could have worded it that way myself in the first place. I'm not contesting that your TOS give you the right to edit posts as you see fit, but nobody who writes for a living appreciates having his written expressions edited arbitrarily like that.

This is an interesting post to read, and the reply by Major. Sometimes the nature of scam in this industry makes me laugh at the kind of tricks people use to scam.

I would look forward to seeing your question addressed as well.

Soon, kenyans will be blamed for rigged USA elections...I suppose you investigate the source of the mail before placing blame on kenyans.

Stay away from Kenya and Africa!


Wasn't it Russia?

Careful there. Next you'll be accused of being Kenyan

There are at least 60 people in the United States named "Ken Yan."

PayPal isn't the only service that these criminals are using to scam the clients and writers these days. With the proliferation of money transfer services, these con artists have been using various methods ranging from actual bank transfers to international remittance services. The writers usually know better these days and make sure to confirm the payment before they start working. At least the seasoned writers do that. The new writers are the ones who normally fall into the trap of fake confirmation emails.

Where are you getting your data?

Paypal, money transfers, even ewallets are prone to these scams. It is not even limited to writing companies and freelancers. These spoof emails cast a wide net. News programs are constantly reminding people to be vigilant of these scams. Now they are spoofing GMail as well. All we can do is be extra careful and not click on links in any email. We have to educate ourselves when it comes to identifying spoof emails.

Exactly.