It started yesterday with a lovely Etsy conversation asking for the dimensions of a quilt in the shop. A little while later after sending them off, I got an email saying that I had an order...YAY!
I log into paypal and there is no transaction. Strange.
I send a convo thanking the buyer and said:
Nice right?
The buyer wrote back:
I'd also like to note here that in the order 'Kathy' asked that we embroider the baby's name on the quilt [which we lovingly do for no extra charge].
I log onto paypal today and there is still no transaction. The even stranger thing is that now I have an e-mail from paypal with a link asking me to 'click to claim the money.' So I click and I enter my username and password ... and when I look to my history there is still no transaction.
I decide that before I convo the buyer again I am going to call paypal and see if there is a glitch.
And there was.
The woman I spoke with was Lindsey. I hope that everyone that works at paypal is like her. She was super attentive and had me walk her through the scenario. Then she asked me to read the e-mail to her. As soon as I did she said "That e-mail is not from paypal."
Then I picked my jaw up off the floor.
Apparently this is a popular scam. People set up these 'mirror sites' in hopes of getting 3 things:
a.) your username;
b.) your password; and
c.) a free item [thinking you will send without payment].
Lindsey walked me through a few things like changing my password and security questions. Then she gave me a quick rundown of how paypal works [no one can EVER get your bank/credit card info - which is relieving]. Lindsey also told me a few things to look out for.
At the end of the conversation she had me send the email to spoof@paypal.com - they have a whole department that takes care of things like this. I also got a follow-up e-mail with some great paypal information and ways to protect against this in the future.
All is well that ends well. My account was not tampered with and I learned some valuable information.
7 comments:
That is terrible! I am so glad you got everything straightened out! Thank heaven for lovely customer service people!
We have an online store that uses Paypal and we've gotten those emails before. Paypal told us never ever sign in through a button on an email - go to paypal and sign in on their website always. We get so many of the spam emails now that we ignore them. If you're not used to them, it's gut wrenching to open your email and think that paypal's put a hold on all your money because of unnamed problems.
The paypal help are wonderful.
OH my gosh. This is so scary. I buy alot using PayPal - I'm going to make sure to pay attention more...I'm so glad it worked out for you!
So glad no real damage was done. I'm trying to sell something on Craig's list and all I'm getting is scam emails. Don't people have better things to do?
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'm looking forward to getting to know yours!
Oh goodness, that is crazy! I'm glad everything is OK and a great lesson shared.
OMG - that is horrible. Dishonesty like that really bothers me. I'm glad to hear that you were able to catch it and fix your account.
ok -- so i've read this a coupe of times...and am confused. was the buyer part of the scam? at any rate, so glad everything worked out + thanks for the heads up!
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