Paypal Fraud

RLH33

Over the last few days I have received two emails from Paypal, from their official email address, stating that a $25 payment has been made to two different individuals via Ko-fi.com (which is apparently a website a bit like Patreon) using my card.  They have my address, email address and card number.  The payments are pending on my bank account so this isn't simply a case of a phishing email.  The customer name is part of my surname - it is a very unusual name.

This has coincided with other fraudulent activity on the card so the bank has cancelled it.  However they would not refund these two transactions as they say I have to go to Paypal to dispute it first.

Now I do have a PayPal account but the transactions are not showing on there, the emails ask me to open a PayPal account so are obviously using PayPal just for the transaction rather than via any existing account.

I am going round in circles with Paypal though, I have rung them and they keep saying the transactions are not on my account and I can't seem to get past the AI 'gatekeeper' to speak to a person.   I have now gone round in the same circles with the online chat bot, I have even told them the transaction number but as it is not listed on my account they say its not there and refer me to advice about phishing emails.  I have however managed to get the discussion referred to customer services who apparently will email me back.

While I am waiting for them to respond is there anything else I can try to sort this out?

TimeLord1

Do you have the card linked to PayPal if so you can remove that from PayPal so nothing is linked. Also it's easy to close and open a new one. PayPal can only check the Data on the account I think your card may have been cloned using an external Cash machine or reader. Quite a lot of that lately.

TimeLord1

Also did you message Kofi.com I believe they operate across social media for websites.

They operate on X, YouTube and Instagram 

PRAISETHESUN

Personally I'd be logging a complaint with your bank. They might not be able to do anything with the pending payment until it clears, but once it does I'd be stressing that the transactions are fraudulent and are not associated with any PayPal account that you control. It's lazy on the bank's end and they are passing the buck by asking you to contact the retailer and payment processor.

It's unlikely you'll get anywhere with PayPal/Kofi, as you are not their customer and (rightfully so) they won't be allowed to talk to you about the transactions.

RLH33

TimeLord1 said:

Do you have the card linked to PayPal if so you can remove that from PayPal so nothing is linked. Also it's easy to close and open a new one. PayPal can only check the Data on the account I think your card may have been cloned using an external Cash machine or reader. Quite a lot of that lately.

This is the silly thing, the card is not linked to my PayPal account, in fact this card is hardly ever used so we are really struggling to understand how it was cloned but it quite clearly has been!

RLH33

PRAISETHESUN said:

Personally I'd be logging a complaint with your bank. They might not be able to do anything with the pending payment until it clears, but once it does I'd be stressing that the transactions are fraudulent and are not associated with any PayPal account that you control. It's lazy on the bank's end and they are passing the buck by asking you to contact the retailer and payment processor.

It's unlikely you'll get anywhere with PayPal/Kofi, as you are not their customer and (rightfully so) they won't be allowed to talk to you about the transactions.

Thanks, I will wait for the payments to go through and then log a complaint with the bank (First Direct), I have also emailed Ko-fi so we'll see if they email back.

An interesting point in all this is that the card was also added to a google pay account which the bank emailed us to tell us about, but as we use Apple Pay I think we assumed it was a phishing email.  However, as we didn't act on that email the bank are refusing to refund the fraudulent transaction that was made using the Google Pay.  As it was only £40 it's not such a worry, luckily the system declined a £1,300 purchase though!

sausage_time

I think I'd be complaining to the bank about the Google Pay transaction too.  As you say that must have been added with the cloned card details (including CVV).

RLH33

sausage_time said:

I think I'd be complaining to the bank about the Google Pay transaction too.  As you say that must have been added with the cloned card details (including CVV).

Thanks for your message, do you think it's worth it?  In some respects I think it's only £40 but then, as you say, the fraudster must have cloned the card somehow to upload it to Google pay.  Still puzzled as to how it happened as the card really is hardly ever used either in person or online!

PRAISETHESUN

RLH33 said:

sausage_time said:

I think I'd be complaining to the bank about the Google Pay transaction too.  As you say that must have been added with the cloned card details (including CVV).

Thanks for your message, do you think it's worth it?  In some respects I think it's only £40 but then, as you say, the fraudster must have cloned the card somehow to upload it to Google pay.  Still puzzled as to how it happened as the card really is hardly ever used either in person or online!

It's the principle of the matter. If you don't challenge it, then the bank will assume you've authorised it, and be more likely to let other similar things go unchallenged in future.

onxy1997

Hi, this has happened to me too. I returned home from Crete on Monday  and received 2 emails thanking me for my donation to ko-fi. I was at the airport at the time of the receipt so I know I didn't buy anything other than at the duty free. I had never head of ko-fi until that point. The transactions were to ko-fi through paypal but not via my paypal account, it was through my bank card. There are no records on my paypal account, it only shows on my bank statement. There were two transactions for $37.I have no idea how this happened but the bank has refunded me. Hope this helps.

TimeLord1

Sometimes these but me a coffee links are added to a lot of sites even YouTube channels and sometimes if you bought something a tick box option to agree opt out.  And how many people read terms and conditions when buying anything nowadays. Either way you should be able to track it and get it stopped.