It was in the wee small hours of Sunday when the email came through from PayPal. It said that there was a payment that I needed to authorise. A money request in other words.
Because I was exhausted and I had searched all over the PayPal site and couldn't find a phone number anywhere (seriously PayPal where the hell do you hide the contact details - if I had seen your number I would have phoned that instead and I wouldn't have almost been scammed), I stupidly phoned the number on the message (see photo) that was sent to my PayPal account. And so the scam was on..
It started with a Paypal money request
Under the guise of being customer service at PayPal, I was put through a process of confirming my account which was very similar to checks I'd had before when I was the victim of fraud and contacted by the police. On that occasion, I had made a purchase from an online store and their receipts had been stolen during a break in - someone who worked in the shop had written down full card numbers with expiry dates and security codes.
This time, I was asked for things like the last transaction date and amount paid. I was told this was to verify my Identity and so the customer service person I spoke to could find any other fraudulent activity on my account. According to him, there were half a dozen other payments on my account that looked suspect. Throughout this all, the person I was speaking to came across as professional and caring. He even gave me advice on how to avoid my phone being hacked in the future.
Surprisingly, at no point was I asked for any password. Maybe they didn't ask for any log in details because they quite rightly thought I would be suspicious.
It's a con
When I realised it, I wanted to hide away
I only realised I was being scammed when the man on the phone told me he had sent a request to my bank to cancel all of the past payments to a certain person in Germany. To do this I had to log into my banking app. When I did that it was very clear to me that instead of helping me to cancel transactions he was trying to get me confused enough to authorise a transaction of over £700.
Feeling like a prized eejit (idiot) I hung up the phone and immediately signed into my banking app to cancel my card and have a new one sent out. I had been one step away from being conned by a fraudster. I was equally angry with myself and with the scam artist for trying to do that to me.
Another example of a scam email
If this happens to you...
😱😱😱😱
STOP THEM GETTING YOUR MONEY
There's no point beating yourself up about it as it's happened. You need to take urgent action. PDQ.
In my case, I stupidly gave them my debit card number which is linked to my main current account after they said they would need it to track all of the transactions I hadn't authorised.
Thanks to the wonders of internet banking and apps I was able to cancel my card and have another one sent out to me in a matter of seconds. In the not so good old days, I would have had to wait until the bank opened on Monday to do that and run the risk of my card being used to run up a huge bill. But then, back in those days there was no PayPal and no one paid for things online so there was less chance of fraud.
Getting a new card meant my old card number would be useless to the fraudsters as they wouldn't have the expiry date and a security code needed to make any payment.
I also have strong reason to believe that my Amazon account was hacked. In this case the one I opened in Australia so that I could track all my books on sale there. The financial details that the fraudster had all seemed to be in that account including two credit cards that were out of date a long time ago.
To be on the safe side, I changed my Amazon password and PayPal password.
What I have learnt
1. I have no doubt that the person I spoke to on the phone had at some point worked for a bank. He was articulate and knew the process banks put you through when you phone up to say your card has been lost, stolen, or misused.
2. Most people have a PayPal account so you're just as likely for scammers to target that as you are your bank account.
3. Scammers make it sound as if they're doing you a favour. In my case, he claimed he was going to stop any unauthorised future transactions and past ones. He even advised me to use a VPN as he claimed my phone had been hacked.
4. If something doesn't feel right, trust your intuition. Hang up that phone.
5. Tell other people what happened so they can avoid it happening to them. It's us vs the scammers.
