Is Paypal Safe? Top PayPal Scams you must stay alert from!

is paypal safe

Released in 1999, PayPal has successfully completed more than two decades in the finance industry. It is one of the most commonly exercised measures of monetary transfer, especially when it comes to sending or receiving money from overseas. However, more often than not, due to PayPal’s suspicious schemes, “Is PayPal safe?” The question remains on the instincts of new users. For the most part, PayPal’s user interface is quite different from active money transfer apps like Google Pay, PhonePe, Venmo, Zelle Money, and others. But, the main reason is, PayPal is the main sources for international transfers, unlike the other mentioned apps. Thus, a different user interface is a compromise the users may have to face. Yet, the overall confusion can lead new users to think of PayPal as an unsafe platform. 

is paypal safe
Source; PayPal Newsroom

If you are one of such PayPal user, you will find answers to your question in this writing ahead. Please note that all the information concerning PayPal’s safety and scams is not directed to PayPal’s developers. Scams are solely practiced by cyber frauds who have access to your WiFi Network, Banking information, etc. 

Thus, let’s take a glance at why PayPal is a perfectly safe platform, as well as common scams that you must be aware of in the first place. 

Is PayPal Safe? 

The answer is Yes. PayPal is a 100% safe and secure platform for both domestic as well as international users. According to PayPal’s mainstream money transfer policy, the banking information of both sender and receiver of funds collected by PayPal’s backend authorities has encrypted. 

For the most part, Paypal is definitely safer than any other possible platform as it keeps bank account numbers, debit/credit card numbers, and other information hidden from the receiver of the funds. 

To the reader’s surprise, PayPal has covered almost all aspects of fraudulent activities and created effective measures for the same. One of the most effective measures is – PayPal Purchase Protection for customers. 

This measure acts like insurance for PayPal users. Those who purchase this protection do not remain at the risk of losing money. If the users are purchasing items from the PayPal Store and do not receive the item in the given time period, such users receive a full refund for their loss. 

Similarly, from PayPal’s registered seller’s end, a protection for sellers scheme has also been introduced. This seller’s scheme mostly covers losses that PayPal’s sellers encounter due to “packages” claimed unreceived and other such scenarios. 

Thus, for the conditions and scenarios provided above, PayPal can be perceived as a completely safe and secure measure of money transfer to utilize. But, of course, there are few exceptions where PayPal can be perceived as unsafe. What are those? Let’s find out: 

When or Why is PayPal unsafe? Is Paypal safe? – NOT ENTIRELY!

To begin with, why is PayPal unsafe? A question was raised by the public after it was brought to their knowledge that PayPal’s registered consumers lost the advantage of Section 75. Or, in simple words, users receive the disadvantage of Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. 

According to this Act, the buyer and retailer remain liable for the loss of purchased items equally. Meaning, if the buyer has paid the full amount for the purchased item online using a credit card or debit card. And, further, if the consumer didn’t receive the item in the given time period, even if the retailer has dispatched the package. In this case, both retailer and buyer remain equally responsible. 

is paypal safe
Source: Twitter

Not only this but to many users, the first experience of using PayPal was distressing. The reason being, while the payment from the sender has already been sent. PayPal doesn’t send the funds directly to the receiver’s bank account. Indeed, it holds on to the funds for a week or so. 

Most notably, PayPal also reflects a disadvantage on retailer’s end by freezing their account anytime. Even so, PayPal only freezes a retailer’s account when its algorithms point towards an unusual activity or unusually higher amount on hold. In this case, retailers face a lot of challenges, especially if they are dependent on PayPal for receiving payments from international customers. 

Retailers often complain about how PayPal freezes accounts without any warnings! Furthermore, when a retailer’s account is on freeze, the monetary funds in PayPal’s wallet remain untransferable to the bank account. Thus, they often have to bear losses under such circumstances. 

Top Four PayPal Scams to steer clear of

Now that you have discovered many disadvantages of PayPal, which are solely triggered by its policies and rules & regulations. It will be justified to say that PayPal is not a safe platform entirely. Unlike PayPal, other apps like Venmo and Zelle Money do not lead to freezing funds. But, not every mistake that you make on the PayPal App is the algorithm’s fault. In the past few years, some of the very suspicious cases about Paypal have come into the spotlight. 

Without a doubt, the world we live in is not entirely free of cyber frauds. No matter wherever you go, there’s someone lurking to hack your device and get hold of funds in your bank account or Money Transfer Apps. 

Focusing on this subject, our team came across the top 10 most common PayPal Scams, which users must steer clear of. Using our research, we are providing you a list of scams and how you can detect them. Let’s get started: 

Note: Please note that the below-mentioned scams do not solely target customers. But, sometimes, retailers on PayPal has also targeted by fake customers. 

Scam 1: Incorrect Shipping Address Scam on Retailers

To begin with, it hardly happens that when customers make payment for ordering something online on PayPal, the retailers check their shipping address on Google Map. To be honest, no retailer has this much time. And, some greedy consumers take advantage of this. How? Let’s see: 

First of all, the consumer makes order online and adds a wrong shipping address which does not even exist. As a result, the delivery partners find it unable to locate the customer’s delivery location and flag the item as “undelivered.”

Later on, when the item in the system mentions “undelivered” or “undeliverable,” the scamming customer connects with PayPal’s customer service and provides a new and existing delivery address. In the next 2-3 business days, the customer receives its order package. 

Now, the same customer calls customer care again and makes a complaint regarding the order as not delivered. Since the system has already flagged the order “undelivered,” or “canceled,” or “undeliverable.” The customer care executive initiates a refund. 

Image credit: Within the Flow

As a result, the customer gets the ordered item for free from the retailer. Under such circumstances, the retailer loses both the product and the money value. 

Solution: To steer clear of such scams, retailers must check the first-hand added delivery address on Google Map. If the delivery address is non-existing, the retailer should cancel such an order. 

Scam 2: Tempting Deals / “You Have Won” Claims

To our knowledge, only one in a billion people can be lucky to have won a prize of “millions” without even participating in the first place. To begin with, this scam is one of the most common scams on PayPal. Not only PayPal, but it can also happen to you on any given platform. Because it is usually triggered by low-key scammers who can be sitting anywhere in the world. 

Now, under this scam, what happens is, the consumer receives an email with the subject “you have won xxx amount.”

When the consumer opens this email, the scammer will request to click on a link to receive the prize money in their bank account. As the consumer clicks on the link, he/she will reditect to an unknown website that steals data from the consumer’s device. 

As a result, all passwords, pin codes, banking information, PayPal information, and others will deliver to the scammer without your knowledge. 

Solution: If you receive such an email, please do not open it in the first place. Presuming that you have opened it already, you must not “click” on any link until or unless it is the official PayPal link – https://www.paypal.com/. Lookout for grammatical errors in the email. If they are there, it means that the email comes with zero credibility. Above all, the main sign of this scam is that it leads you to an unknown sourced website which your browser will mark “Alert.”

Scam 3: Is PayPal safe? NO, if “Someone from PayPal is connecting with you directly.”

In this history of PayPal, it has never happened that a PayPal executive directly connects with a PayPal customer concerning problems with their account. However, scammers often do that. PayPal users may often receive an email that “something is wrong with your PayPal Account.”

Such scamming emails work because the customer comes under stress and opens the email. 

Image credit: BKS Partners

By using this email, the scammer lures PayPal users into providing his/her password or answer to PayPal’s security question. Once you provide such information to the scammer, he can easily log in to your Paypal account and transfer all the money to an unrecognizable account. 

It is noteworthy that once the scammer transfers all money from your account to an unknown or unrecognizable account, no authorities can help you. The reason being, there’s no way you can prove that you do not make the transfer yourself. 

Solution: When you receive such an email, please directly make it a “scam.” We advise not to click on any link provided in the email. If you want to clarify whether the email is directly from PayPal, you can check the sender’s email address. If the address has no relation to PayPal, ignore it. Again, PayPal authorities do not directly contact customers by email, hence steer clear. 

Scam 4: Pay a small fee to acquire “Expedited Stimulus Check on PayPal.” 

If you are wondering, is PayPal safe? You have no idea how far scammers can go to lure you in. PayPal is an entirely safe platform. But, scammers have hundreds of ways to tempt PayPal users. One such scam has come into the spotlight. 

It names as the “Expedited Stimulus check” scam. Under this scam, the scammer tempts the user by saying that he/she has gotten a stimulus check from the US Government. It started for COVID-19 as a compensation. Thus, in order to acquire this check deposit into your bank account, the email asks you to make a small payment that remains refundable. 

Solution: In the event that you are actually an acquirer of Expedited Stimulus check, we advise you to visit the IRS website. You can use credentials to check the current status of your check. No matter how small the amount is, please do not pay the scammer who may be acting as a broker. 

Epilogue

For the most part, the list of scams does not end here. As mentioned before, a scammer has a thousand ways to thug you. Therefore, we suggest you stay alert. Do not believe or react to emails that ask you to click on links or make small payments in their account. Otherwise, you will suffer the loss of your hard-earned money in a few seconds. 

At last, our answer is yes. PayPal is safe. However, it is only safe until you act as a responsible and intellectual user. Thank you. 

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