Over the last few months I have seen this scam repeated over and over again, yet this one is so easy to avoid with just a little common sense and practical thinking. Here is the scenario. You have a website, product or service that you want to sell to someone so you use a forum like this or any other webmasters forum. You make your post and eventually get this offer that you are happy with, or at least one your happy to settle with. Now here is the bit where many people are going wrong. For example; say you are selling a website. You make a backup of the files and database if there is one and zip it up and send it to the paying client. Now this is where the problem is. So many people are using the same passwords for everything. You issue the buyer with the password for the files, and some unscrupulous people are then trying paypal accounts to see if the passwords are the same, and in some cases are getting access to people's paypal accounts. This does not just stop at paypal accounts though. You may use the same password for all your websites, they can then try this password on all of your sites too. Some people are even zipping up the files they send using a password that they use for everything else including paypal. We have a hard enough time beating the scammers. Dont give them any easy ride. Use different passwords for everything, and change them regually. If this stops just one person getting scammed like this then my time has been well spent
Well, that's true but I assume many people will have learned the lesson through all the stories out there where people use the same password for almost anywhere. You can get that many good tools which will help you to keep track of all your passwords so use them and make unique passwords.
You have to be stupid to send someone the same password you use for everything. As a second step you should use a Paypal Security key which requires you to enter 1 additional piece of info before granting access to your Paypal account.