I came across this guy on some other forum boasting about his phishing websites and the way he tricks paypal users. He uses their money (usually in hundreds of dollars per account) to buy things from ebay, etc. & he's been doing this since past 2-3 months. I've been using paypal since a very long time and these kind of issues keep pooping up every now & then. Doesn't paypal take any action against such scammers? They do track IP addresses of computers used to make each & every transaction then why do they fail to grab the scammers?
I know i never understand, how exactly do they get the stuff sent to them? because surely then paypal would know the address of the scammer!
This is cheating paypal users, definitely not Paypal. Paypal action on a phishing site is very swift, one report today and you will see the site removed tomorrow. It isn't Paypal's fault if its users keep clicking on unknown emails and getting scammed.
Exactly! Paypal scammers can either spend the money or withdraw it. But in both the cases their identity is revealed. Still no action!
Scammers can be everywhere, though their identity may be revealed, the arms of the laws may not be long enough. They may be from some third world countries etc which will be difficult for Paypal to prosecute.
You mean to say that its not paypal's responsibility if any of their users lose hundreds or thousands of dollars?
Nope, the users click on a phishing site and divulge their user names and passwords to the scammers. The security of your password is your own responsibility, not that of Paypal.
And also if paypal were to refund people when this happend what is to stop me buying an expensive laptop and then telling paypal i was hacked and getting my money back while still having a laptop!
To add on to this, if Paypal were to be responsible, all the losses incurred by the phishing victims would be absorbed by Paypal and pass on to the normal users who are using Paypal with care. This would be fair to the majority of users who had take care of their accounts. Nothing is free in the world, if Paypal absorbs this, they have to pass it on somewhere and it may be reflected as higher transaction fees etc.
Agreed! I think I should put this question in another way: Consider these 2 scenarios: 1. The scammer uses my paypal account to buy a plasma TV worth 1000$ then has it shipped at his local address. 2. The scammer transfers money from my account to his bank account. In both the cases he's clearly leaving behind his identity (address and/or bank account details, IP address, etc). Is there NO way I can grab him?
It depends on the country, just that for International cyber crimes it is quite difficult to enforce the law as it involved cooperation of one country's police force with another or the Interpol. Unless it is a major scam, the police won't bother to be involved, simply because there is far too many such cases.
unless of course he had them send to a different address (not sure how he would go about this though)
But that's the easy part, you can just go2 an internet cafe, still unless you have another apartment under a different name then you are pretty much screwed
You can have all the evidence but the police won't be interested the moment they see that it is foreign IP. Believe me I have friends who tried. For local offenders yes, but once it goes international, the chances are slim.
I can think of a third scenario. 3. The scammer logs in using proxy and watches porn , buys downloadable items, movies, scripts etc etc. and then takes it off in his usb. then what? there is no trace left!!!
kool buying downloadable stuff is the best thing he can do! But these goods are usually of little value I would have preferred getting a PS3 or a plasma
no paypal dont take any action to any phishing sites nor they care.... this is very true because i have reported several phishing sites and some of them are still activated even i reported about them a year ago.... so hence proof paypal dont take any action... so now i dont report any phishing email or site to paypal because its waste of my time.... also they have full geo records of every user.... as they log everything from every account... but they never take any action to nail down any scammers unless someone try to scam paypal and they lose money.... but to be honest, paypal dont care for there customers.... also i think they are right because when you have millions of users, then its really hard for them to check every account.... as millions of people login and loggout at paypal all the time so if they have to dig in a record then you know how painful it will be for them.... so its you who can protect yourself from these types of attacks... if you follow some simple rules then no one can steal your paypal account or scam you on paypal...