Paypal You just sent a payment scam email

I’ve just received one of these messages but with the Merchant’s name as Megan Peterson. It looked really genuine but as I knew that we hadn’t made such a payment, I decided to Google ‘PAYPAL you’ve just sent a payment’ to see what would come up and hey presto, your site came up and confirmed my suspicions that it was a scam!

FW:You just sent a payment to Dana Peterson
PayPal to: …….

thanks for posting about this scam You are very welcome RAR, BM

I’ve just had similar as well, name was Richie Peterson. Is a realistic one, I normally delete them without thought

I receive the email and it was sent to an email address I have not used in 5 years, the email was only used with eBay to open an account. It was never used. So it appears this is coming from eBay?

Notice the transaction number is the same?

You just sent a payment Transaction ID: 2SM69324P0770102B

Hello payments,
Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
Merchant
Refugio Peterson
wcRefugio22@ hotmail.com
Note to Thad Peterson
You haven’t sent a note.
Shipping address - confirmed
Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY14225
United States
Total $60.00 USD
Payment $60.00 USD

Payment sent to Refugio Peterson

We received two emails exactly like yours tonight, looking very authentic. Beware people!

I have gotten 2 of these this evening

the merchant details and transaction amounts are slightly different in each case

Merchant
Elliott Peterson
wcElliott22@ hotmail.com

Merchant
Gretchen Peterson
wcGretchen22@ hotmail.com

Received two (so far)
———————–
8:45 am
FW:You just sent a payment to August Peterson

“Merchant” identified in email:
August Peterson
wcAugust22@ hotmail.com

“Shipping Address”
Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY?14225
United States

——————————-
5:28 am
FW:You just sent a payment to Shawn Peterson

“Merchant”
Shawn Peterson
wcShawn22@ hotmail.com

“Shipping Address”
same as above
——————–

The only other thing of note is that the British spelling “Centre” is used in the scam email (in links at bottom of email).

==================================

Forwarded both to spoof@ paypal.com according to instructions at PayPal Help Center
paypal.com/webapps/helpcenter/home Help Center > Problems / Fraud > Fake PayPal emails – phishing

Received it this morning:

You just sent a payment Transaction ID: 2SM69324P0770102B

Hello,
Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
Merchant
Rosie Peterson
wcRosie22@ hotmail.com
Note to Thad Peterson blah blah (the same as above)
Payment sent to Rosie Peterson

You just sent a payment Transaction ID: 2SM69324P0770102B

Hello bart.leonard,
Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
Merchant
Rocco Peterson
wcRocco22@ hotmail.com
Note to Thad Peterson
Total $100.00 USD
Payment $60.00 USD

Payment sent to Rocco Peterson

PayPal Email ID PP1526

You just sent a payment

Transaction ID: 2SM69324P0770102B Hello jeffery.slowgrove,
Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
Merchant
Mindy Peterson
wcMindy22@ hotmail.com
Note to Thad Peterson
You haven’t sent a note.
Shipping address - confirmed
Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY 14225
United States
Total $120.00 USD
Payment $140.00 USD
Payment sent to Mindy Peterson

I received two back to back one from Faustina Peterson ($100) and one from Viola Peterson ($60) sent payment to :

Shipping address - confirmed
Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY 14225
United States

I received 6 mails containing this content.

Be areful out there!

You just sent a payment

Transaction ID: 2SM69324P0770102B
Hello tshuto,
Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
Merchant
Nestor Peterson
wcNestor22@ hotmail.com
Note to Thad Peterson
You haven’t sent a note.
Shipping address - confirmed
Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY14225
United States
Total $140.00 USD
Payment $80.00 USD
Payment sent to Nestor Peterson

Help Centre | Resolution Centre | Security Centre

This email was sent by an automated system, so if you reply, nobody will see it. To get in touch with us, log in to your account and click “Contact Us” at the bottom of any page.
Copyright 2012 PayPal, Inc. All rights reserved. PayPal is located at 2211 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95131.

PayPal Email ID PP1526

Received it in South Africa today:
You just sent a payment Transaction ID: 2SM69324P0770102B
Hello graham,
Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account. Merchant
Felicia Peterson
wcFelicia22@ hotmail.com
Note to Thad Peterson
You haven’t sent a note.
Shipping address - confirmed
Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY 14225
United States

Total $140.00 USD
Payment $140.00 USD

Received 3 emails claiming from PayPal with the same transaction ID 2SM69324P0770102B
from Marcella Peterson ~ wcMarcella22@ hotmail.com, Art Petersonwc ~ Art22@ hotmail.com and again from Marcella Peterson ~ wcMarcella22@ hotmail.com. Same shipping address. Forwarded to spoof@ paypal.com and deleted.

We can see that their email address will use wcxxxx22@ hotmail.com.

I never register this email address for PayPal. 100% scam.

My office manager just printed out a hard copy of one that she just received. It’s the same shipping address for Michael Pepe. (I just Googled “Michael Pepe Scam” and found your posting.) The amount was supposedly for $120.00 USD.

Merchant
Terri Petersen
wcTerri22@ hotmail.com

i just got the same email ..just wondering if u all use “westnet.com.au” email address or is it all different email accounts

I’ve had a bunch of the scam PayPal Emails.
They all appear as FW’s (Forward emails)
They all contain ’shortened’ URLS: Like hydlive.com/639j5Vn2/index.html
They all seem to contian a real email address:
wcHarrison22@ hotmail.com (worryingly)
They all carry the PayPal logo (which links to hydlive.com URL)
The HTML source for the logo, actually points to PayPal.com. I’m suprised companies like PayPal don’t keep an eye out for this kind of scam hot-linking?!
Why o why do these scammers not get proper Jobs… ya know something that their kids would be proud of!!

I had one trhis morning saying I had sent a payment to Grace Peterson to the same address as everybody else seems to be getting.
I had my suspicions of course but I’m really grateful people like you take the trouble to highlight this so that others are not alone and that it confirms it’s just a scam. I just can’t understand the point in this particular one….?

have gotten a few of these the last couple of days - don’t even have a paypal account -
___________________________________________________

You just sent a payment Transaction ID: 2SM69324P0770102B

Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
Merchant Marco Peterson wcMarco22@ hotmail.com

I also just got into work and saw that I had an email from PayPal. I often use PayPal so I was concerned when I saw this. I also saw this name:

Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY 14225
United States

My instinct was to click on the tracking number to what product I purchased. But it did lead me to an error page. I feel alot better knowing this was a scam.

Yes we had one with Antonia Petersen and an amount of $60 US. We very rarely purchase via PayPal so it instantly raised suspicion.

Googled “PayPal Email ID PP1526″ and found your site and many others.

I did not use the links, but logged in via the proper PayPal site, which showed no payments, so suspicions confirmed.

Looks very genuine and yes the links under the hotlinks are not to PayPal but to some other site “dpsdurgapur.com”

PayPal really seem to have dropped the ball on this one, as there are no warnings via email or on their website saying that a hoax is doing the rounds.

poštene…

Paypal you just sent a payment scam email - You just sent a payment to Annie Peterson…

I’ve got one this morning. No payment to Michael Pepe, but to Marc Vargas instead.

This is it:

You sent a payment Transaction ID: 7U344925PT606435I

Dear PayPal User,
You sent a payment for $173.36 USD to Marc Vargas.
Please note that it may take a little while for this payment to appear in the Recent Activity list on your Account Overview.
View the details of this transaction online

________________________________________
This payment was sent using your bank account.
By using your bank account to send money, you just:
- Paid easily and securely
- Sent money faster than writing and mailing paper checks
- Paid instantly — your purchase won’t show up on bills at the end of the month.

Thanks for using your bank account!
_______________________________________
Your monthly account statement is available anytime; just log in to your account at xxxxxx. To correct any errors, please contact us through our Help Center at xxxxxxx.
Amount: $173.36 USD
Sent on: May 11, 2012
Payment method: Bank account
Sincerely,
PayPal

Help Center | Resolution Center | Security Center
This email was sent by an automated system, so if you reply, nobody will see it. To get in touch with us, log in to your account and click “Contact Us” at the bottom of any page.
Copyright © 2012 PayPal, Inc. All rights reserved. PayPal is located at 2211 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95131.

PayPal Email ID PP118

Mods, can you please remove those links! Didn’t realize they would be active and clickable. Cheers. Don’t worry, I had already removed them. BM

just got one today.

You sent a payment
Transaction ID: 0D7184402B803245X
Dear Bob C Chin,

You sent a payment for $199.00 USD to Tony Pham.

Please note that it may take a little while for this payment to appear in the Recent Activity list on your Account Overview.

View the details of this transaction online

This payment was sent using your credit card.

For your future payments, try using Instant Transfer instead!

- Pay instantly and securely

- Faster than paying with checks

- Pay directly from your bank account - purchases won’t show up on bills at the end of the month.
Your monthly account statement is available anytime; just log in to your account at xxx. To correct any errors, please contact us through our Help Center at xxxx.

Amount: $199.00 USD
Sent on: May 17, 2012
Payment method: Credit Card Payment
Sincerely,
PayPal

Help Center | Resolution Center | Security Center

This email was sent by an automated system, so if you reply, nobody will see it. To get in touch with us, log in to your account and click “Contact Us” at the bottom of any page.

Copyright © 2012 PayPal, Inc. All rights reserved. PayPal is located at 2211 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95131.

PayPal Email ID PP118

Received this one today on May 24. I don’t recognze any of the data, and I have no bank account in my paypal account: Just to be sure I deleted my Paypal credit card data.

PayPal

You sent a payment
Transaction ID: 7O713075XN897874P
Dear PayPal User,
You sent a payment for $436.33 USD to Nannie Lockwood.
Please note that it may take a little while for this payment to appear in the Recent Activity list on your Account Overview.
View the details of this transaction online

This payment was sent using your bank account.

By using your bank account to send money, you just:

- Paid easily and securely

- Sent money faster than writing and mailing paper checks

- Paid instantly — your purchase won’t show up on bills at the end of the month.

Thanks for using your bank account!

Your monthly account statement is available anytime; just log in to your account at xxxxx

Amount: $436.33 USD
Sent on: May 24, 2012
Payment method: Bank account
Sincerely,
PayPal

Help Center | Resolution Center | Security Center
This email was sent by an automated system, so if you reply, nobody will see it. To get in touch with us, log in to your account and click “Contact Us” at the bottom of any page.
Copyright 2012 PayPal, Inc. All rights reserved. PayPal is located at 2211 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95131.

PayPal Email ID PP118

Just got this one:

—————–

Transaction ID: 85797236

You sent a payment of $966.48 USD to Mark Horne

Thanks for using PayPal. To see all the transaction details, Log In to your PayPal account.

It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.

Seller

xxxxx @ yahoo.com

Note to seller
You haven’t included a note.
Shipping address - confirmed
Ap #834-5784 Venenatis Street
NY 13104-9402
United States

Shipping details
The seller hasn’t provided any shipping details yet.

Description Unit price Qty Amount
1927 Supermarine S.5 & Gloster seaplane Schneider Trophy Race Photograph
Item# 787447005
$966.48 USD 23 $966.48 USD

Shipping and handling $0.00 USD
Insurance - not offered —-
Total $966.48 USD
Payment $966.48 USD

—————

The links all look like random WordPress sites. I don’t even have a PayPal account with the email this was sent to, so must have gotten it from an eBay purchase?

Just got one almost identical to Karen’s above, sent to my office address which I don’t use for eBay/PayPal. It seems to assume I am in the US just because I have a dot com address. I’m in the UK. I shall be deleting it and spreading the word, thanks all for your advice and help
Rob You are most welcome, Rob BM

You just sent a payment Transaction ID: 2OY26527S0573754O
Hello g_sidd,
Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account. Merchant
Roxanne Yauch
Roxanne3885 @hotmail.com
Note to Thad Yauch
You haven’t sent a note.
Shipping address - confirmed
Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY 14225
United States

Total $95.00 USD
Payment $95.00 USD

Payment sent to Roxanne Yauch

Just found this in my Spam folder. I went looking around, another site mentions that clicking on some link or another will give you malware that many anti-viruses may not pick up yet.

You just sent a payment

Transaction ID: 2UG46448Y5575345K
Hello cvdrp,
Thanks for using PayPal. It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
Merchant
Osborn Sobrio
Osborn8301 @hotmail.com
Note to Thad Sobrio
You haven’t sent a note.
Shipping address - confirmed
Michael Pepe
P.O. Box 173
Cheektowaga, NY 14225
United States
Total $91.00 USD
Payment $91.00 USD
Payment sent to Osborn Sobrio

you just sent payment to noboa….i didn’t open it as many of these emails are to see if it is an active account so they can continue to sell your address and spam you. why open up a paypal email in your spam box anyway?? paypal should go straight to your inbox. also…take a look at the slight mistakes they make, which are different from paypal.

shana

same email with Mike Gonzales and Ken Horne

Thanks for posting this. Mine was sent from notify@ paypal.com and was in my spam box, realised it must be a spam as i don’t even have a PayPal account, But thought I’d check it out and was taken straight to site.

I keep getting e-mails like this. The e-mails get sent to an old employee’s e-mail address that is linked to mine. Its getting ridiculous because it looks so real when you open it.

Transaction ID: 18731683

Hello cpatterson@ eps-inc.net,
You sent a payment of $740.48 USD to Xavier Parrish
Thanks for using PayPal. To see all the transaction details, Log In to your PayPal account.
It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in your account.
________________________________________

Seller

Chris.Jennings@ yahoo.com
Note to seller
You haven’t included a note.
Shipping address - confirmed
Ap #834-5784 Venenatis Street
NY 13104-9402
United States Shipping details
The seller hasn’t provided any shipping details yet.

Description Unit price Qty Amount
NEW AUTHENTIC COACH LILAC LEATHER TRAVEL PICTURE FRAME
Item# 197668116 $740.48 USD 23 $740.48 USD

Shipping and handling $0.00 USD
Insurance - not offered —-
Total $740.48 USD
Payment $740.48 USD

Issues with this transaction?
You have 45 days from the date of the transaction to open a dispute in the Resolution Center.

Questions? Go to the Help Center at: paypal.com/help.

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and click Help in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

You can receive plain text emails instead of HTML emails. To change your Notifications preferences, log in to your account, go to your Profile, and click My settings.

PayPal Email ID PP451

We never follow a link in an email even when it is an email that we are expecting; we browse to the site from ‘favorites’. Our email address has been out there for 30 years (it started as a Compuserve POP3 address). No email addresses are secure. There is an advantage to keeping an email address that is on many lists - you get a half dozen of the same spam or spoofs all at the same time. It makes spam and spoofs very obvious.

There are many things wrong with the ‘PayPal’ spoof that we received: 1 - it said it was from Ebay.com… should be eBay.com. 2 - the date was old; transations show up in email in seconds. 3 - the transaction ID was too short and consisted of all numbers; PayPal uses a 17 digit alphanumeric ID. 4 - it was addressed to my email address… PayPal knows my name. 5 - it appeared in our spam basket; all eBay, PayPal, etc. communications go into our in basket.

You might think that I’ve alerted spoofers of the mistakes that they shouldn’t make in the future. Not to worry - they always make mistakes… some are so obvious it gives us a good laugh. Come to think of it, those clowns probably can’t even read this.

Every address book should have stop-spoofing@amazon.com, spoof@ebay.com, spoof@paypal.com, spam@uce.gov, reportphishing@antiphishing.org, and any credit card company, bank or service provider’s spam reporting address.

We’ve only gotten ’stung’ once: Yahoo got stung worse though - some crook got email addresses and CC numbers (ours included) from a brick-and-morter that had just gone on-line. The thiefs made 10,000 wire transfers of $200 each with just an email address and CC number. Guess who was stuck for $2,000,000.00?

Before our CC number was changed there was one other unexpected charge on our account: $100 to Mellon-Land. I called the 800 number and the nice woman on the phone told us that we were signed up for 3 adult sites at a special price. I laughed and said “Oh, I get it melon land!.”

Always look for https in your address bar when logging in to an account that handles money. Interesting comment, thanks. Writing to these email addresses is all but a waste of time these days, but if it makes people feel better about receiving spam emails, then go for it! I prefer to just deletes them and not waste my time

Another variation on the “sevice at paypal” scam, received 5th Aug 2012
Subject; Welcome to PayPal-Choose your way to pay.

Hello (lowercase my first name and surname in a continuous string of letters),

Thanks for paying with PayPal.
We congratulate you with your first PayPal money transfer. But we have hold it for the moment because the amount is over the security borders of our rules.
Here is what we have on file for you. Take a second to confirm we have your correct information.
Email
(my full name) @(my educational website)
Transfer information
Amount: 35671.38 $ Reciever: Karie Kilpatrick
Email: Bagley3555 @(my educational website)
Confirmation code 3063-2513-0637-8169-0180

Accept/Decline button image

banner “DID YOU KNOW - We’ve created a page that makes it easy to discover what you can do with PayPal (find out more button)

Help Center / Security Center (links, or so it appeared)

Please don’t reply to this email. It’ll just confuse the computer that sent it and you won’t get a response.
Copyright [] 2012 PayPal, Inc. All rights reserved. PayPal is located at 2211 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95131.
Comment:
I have preserved in the above the original syntax and spelling.
The counterfeit graphics are very good, and it would be easy to jump on the Accept or the Decline button before taking a careful look!
-I imagine the malignant effects would be exactly the same.
The email address employed to contact me is one I never use, nor does Bagley3555 or anyone else, of that I can be certain (no outgoing mail).
I find the website is targeted by spammers from time to time, presumably searching for commercial prey. I visited the PayPal site, checked that my account was in order, downloaded “Iconix” as recommended tohelp identify genuine PayPal emails, and deleted the scam email.

I received another scam email after my last posting, flagged as genuine by “Iconix”, so don’t put your trust in that quarter!!!

I saved the latest email to a floppy disc then opened it in a text editor, NOT my email program. If you’re comfortable doing this yourself, you will see the programming instructions put together by its originators. Even if you are not a programmer, you ar likely to learn more than you expect.

Practice on emails you can be certain are genuine -for example an authentic PayPal email- before you look at anything suspicious. Comparisons are useful, and patterns emerge; it’s clear the same criminals are operating more than one email scam, some with virus packeges attached.
I recommend you do not try to contact anyone yourself at the mail addresses your text editor reveals!

You can print your text editor’s display if you want it for future reference, but for safety delete the original email and its copies when you have done.

Of course none of this substitutes for internet security packages, care and common sense care, but it may help dismiss uncertainty. Did you really use a floppy disc? Now that’s taking old school to extremes! BM

Another variation of e-mail:

You sent a payment

You sent a paymentTransaction ID: 3F486378YM529089G
Dear PayPal User,You sent a payment for $1576.45 USD to Sammy Gustafson.Please note that it may take a little while for this payment to appear in the Recent Activity list on your Account Overview.View the details of this transaction online

This payment was sent using your bank account.By using your bank account to send money, you just:- Paid easily and securely- Sent money faster than writing and mailing paper checks- Paid instantly — your purchase won’t show up on bills at the end of the month.Thanks for using your bank account!Your monthly account statement is available anytime; just log in to your account at xxxx. To correct any errors, please contact us through our Help Center at xxxx. Amount:$1576.45 USD
Sent on:August 22, 2012
Payment method:Bank account
Sincerely,PayPal

Help Center | Resolution Center | Security CenterThis email was sent by an automated system, so if you reply, nobody will see it. To get in touch with us, log in to your account and click “Contact Us” at the bottom of any page.Copyright © 2012 PayPal, Inc. All rights reserved. PayPal is located at 2211 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95131.PayPal Email ID PP154

Just received this one this morning:

You sent a payment Transaction ID: 2B947211MF940865G

Dear PayPal User,
You sent a payment for $5955.37 USD to Jesus Spears.
Please note that it may take a little while for this payment to appear in the Recent Activity list on your Account Overview.
View the details of this transaction o nline
________________________________________
This payment was sent using your bank account.

By using your bank account to send money, you just:

- Paid easily and securely

- Sent money faster than writing and mailing paper checks

- Paid instantly — your purchase won’t show up on bills at the end of the month.

Thanks for using your bank account!

________________________________________

Your monthly account statement is available anytime; just log in to your account at xxxxxx Amount: $5955.37 USD
Sent on: September 04, 2012
Payment method: Bank account
Sincerely,
PayPal

Dear customer,

You’ve sent a payment for $140.00 CDN to Michele Ross.

Please note that it may take a little while for this payment to appear in the Recent Activity list on your Account Overview.

View the details of this transaction online

Note: If you haven’t authorized this transaction ,click the link below to remove limitations to your account and get full refund.

Go to the Help Center and remove you limitations at: paypal.com/canada/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_contact_us.

Amount: $140.00 CDN
Currency conversion: $171.05 USD = $140.00 CDN
Exchange rate: 1 CDN = 0.753825 USD
Sent on: 30 December 2012

Yours sincerely,
PayPal