The Great Paypal Scam

Paypal a scam? Say it ain't so! Yes, that great bastion of nothingness is just another online scam but perpetuated by eBay. First off, Paypal is not a bank. It does not have to adhere to any of the banking rules and regulations. It does not have to adhere to rules of privacy, secrecy or even have to give you your money.  It is the modern equivalent of investing with Don Guido.  A while ago, a fellow approached me to purchase a tablet that I had mentioned I wanted to sell. Payment was made via Paypal. Being somewhat suspicious I called Paypal who told me no way should I ship the tablet to the fellow and immediately reversed the transaction.  They actually charged me for this! Anyway, from the words of Paypal, any transaction made that is not made through eBay can be reversed at the behest of the payer. The payee has no say in any of this. Now that doesn't sound entirely honest and is one of the reasons I have not linked my Paypal to a bank account. Paypal is also making things really easy for the online crooks. I placed the following advertisement on Craigslist: 

"One virtually unused Canon 580 EX2 with carrying pouch and stand. I bought this thinking I was going to use it and ended up not using it at all. I just don't do flash photography.
Buyer must be prepared to meet in Lexington. Cash only."

The advert attracted no genuine responses at all even though there was a photo on the advert. I'm just getting very much the feeling that people have become very meh about photography and photographic equipment. I did, however attract a scammer.

 

After convincing the budding felon that I did not have a Paypal account, he wanted me to give him my bank details and bank account number so that he could deposit straight into my bank account. Strangely enough, he found that my account was so old that this was not possible and that my bank hadn't actually connected to the internet yet. They'll believe anything in Nigeria! 

 

Thus, the little felon promised to send a check by post with a tracking number to my PO Box (the PO Box that I'm planning on closing when the rental is up at the end of the month).  Had this check actually arrived, it would have been framed and hung on the wall as a trophy.

The fake check scam and the Paypal scam are pretty much the same thing, operated slightly differently. The fake check relies upon inertia in the banking system. A fake check drawn against a genuine account might take months to be discovered, particularly if the owner of the account is a soldier serving overseas. The bank, of course, rectifies that immediately and the money trail is reset right up to the account where the fake check was deposited and the money taken back out of that account. With the Paypal edition, the money is paid into the account and then after the goods have arrived, a claim is made that the box was empty or contained nothing but a brick or that nothing ever arrived. Paypal sides with the buyer every time and thus the victim is out to the tune of the goods and the money. In my opinion, Paypal needs to be shut down or sold off to a bank to operate under banking rules and regulations.

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