Important to note: Since it is impossible to discern what names belong to the fraudsters and what names belong to the victims of identity theft who are being used as a cover for the activity, please make sure that you are not posting anyone's full name, address, phone number, email address, or any other personally identifiable information. I understand that it somewhat limits the ability to discuss the scams if you can't compare the contact information, but the fact is that some information that has been shared previously has actually belonged to people who were themselves being victimized by the scammers in these situations. All posts must comply with the PayPal Community Forums Posting Guidelines. Posts that contain information that violates these guidelines may be edited or entirely removed.
Hello Community!
You may have noticed that there are a few threads that have been deleted, and one or more of your posts regarding "Nigeria Scams" may have been deleted. We've created this new thread as a place for you to discuss this type of scam.
So, what exactly is the Nigerian Email Scam?
There's a really great definition of this scam at the OnGuard Online email scams page. There's also a lot of information about it in this Wikipedia article. These definitions describe the original Nigerian Letter scam, also known as the 419 scam, or Advance Fee fraud.
There's another, more common scam that people sometimes refer to as a Nigerian Scam, simply because the shipping address is typically in Nigeria. Here's what to look out for:
Someone will contact you in response to an advertisement for an item that you're selling. They will ask you to ship the item to a family member in Nigeria. (The final shipping destination may vary, sometimes a third party shipping agent is involved. Sometimes the buyer claims to be working offshore or traveling.) They will then either send you a fake email designed to make you think you've already received payment, or will try to encourage you to ship before payment is made. Sometimes they will actually pay you, but with the financial instruments of someone whose identity they've stolen.
How do I protect myself?
The best way to protect yourself from this is to always check your PayPal account by logging in to make sure you've actually received a payment, and ONLY ship to the address in the transaction details. If a customer wants you to ship to a different address, you can refund the payment, ask them to add the address to their PayPal account, and re-send the payment. You can see what countries PayPal serves at https://www.paypal.com/worldwide. Only addresses in the countries listed on that page have the potential to be valid shipping addresses.
The best way to fight this type of scam is to remain educated and vigilant. If it sounds too good to be true, or if your gut is telling you to be wary, listen to your instincts! Examine your risk, the potential validity of their request, and see if there's a safer way to do what they ask. If there isn't, then it's almost always best to walk away. Remember this, the most likely explanation to the question of "Why would someone want to buy this big ticket item sight unseen?" is "Because they're not using their own money!"
If the scammer sends you a fake payment email, you can always send those to spoof@paypal.com.
I hope this helps! Feel free to post here, but make sure you're editing your posts before submitting them to remove any of the personally identifiable information described in the header and footer of this post.
Olivia
Important to note: Since it is impossible to discern what names belong to the fraudsters and what names belong to the victims of identity theft who are being used as a cover for the activity, please make sure that you are not posting anyone's full name, address, phone number, email address, or any other personally identifiable information. I understand that it somewhat limits the ability to discuss the scams if you can't compare the contact information, but the fact is that some information that has been shared previously has actually belonged to people who were themselves being victimized by the scammers in these situations. All posts must comply with the PayPal Community Forums Posting Guidelines. Posts that contain information that violates these guidelines may be edited or entirely removed.
If this post or any other was helpful, please enrich the Community by giving kudos to its author, accepting it as a solution, and/or coming back to assist others. Members make this Community great!
