Most or all of what you said I have already done and already know. Yes I am aware that most of the burden is on me. My complaint is that when criminals are using Paypal this extensively, Paypal should pay more attention.
No, the Paypal accounts were not in Nigerial Ultimately, perhaps, but they were using mules. One of them at least seemed to be a fake account based in the US. The other identities were based in England and Poland. Who knows who they were or if they resembled the profile pics. Paypal identities were probably transferring money onward into scammers' bank or bitcoin accounts. The scammer claimed to be part of a Ukrainian volunteer army unit guarding the city of Odesa. There are many 'fake soldiers', but also false claims to help cats and dogs, scammers collecting money for 'families in Gaza with injured children.' The scammers are just criminals and some may be organized or others are freelancers. In my case, it was probably a crime ring. I have reason to believe the scammer or scammers who defrauded me are Nigerian, because when I went deeper into a social media account where the scammer first made contact. I saw a lot of material related to Nigeria, sex, online gambling and at one point, an address in England. But there are scammers from other countries too, as I learned when I connected with a Ukraine based group of people who does their best to minimize the deception and credibility of these criminals.
Yes, I did report this as an Acceptable Use Violation. I did receive two email replies, which were quite impersonal, perhaps machine generated, both asking for more detailed financial information. The return addresses were not from Paypal, they were from Venmo. The blue logo copyright expired in 2004. So I first replied to these emails asking for verification of their identities, but I received no responses. Then I forwarded the replies to to Paypal requesting clarification and reassurance. Paypal's automated response thanked me for keeping Paypal safe. Surely there are thousands of daily reports of false uses of Paypal's address. I have had hundreds of fake emails from fake paypal as well, and have forwarded them on before.
But first of all, it is far too complex to submit a report -- even to find where to do it is difficult. Paypal's hard insistence that it's my own fault that I got scammed via Friends and Family seems unethical if I'm giving evidence of widespread financial malfeasance. , I mentioned that three of the four Paypal accounts provided by the scammer are still open, and known to be used by scammers to funnel money that was given out of compassion by people who are being deceived.
I have screenshots of every exchange, including the one where the scammers attempted to recruit me to become a mule in Paypal who could funnel money to their Bitccoin account. I refused because of fears about income taxes --at the time I still felt these were volunteers who had left their jobs in the US to risk all to defend their country. I reported my own case to the FBI and FTC but since the Paypal accounts are still active, I believe Paypal should take care of it. Fortunately I am a relatively small fish, with losses that are not changing my life, but I do believe that siphoning money in this way has a terrible impact on legitimate charity -- puppies and kittens are not getting fed, volunteers in Ukraine need protective equipment. It's well within Paypal's responsibilty to pay attention when people try to report activity like this on their platform.
Financial scams are a huge international business and it is really too bad. Scammers are professionals and very good at deceiving people who have sincere, caring motivations and are generally astute investors, careful with our money, not fools or idiots. I don't want this to happen to anyone else! It's reductive of Paypal to put up such high walls. At this point I am not expecting to get money back but to help others understand more and perhaps not fall for the same stuff. At the time of being 'inducted' into 'helping' I had no idea that scams are so widespread.
Kate
