Received invoice from one seller which I didn't make any purchase. Is it a scam?

[MichaelCHK]

Hi all. I received a notification from PayPal that someone sent me an invoice to make a payment of USD 500 for purchasing a anti virus software which I didn't make. Could I just leave it like that with out paying or how do I cancel or report this?

[PayPal_RebeccaN · Accepted solution]

Hey @MichaelCHK, 

Thank you for your post and welcome to the PayPal Community Forum! 

From your post, I understand you have received a money request or invoice and you would like some clarity with this. If you believe an email or invoice is fake, don’t click on any links; please forward it to us. The email you can forward this to is: phishing@paypal.com. You wouldn't be charged if you didn’t purchase the item in question. 

In some cases, you can cancel a received invoice. However, if you can’t, we ask that you disregard the invoice and forward the email you received to us. PayPal is working on deleting invoices that were created by bad actors.

For more information on spotting a spoof email, see: How do I spot and report a fake, fraudulent, or phishing PayPal email or website?

I hope this can help.

Rebecca

If this post or any other was helpful, please enrich the community by giving kudos or accepting it as a solution.

Update December 16, 2022:

A new feature has been added that will let you report a fraudulent invoice directly from within your account while canceling the invoice, as long as that cancel function is showing. This will help PayPal identify suspicious seller accounts much more quickly and will help protect others.

If the option to cancel the invoice doesn't appear, you can still ignore and avoid the invoice, and forward the accompanying email to phishing@paypal.com to allow our teams to act to review the selling account.

To learn more about how the fraudulent invoice scam and other scams operate, please take a look at this Help Center article. 

Thank you all for being vigilant and skeptical about the invoices received!

Olivia

[cmalley]

I also received a spoofy looking paypal email today telling me I had an "updated invoice" for 800 dollars. Then to call an 888 number. When I called a human picked up in two rings. I hung up. A spam number quickly called back. I declined the call. Thanks to this forum, I forwarded the questionable email to phishing@paypal.com.   Did you get resolve on your invoice?

Thanks.

[Loaddown]

"we ask that you disregard the invoice and forward the email you received to us. PayPal is working on deleting invoices that were created by bad actors." That all sounds sincere enough but what is the email address that is actually read by Paypal reps? The phishing address only replys with a generic acknowledgment. My account has an untouched invoice for weeks now for me to look at whenever I review my transactions.

[beastboyjack]

Yes indeed!  Over last week and a half, have received FOUR fake money requests, including one invoice for a Google Pixel phone I certainly did not order.  And a couple of emails came from a couple of other Yahoo! members being rude to me, one telling me to go jump in a lake, that they didn't owe ME anything, while the other doesn't even have a PP account.  And when I went into the Request Money section, see that the people who sent the fake requests are not even PP members either!  Wondering if there's some security flaws in PP, because I doubt it will be the last time I or anyone will see such a fake request for money!

[Grayeyes1012]

I received same thing today but this is the first time I've actually received an invoice that is showing on my activity.  This scared me because it showed pending for $479..  I know its fake because I get a lot of these spoof email which I always foward to the spoof and phishing emails a paypal.  Everyone who gets this needs to forward and report immediately:

First email received: 

Estimate updated

Billing Department updated your estimate (SVSHVCHV12651). If you previously accepted the estimate, you’ll need to accept it again.

Estimate amount: $479.00 USD.

Second email:

Invoice updated

Billing Department updated your invoice

Amount due: $479.00 USD

Due on receipt

Name of invoice sender is : DARMAN [removed]

FAKE FAKE FAKE REPORT AT ONCE!

[jaromeTN]

I am getting these too, and so is my non-profit. They are not e-mails, but legitimate PayPal payment notices, and appear in my transactions. This is a critical problem because now we must check account daily to cancel these requests.

How can I block all payment requests?

And PayPal never answers their phone.

[kernowlass]

@jaromeTN 

Scam money request or invoice that shows in your Paypal account..

Scammers harvest email addresses and send out money requests or invoices hoping that some of those email addresses are linked to an open Paypal account.

The unsuspecting recipient is given a fake Paypal phone number in the 'notes' section added by the scammer.
If you did call that number (DO NOT) to query the transaction the scammer tells you that they need to access your computer / Paypal account to cancel that transaction for you.
They will then hack your computer or Paypal account.

Paypal never put phone numbers on emails or in money requests/invoices, they tell you to contact them via help/contact bottom of their website pages.

If there is a cancel option then cancel it, if not ignore it and it should time out at 30 days.
As long as you don't click to pay it then no money would be transferred.

[Oz139]

I got this yesterday, figured it was from a spoofed email using PayPal's email address but when I logged in to my account on the app (not following the link in the email) I had a notification saying the same thing. It was for the same exact amount as you too. Just saw at the bottom that it says if I don't know who the seller is to just ignore it. Still I had$1000 stolen from me recently through Google using my PayPal account which I couldn't get refunded so this really had me worried

[Temp20221219d]

Tank you paypal is good