Well I wrote this to hopefully open up some eyes and help some people who are confused on ways to get money back or proper ways to file for fraud.

Any feedback be nice & add-ons are welcome.



Paypal the Stuff you might not know!


Intro: Greetings, it’s your friendly Spiel coming to you from my desk at work. I am sitting here writing this listening to… what else? Trance! The main reason I am writing this “article” if you will, is because I guess you can say I was recently a victim of fraud. I think some of you have a general idea of how the Paypal/Fraud system works. Did you know there is ways to beat Paypal? Small cracks you can slip through? Here you will learn about them and also how to file proper charges on fraud particularly “Interstate Fraud.” 1st off let me explain what I do for living, pretty boring… I manage roughly 300 desktop machines along with a bunch of other high tech stuff. Growing up I have had the privilege living with my roommate who is in Network Security going to conferences all over the world, speaking at the Pentagon making friends in FBI, U.S. Army and NSA. I have had the privilege to meet some of the worlds top Security Consultants; Ranging from Programmers to Pen testers to much, much more. Some of you would call them “hackers” essentially I guess they are, all they do is break stuff. J Growing up and seeing this I believed in one thing “Security” be it for a computer, server or you personally security. When someone tries to take your money that you earned that just eats away at me inside (hints why I am writing this.) Paypal


Paypal the ways around the system: Millions of transactions happen a day… as we sit at home clicking that refresh button 10 times so we can get that IPOD for 200 bucks shipped! Perhaps you want that k04 kit for $800.00 shipped maybe buy your wife or GF that diamond ring online at half-price. Whatever your reason you should be protected at all times. Paypal has some kinks they still need to work out… during various tests… I was able to open MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS using my Name or variations of it with different address. What does this mean? Well let’s say (Account A) Sold something to a buyer lets call him Tim… Tim bought coilovers for $600.00 NEW (to good to be true?) Probably is! Time never gets his parts he tries contacting seller emails & phone but the seller never responds. Tim thinks he may be a victim of fraud… so he files with Paypal for a refund. Paypal tried to recover funds but they can’t. I’ll tell you why this happens later on. Right now let’s go back to Paypal and Accounts. You see I was able to open multiple accounts on Paypal this means that if one fails…I have backups. I would be able to scam multiple people using multiple accounts. You would think Paypal has some sort of system check in place right? THEY DON’T! (I can tell you from personal experience it IS POSSIBLE)


Scamming the Buyer: Recently I bought some struts & springs for a killer deal. I waited for shipment of product & never received it. I tried contacting the seller via IM & Phone and he ignored me. Recently I sent him an IM (via AIM) and he responded telling me he would ship Dec12th 2006. So I waited and never got parts/tracking info not even a phone call. I jumped on Forums only to find out multiple people were having same issues. At this point I already had a complaint in process with PAYPAL once I saw other people were “possibly” getting scammed as well, I escalated it to Dispute. Paypal then gave the Seller 10-days to respond or they would decide on my favor. Well sure enough December 30th 2006 Paypal decided in my. Then I was hit with bad news… “We have completed our investigation of this case. We attempted to process a refund from the seller's account to your account. Unfortunately, the seller's account does not contain the funds necessary to cover this refund. We were able to recover $0.00 USD. We have taken action against the seller and are working to recover the remainder of your refund. We will contact you when we have more information. No further action is required of you at this time.” This happened why? Well one reason… You see if I sell you something for $800.00 say a k04 with injectors and the buyer never receives it. You should be able to get a refund back... But what happens if Paypal tries to take money from your bank account... And you close it your bank account. How can you take money from something that doesn’t exist? You can’t, this is where Paypal needs to figure something out. I spoke to Paypal and they told me they would “try and recover funds” I knew they wouldn’t be successful.

Getting Your Money Back: So at this point I was lost... All I had was the sellers Paypal E-mail and full name along with some other useful info. Well after talking to Paypal they told me it was considered “Interstate Fraud” and the FBI deals with those cases. I was lucky… since I paid with my credit card I was eligible for a 100% refund. To all of you that use Paypal **I HIGHLY RECOMMEND** you use this as payment all the time. Think of it as better protecting yourself! So I was happy to hear I would get refunded in full amount. Something was still wrong though, I didn’t want other people getting ripped off due to this seller’s bad habits’. So what did I do? I contacted the FBI in Chicago,IL within 1-minute I was able to speak to an agent. I have to say he was EXTREMLY NICE. The FBI has what they call “Cybersqaud” they deal with EBAY, PAYPAL, FORUMS basically all online fraud. I was asked for link, seller’s screenname/handle online, Paypal e-mail. I was then asked for a reach back number. At this point you did all you can do… it’s in the FBI’s hands now. I cannot stress this enough be careful who you buy stuff from especially online i.e. forums and ebay. People are always thinking of new ways to beat the system. Please be aware make sure you take PROPER STEPS give the seller time to ship & try contacting him! LOG EVERYTHING!!!!! Steps should be.

1.) Contact seller IM,PHONE,EMAIL

2.) Contact Paypal (1-30 day waiting period for result)

3.) If paying my Credit Card (contact CC company for refund)

4.) Last contact attempt to seller

5.) Contact FBI

6.) Contact seller about FBI being informed
*******************************************
please note that if you pull funds from bank account it is highly unlikely that bank will cover you. I was lucky….at 6th step I informed seller that FBI was informed. Within 5 minutes the seller issued me a FULL Refund. After telling me online (HE DIDN’T HAVE THE MONEY) To contact the FBI click link . http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/fo.htm (ask how to file for “Interstate Fraud”) you will get transferred to an agent immediately!

Thanks for reading
-Dj Spiel

psauseda at g m a i l.com

 

good info! I was scammed on G2IC.com for some headlights for my 2nd gen integra... 180 bucks gone, and nothing I could do. Seeing as how it was a year ago, I have basically given up hope. but from this point on, I will always use a Credit Card when buying online, its the only way you'll be damn near garunteed to get your money back.

 

Yeah sucks... sorry to hear that.

 

Thanks for the good tips. It's funny that you post this today I just bought brakes online and got a lil nervous when i recieved a call needing my cw2 #. I was just a bit curious why the web site didn't ask for it. Anyhow good info too share.

 

Good info man. I was scammed 200$ and paypal refunded my money.

 

Great write up! I have had really good experiences with Pay Pal. I use it every day.

 

I have to say this is the most useful writeup in off topic. good stuff, im always shopping on ebay and forums and have been using my bank account the whole time.

 

great info, i was scammed on yahoo auctions for 850.00
so far the seller fell off the face of the earth
but is still selling things (both complete sales and scams)



the bad, i didnt use pay pal, i sent a certified postal order, which he signed for
i have several emails,
adress
name
phone number

will the fbi still handle this sort of thing, or is it more of a my word against his sort of thing ?

 

If it's within USA. I would suggest contacting person one more time if not contacrt feds & possibly seek out a lawyer.

 

bump.
want everone to get a change to read this.