Is this a scam

by 29 replies
33
I recieved notification from paypal that someone made a payment to me of 1 cent. The payment came from someone in malaysia. As I don't sell any products for a penny, I was wondering if anyone had heard of a scam involving insignificant payments to a paypal account and iff this was something I needed to be worried about.

Thanks
#main internet marketing discussion forum #scam
  • That sounds like a phishing email. These false "you've received a payment" emails are nothing new. Forward it to "spoof@paypal.com".
  • Just don't click on any of the links in the email
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • I wouldn't discount the possibility of it being someone trying to access your details! I am unable to post the thread but if you google and find the thread in paypal community.com, named "Anyone-receiving-1-cent-donations" it may help

      I did not enjoy reading that paypal said there was "no problem" in a support ticket, since there clearly is something strange occurring, given the chargeback costs highlighted in that above thread.
    • A little trick I teach my computer and business clients here in Honolulu Hawaii is to place your mouse over the link without clicking it. Then look in the lower left hand corner for the actual website.

      For secure sites I tell all my computer tutoring clients to type the address into the address bar NOT the search engine textbox the address bar.

      Rick
  • Are you sure the notification was from PayPal or a clone, this type of email can get your attention to immediately click the "PayPal" link to check where it came from.

    No matter what message I get from Paypal I always type it into my browser.
    • [2] replies
    • One thing I forgot to mention; whenever you receive a payment into your PayPal account, the notification you receive from PayPal will be addressed to you. In other words, the email will start off with "XXX (name of sender) sent you $XX.XX (whatever the amount is) and just below that will be "Dear John Doe" (or whatever your first and last name is). Phishing emails often don't have your name in them.

      But, regardless, as someone else mentioned, don't ever click on any links in the email. All you really need to do to confirm it is go directly to PayPal and login to your account. Any legit payments will show up there. The emails do say it might take a few minutes for the payment to post.
    • Every time I receive an email with Paypal in the title, I'll check my Paypal account by logging in directly instead of clicking the links in the email. There are just too many scams and spams around.
      • [1] reply
  • Banned
    Hello jdooley13,

    We received the same email last month. The sender's email address didn't show @paypal.com so we just marked that email address as a spam and we deleted the email.

    Never reply to those emails. If you really are curious, contact PayPal directly and report that or verify the authenticity of that message that you received. They can tell if you really received a cent or not.
  • Banned
    I'm getting a lot of emails from PayPal these days...except they are not really pay pal.
    Make sure you check the specific email address they are sending from and not just the Name.
  • Yes, it's a scam. Call your bank and put a fraud watch on your account.
  • theres also a few cases where scammers were buying products for 1c by manipulating the price with the paypal code. That was a couple of years ago so im guessing thats been fixed
  • Yes i've seen these.
    Theirs a lot of people that fall for this. Your lucky to have people to tell you before you became a real victim.
    also great info at 419eater about other type of scams.
    • [1] reply

    • i found this the other day as ive had a few of these over the years, i wish they really wanted to give me £10 million.
      i had nothing much to do the other night and had a great laugh reading some of the email conversations from people winding them up.
      • [1] reply
  • people had made many phishing emails like that. Don't believe over it.

    Best Regards,
  • Banned
    If it have any link please don't click on it ,may be it is a phishing .you can contact with papal.Check your name in the mail and other criteria that is essential for paypal mail,or help you to recognize it is comes from paypal.
  • It appears that the email was sent by paypal. The payment finally showed in my account. The person was apparently trying to buy a product I sell that I charge $21.00 for. I have confirmed that it is correctly set up in paypal to be charged $21.00. I have no idea how it was processed as one penny but I am, obviously, not going to deliver the product for a penny.
    I have contacted paypal but so far I have only received the canned response that I get everytime I send a question. Hopefully, I will hear back from them soon with a real response.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes, they are trying to buy your product at a price of their choice,
      which is to get it free. This was an old trick and I think that
      Paypal has 'fixed' this so they should not get the download
      link even though you receive the payment. You should
      confirm whether they got access to your product or not.

      -Ray Edwards
  • Agreed, don't click any links even if they look legit. Open a new browser tab/window and type in paypal.com and login that way... hate these emails!
  • They might want to look at your PayPal email address and use brute force to hack it. I would suggest ignoring that kind of email.

    And do not click on ANY link there.
  • It is a scam. Typically done by altering the HTTP headers when submitting a payment.
  • Banned
    How much did you pay to paypal in processing fees? If Paypal charges 35cents + 2% per transaction then you can go almost broke when someone sends you 1 cent payment a few million times. (it will cost you 35 million cents to receive 1 million cents)

    They might be validating your email for whatever reason. If the payment goes thru then it's a valid paypal email. I have no clue what they will do with such information.
  • I've had these a few times recently and some are very good.

    Either way your first port of call should be a quick call to Paypal and even more importantly don't click on anything in the email.
  • Beware of these thypes of emails, make sure you do not click on any links of attachement if you do not know the source. I would delete that email ASAP
  • I'm not sure what email provider that you are using , you could always block the sender so that you know you will not receive junk mails. I get a lot of these types emails. I usually just disregard them all.
  • just ignore it and tell paypal,so many scams going around today its unbelievable.
    Regards
    vivi62
  • I heard back from paypal. The state that they understand that the product was supposed to be $21 but that my website had the price listed at .01 so that is what they charged the customer. I am not sure why paypal would have looked at my site to determine what the charge was instead of what I have it set at on paypal but regardless, they are incorrect. No product has ever been listed at .01 on my site, it wasn't listed that way yesterday when I checked my site and it isn't listed that way today.
    Of course, I have no idea what they expect me to do (refund, ignore etc) or if they are going to try to take any fees from me (paypal only shows them taking the penny as their fee).
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Don't click anything in the email and go report it to paypal.

    They're probably trying to get your information (phishing)
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  • 33

    Is this a scam

    I recieved notification from paypal that someone made a payment to me of 1 cent. The payment came from someone in malaysia. As I don't sell any products for a penny, I was wondering if anyone had heard of a scam involving insignificant payments to a paypal account and iff this was something I needed to be worried about. Thanks