Scammed €1400 through paypal. Urgent help needed!

DJDylan106

Hi guys and gals, need help for an aunt of mine. She's not as computer smart as myself and was tricked into giving her paypal details via e-mail. She thought it was genuine, it said her account was frozen until she entered her details and re-activated it so she entered her debit card details again and of course, got a phone call the next morning from the bank asking what her last transaction was as they were suspicious to the fact that rooms were booked in 3 different hotels in the UK, amounting to a total of €1400. Of course she then realised that the night before, she had recieved said e-mail and everything went wrong from there. Anyways, the bank say that she is liable for the money as the account was password protected and she shouldn't have given the bank details to a third party.

€1400 is quite a chunk of money for her, as it is to a lot of us, and she asked me to try and do some research that may lead her to having the problem resolved. As always, any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance.

GerardKeating

DJDylan106 wrote: »

Hi guys and gals, need help for an aunt of mine. She's not as computer smart as myself and was tricked into giving her paypal details via e-mail. She thought it was genuine, it said her account was frozen until she entered her details and re-activated it so she entered her debit card details again and of course, got a phone call the next morning from the bank asking what her last transaction was as they were suspicious to the fact that rooms were booked in 3 different hotels in the UK, amounting to a total of €1400. Of course she then realised that the night before, she had recieved said e-mail and everything went wrong from there. Anyways, the bank say that she is liable for the money as the account was password protected and she shouldn't have given the bank details to a third party.

€1400 is quite a chunk of money for her, as it is to a lot of us, and she asked me to try and do some research that may lead her to having the problem resolved. As always, any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance.

Other than reporting it to the Police and the hotels, not much. The hotels concerned might help, if the guest has not actually stayed there yet.

ED E

If she got skimmed they'd cover it, but unfortunately the banks could never guarantee uneducated/foolish users.

Really people who aren't decent with tech should NOT be online shopping in any way and advised to never ever put their CC info into anything on the PC. Malicious mails are far too convincing for the less aware.

DJDylan106

GerardKeating wrote: »

Other than reporting it to the Police and the hotels, not much. The hotels concerned might help, if the guest has not actually stayed there yet.

Yes, she has reported it to An Garda Síochána but they have just said they will investigate it. I think she has notified the hotels, that would probably be the obvious thing to do alright.

ED E wrote: »

If she got skimmed they'd cover it, but unfortunately the banks could never guarantee uneducated/foolish users.

Really people who aren't decent with tech should NOT be online shopping in any way and advised to never ever put their CC info into anything on the PC. Malicious mails are far too convincing for the less aware.

I know, I know. She is tech wise enough to know how to purchase/sell stuff online and is competent enough with the day to day stuff but she was up to her eyeballs in work and rushed off her feet and she said it was just so convincing she never thought twice about it. I had a look at the mail myself and I have seen/ recieved plenty of convincing/ non-convincing mail in the past and this was by far the best I have ever seen. English was perfect, all hyper links brought you to the real paypal site, even the address itself that it was sent from was quite similar to PayPal's real address. By far the best composed phishing scam I have come across in my time anyways, they seem to be getting better and better at it.

Mr. G

Make sure the bank are aware it's fraud and to charge back the transactions. She'll need a new card.

yoyo

Sorry to hear this OP. I have moved this to the Consumer Issues forum which is more suitable. I hope you can get it resolved soon!

Nick

ScouseMouse

My mum got done by the microsoft-tech-support phone call. She did get her money back as it was unauthorised.

Have the rooms been used? If not they should cancelled as its fraud.

testicle

What hotels take PayPal???

ohnonotgmail

testicle wrote: »

What hotels take PayPal???

so she entered her debit card details again

The spammers have her debit card details.

Menas

ScouseMouse wrote: »

My mum got done by the microsoft-tech-support phone call. She did get her money back as it was unauthorised.

Have the rooms been used? If not they should cancelled as its fraud.

The vast majority of hotels have a 24 hour cancellation policy. But also the vast majority of hotels don't ask you to pay in advance.
So it could be those super cheap 'pay up front for the best rate' type deals...

I would be calling the hotels direct and explaining what has happened here, they may be sympathetic and refund the money. Poor form if they dont as the rooms have not yet been used (I presume).
But make sure the refund goes not to your aunts old card - but to the new card!

jelutong

I can't see how the hotel is responsible.

ScouseMouse

jelutong wrote: »

I can't see how the hotel is responsible.

They are not responsible, but they cannot charge a card for a room, before the room has been used, which they have been made aware is fraudulant.

That would be wilfully participating in a fraud would it not?

0ph0rce0

This happened to me before. I just opened a dispute with PayPal and had my money back in about 4 days. I also said it to the bank. 2k they took from my credit card. PayPal gave me 2k and the bank gave me 2k. It was a very good day to be scammed. The scammee became the scammer

TheChizler

0ph0rce0 wrote: »

This happened to me before. I just opened a dispute with PayPal and had my money back in about 4 days. I also said it to the bank. 2k they took from my credit card. PayPal gave me 2k and the bank gave me 2k. It was a very good day to be scammed. The scammee became the scammer

Sounds like this might be a bit different, PayPal had absolutely no involvement here, the scammer merely used their name in the email, it didn't go through their systems.

L1011

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

The spammers have her debit card details.

You have spyware on your PC, based on the insertion in the quote you did there.

DJDylan106

Thanks very much everybody for your replies, they are all sincerely appreciated by both myself and my aunt. As mentioned already by 'Menas' above, the bookings were made through one of these quick, cheap, buyitnow sites that do cheap hotel bookings "once you book now now now"! The Gardai are well aware of this scam and they said all that happens is that the bookings are made and then advertised on classified ad sites such as Gumtree etc. in the UK, for half the price the bookings were made for. In their mind it's still a quick, easy €700 in their pockets. I have already reported the E-Mails she recieved as phishing scams and as it had no affiliation with PayPal and in TheChizler's words, " They had no involvement ". They got her Debit card details, not PayPal. So unfortunately, it's all in the hands of the hotels now and it was all done through the banks and we all know how helpful and willing the banks here in Ireland are with reimbursing people with money! My aunt is going to try and get in contact with somebody of a higher calibre in the bank as both myself, and a few others, think it was very dismissive of the bank to simply pawn her off on the excuse that " her account was passcode protected, so she shouldn't have released that kind of information to a third party ". As recommended above, she is going to get in contact with the hotels in question and inform them of the situation in the hope that they may understand the situation and refund her the payments made. Again, thank you very much guys, I can always rely on my trusty fellow boards members for help!

Wanderer78

best of luck with this

316

Its not looking good op, the guards get confused when there are too many donuts to select from not to mind this calibre of problem.

davepatr07

Sorry to hear about the OP.

To anyone out there unsure of the legitimacy of websites there's a good website called SCAMADVISOR.COM. Just put in the website in question into the field to check. Might or might not have been mentioned before on Consumer Issues.

Always good to check email addresses first to see if they are legit. Scammers are always looking at new ways to take your money.

Wheety

Our joint account was hit for €2.5k a couple of years ago. Don't know how they got our details but they had booked 2 hotel rooms in Kenya. Wondered how they would make money from it. Didn't realise they sell them on. Surely the bookings are cancelled though?

DJDylan106

316 wrote: »

Its not looking good op, the guards get confused when there are too many donuts to select from not to mind this calibre of problem.

Hahahahahahah lol, definitely, they would be a tad disgruntled to think that the file they have on their desk has nothing to do with Irish Water :rolleyes::rolleyes: But that's a story for a different day

davepatr07 wrote: »

Sorry to hear about the OP.

To anyone out there unsure of the legitimacy of websites there's a good website called SCAMADVISOR.COM. Just put in the website in question into the field to check. Might or might not have been mentioned before on Consumer Issues.

Always good to check email addresses first to see if they are legit. Scammers are always looking at new ways to take your money.

That's a cool site! Pity they're not made a sticky at the top of all e-mails so that you can check real quick before you click on a site.

Wheety wrote: »

Our joint account was hit for €2.5k a couple of years ago. Don't know how they got our details but they had booked 2 hotel rooms in Kenya. Wondered how they would make money from it. Didn't realise they sell them on. Surely the bookings are cancelled though?

Jaysus, two hotel rooms in Kenya for €2.5k, must've been very good hotels !! Ah no, sorry to hear about that, they seem to love hotel rooms these scammers, must be hotel critics at this stage! Me neither, I was always under the illusion that they book these rooms for personal use but that'd be a bit risky... seems this is a popular option to sell them on classified ad sites and on facebook groups etc.! Yes, the bookings can be cancelled, but, by the time the bookings are cancelled, these lads have the tickets sold on to unsuspecting buyers and already have cash in their hand for tickets so they couldn't give a fiddlers whether the person turns up at the hotel 2 weeks later to find out it was all a scam...

Mylow

Will be cautious now on resale of hotel rooms etc from now on.