PayPal scam

[Apache]

Have just been investigated for money laundering.

The scammer pays money into your paypal account without sending a message, ensuring you don't know its there. Then some months later, he emails you to tell you he's paid money into your account 'by accident' whilst trying to pay someone else.

(This immediately raises suspicions because surely only a African from Burkina el Faso would struggle with that)

You check, and sure enough, there is a payment from a Nigerian bloke posing as a lawyer or some other professional (in my case, a lawyer - though I've heard of other professionals with private 'plains' using this method) from the South East of England.

Being a nice person, you refund them, and hey presto, Mr Ali Zongo has had his evil proceeds from his diamond mine / drug dealing / lawyer bills 'washed clean' and untraceable.

I was caught - let this be a lesson to the rest of you! Dont answer emails from seemingly retarded Africans claiming to be Lawyers!

I'm hoping our resident legal eagle Flounderbout can help me out here...

[Rustinho]

I had trouble with a PayPal dispute for years.

Someone took about $3500 out of my PayPal account and cos I never used my PayPal account at the time (I'd only got it for a one-off payment when I bought something online just over 10 years ago) I didn't notice the money was gone until they started chasing me for it.

It got sold to some dodgy debt collection agency who kept writing me threatening letters. Threatening to take me to court over the debt. The first few times I wrote to explain that it was a mistake and that I didn't owe anyone any money. Then I started sending letters inviting them to take me to court because I knew full well that they couldn't prove that I owed anyone the money cos it was nowt to do with me.

In the end I just gave up replying and, eventually, they gave up sending me the letters.

It was only a couple of years or so ago that PayPal let me have my account back though...

[flounderbout]

Have just been investigated for money laundering.

The scammer pays money into your paypal account without sending a message, ensuring you don't know its there. Then some months later, he emails you to tell you he's paid money into your account 'by accident' whilst trying to pay someone else.

(This immediately raises suspicions because surely only a African from Burkina el Faso would struggle with that)

You check, and sure enough, there is a payment from a Nigerian bloke posing as a lawyer or some other professional (in my case, a lawyer - though I've heard of other professionals with private 'plains' using this method) from the South East of England.

Being a nice person, you refund them, and hey presto, Mr Ali Zongo has had his evil proceeds from his diamond mine / drug dealing / lawyer bills 'washed clean' and untraceable.

I was caught - let this be a lesson to the rest of you! Dont answer emails from seemingly retarded Africans claiming to be Lawyers!

I'm hoping our resident legal eagle Flounderbout can help me out here...

Paypal schemes like this are increasingly common. I recently tried to pay a forum member for some Surf related services. When some months later I checked to see what the payment I hade made was so that I could settle a balance, I discovered that it had been rerouted to someone else - coincidentally also a member of the forum (for the purpose of the story and not wishing to betray any identities I shall call him merely "Boeing AH-64 attack helicopter").
I realised immediately there were only two possibilities:
a) I am a congenital idiot unable to carry out the very simplest of computer related tasks; or
b) someone with advanced engineering skills and probably access to high-spec military equipment had hacked the Paypal system and hijacked my transaction.
I was able to discount a) immediately. I am a very highly qualified lawyer donchaknow. I am plainly incapable of such massive idiocy.
Accordingly I was able to pinpoint b) as the source of my woes. However, I was more than a match for this potential criminal mastermind. I sent the culprit a message purporting to identify the mistake as mine. This lulled him into a false sense of security - he of course assumed that I was unaware of his hideous crime. But there was a fatal flaw in his scheme. Such was his insatiable greed, he thought that if he were to masquerade as a "good bloke", and repay the money instantly, he would immediately open up a rich seam of future fraudulent transactions. Little did he know that I had traced his every move, and that even as I type Interpol are hunting him down like some sort of Native American Indian.
Anyway, my genius saved what could have been a very serious situation for which I was plainly entirely blameless. Others may not be so fortunate. I suggest you install a Windows security patch called "A Patch E Scam Stopper" to help prevent it.

[slobodan]

So, lawyers are partial to Crystal meth as well?

[gary-r]

So, lawyers are partial to Crystal meth as well?

more like the aromatic herbal dutch fags writing all that drivvel

[flounderbout]

Hugely defamatory... writs in post... massive damages... etc... etc...
You know the drill...

[gary-r]

Hugely defamatory... writs in post... massive damages... etc... etc...
You know the drill...

smashing - ill save them up for winter - lossa paper to light the wood burner

[slobodan]

Pah, it's only Sudafed with some drain cleaner.

[flounderbout]

Apache,
It transpires that I am an even bigger cretin than I suspected. You have a pm.

[biosurf]

Apache,
It transpires that I am an even bigger cretin than I suspected. You have a pm.

I hate them in soup. They go all soggy.

[Apache]

Like Henry's brain.

And mine it seems...

[Vultch]

If it was me... " hmmm what money"..really you paid money into my account... no sign of it this end...

[Bogus]

I once left a fiver in my "troosers" and put them in the washing machine. I immediately turned myself in to the police to explain the honest mistake. They told me that money laundering was indeed illegal, but that because Id given myself up and it was such a small amount, they would just put my name on a register and let me off with a warning. They also confiscated the fiver but as they have rules apparently about taking money they accompanied me to a nearby Greggs where I got it converted into sausage rolls. Good exchange rate too if I remember 3 to the pound.

[Diezel Weazel]

Alex that's brilliant

[tom222]

floundabout is a sap

I was able to discount a) immediately. I am a very highly qualified lawyer donchaknow. I am plainly incapable of such massive idiocy.