I recently got one of these for $847 claiming I owed a payment for purchased Bitcoin. It was disconcerting for sure, because it appears to be a legitimate invoice that you owe a payment for (rather than an attempted fraud that PayPal is making possible). So your mind immediately goes to that your account got hacked in some form, and somebody used it to purchase Bitcoin.
To make matters worse, the invoice sits there in your PayPal account, and you're just a mistaken click or so away from authorizing the charge. Under my "activity" section, it sits right at the very top, forever, under the "Pending" headline (since early July). For whatever reason I can't get rid of it (PayPal killed the actual invoice after a week, they must have noticed the fraudulent activity from that account; but the invoice card summary remains in my activity under pending, perpetually).
Here is what the core of the emailed text looks like:
"You Purchased BITCOIN (0. 054631) for $ 847. 12. Reference Number-N34421979 If you have any concern regarding your order kindly contact us because we are getting lot of complaints regarding fraudulent orders. HELP-DESK (806)440-0799."
It arrives from service@paypal.com with the email subject saying the invoice is from PayPal (rather than being from xyz merchant or similar; which only adds to the concern that a fraud has already occurred within my PayPal account). The text in the email otherwise looks legitimate as I assume it did arrive from PayPal's service. It would be easy for a normal user to fall for the scam.
In their haphazard greed, PayPal slipped up and made their invoicing system too loose, too unconstrained in how it functions.
It’s odd that they put a space in between the decimal and dollar amount. Same as in the OP story. Perhaps run by the same operator. No US person would ever put a space there..it stands out for sure. Perhaps gives us a clue as to the origin of the person running this scam.
To make matters worse, the invoice sits there in your PayPal account, and you're just a mistaken click or so away from authorizing the charge. Under my "activity" section, it sits right at the very top, forever, under the "Pending" headline (since early July). For whatever reason I can't get rid of it (PayPal killed the actual invoice after a week, they must have noticed the fraudulent activity from that account; but the invoice card summary remains in my activity under pending, perpetually).
Here is what the core of the emailed text looks like:
"You Purchased BITCOIN (0. 054631) for $ 847. 12. Reference Number-N34421979 If you have any concern regarding your order kindly contact us because we are getting lot of complaints regarding fraudulent orders. HELP-DESK (806)440-0799."
It arrives from service@paypal.com with the email subject saying the invoice is from PayPal (rather than being from xyz merchant or similar; which only adds to the concern that a fraud has already occurred within my PayPal account). The text in the email otherwise looks legitimate as I assume it did arrive from PayPal's service. It would be easy for a normal user to fall for the scam.
In their haphazard greed, PayPal slipped up and made their invoicing system too loose, too unconstrained in how it functions.