Sophisticated PayPal Scam

Scammers Refund scams
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1

Scammer number: 1-877-392-0571
Fake service they are refunding: PayPal
Any other scammer information:
They initiate a funds request thru PayPal, generating an email from PayPal to you. The message of the request is as follows:

  Hong Zhou sent you a money request
  
  NOTE FROM Hong Zhou:
  
  "We've detected that your PayPal account has been accessed fraudulently. If you did not make this transaction, please call us at toll free number +1 (877) 392-0571 to cancel and claim a refund. If this is not the case, you will be charged $500. 00 today. Within the automated deduction of the amount, this transaction will reflect on PayPal activity after 24 hours. Our Service Hours: (07:00 a. m. to 06:00 p. m. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday)."

The request for funds is actually listed as pending in one’s PayPal account. You can accept it or cancel it. The phone number in the funds request goes to a scam call center posing as PayPal.

2

even though the email is, in a sense, legitimately from PayPal, I’d still forward it to phishing(at)paypal(dot)com.

were any details on the scammer, such as an email address, exposed in the request?

3

I did go ahead and forward it to PayPal.

Scammer email in PayPal request: [email protected]