Many people use PayPal for private purchases and sales, for example through classified ads portals. You rely on the financial security offered by the payment service: If the buyer does not receive the goods or does not arrive as described or if a buyer books a PayPal payment back, PayPal buyer and seller protection can step in. However, PayPal has extensive and not necessarily trivial for this Set of rules created.

c’t / 2020 This article comes from c’t 25 / 2020. In it, the editorial team provides selection aids for TV purchases and a test of smart TVs. Lots of handouts and a test of current e-mail clients should help you to keep the upper hand in the daily flood of e-mails. C’t has discovered a data leak at the navigation specialist TomTom and they are analyzing the surveillance pieces from Office 364. There are also many other tests and not to forget a whole bag full of nerdy gift tips for the upcoming Christmas party. c’t 25 / 2020 is now in the Heise shop and at the well-stocked newspaper kiosk.

The fact that many customers do not have a complete overview of these requirements has long called criminals on the scene. They induce the victims to act thoughtlessly through sometimes ingenious manipulation. It is therefore important to familiarize yourself to a certain extent with the terms of use: A buyer or seller protection procedure is not a matter of course. Those who are familiar with the matter are less likely to get caught up in shady elements.

The classic: Friends instead of goods and services In the classic among the scams, for example, the crooks take advantage of the fact that the function ” Send Money “does not always include buyer protection with PayPal. The service differentiates between private transfers, such as to friends, and payments for “items and services”. The former are free, for the latter the recipient pays a fee – currently 2, 49 percent of the payment amount plus a base amount of 35 Euro cent. But buyer protection only applies to the paid route. In addition to the margin for PayPal, the fee includes the insurance premium.

If an unknown seller wants to persuade you to opt for the free option, you should therefore become suspicious. If you agree, you have no chance of getting your money back via buyer protection if the goods do not arrive at all, do not correspond to the description or are damaged.

Now there are sellers who Be honest with the buyer and just want to save on PayPal fees. There is no question about it: one can rightly argue about the amount of the fee, and consumer advocates have often criticized the conditions for buyer and seller protection. On the one hand, however, the system would not work without fees. On the other hand, as a buyer, you are also violating the terms of use if, for example, you select the “Friends” option when purchasing from a classifieds portal. If PayPal receives this, you have to expect sanctions up to and including the account blocking.

Complex attacks Since this way is now relatively well-known and also requires a PayPal account with the Nepper, criminals have come up with much more complex meshes. When it comes to “triangular fraud”, for example, they cheat salespeople. Above all, they rely on the victim not knowing that the seller protection does not apply in the event of a personal handover. The “forwarding fraud” aims at expensive offers. This is where criminals lull their victims with invented stories and cleverly exploit the fact that PayPal makes precise specifications for shipping and return shipping – which the fake shipping companies they talk to their victims naturally do not adhere to. So we are in c’t 25 / 2020 more precisely employed.

(mon)