Friends and family: the protection switch
A 'friends and family' payment is a gift. It has no buyer protection, no dispute process and no realistic recovery once sent. Any seller asking you to use it, whatever reason they give about fees, is asking you to give up your only remedy.
Sellers do pay a fee on goods-and-services payments, and that fee is the price of the protection. If someone will not absorb it, add it to the price or walk away, but never change the payment type.
- Goods and services: disputes, refunds and protection apply
- Friends and family: a gift, with no recovery route
- A seller insisting on friends and family is the warning sign itself
- Never pay a stranger for an item as friends and family
- Keep the conversation on the selling platform for evidence
Fake invoices and money requests
Criminals send real PayPal invoices and money requests, usually for a plausible sum such as a renewal or a crypto purchase, with a phone number in the note saying to call if you did not authorise it. The invoice is genuinely from PayPal's system, which is why it passes every spam filter, but the request is fraudulent.
Calling the number connects you to the criminal, who then runs a refund or remote-access script. Never call a number inside an invoice or email. Log into PayPal directly and cancel or decline the request there; an unpaid invoice can simply be ignored.
- An invoice you did not expect, with a support number in the note
- A request referencing crypto, gift cards or a renewal
- 'Call immediately to cancel this transaction'
- Any phone number provided inside the message itself
- A request to install support software to process a refund
Account warning phishing
The email version claims the account is limited, a payment is on hold or unusual activity was detected, and links to a convincing copy of the login page. Because PayPal holds a funding source, a captured login is immediately valuable, and the page usually asks for card and identity details as 'verification'.
Type the address yourself or use the app, never a link. Real notifications also appear in the Notifications area of your account, so anything absent from there is fake regardless of how it looks.
Seller-side fraud
Sellers face fake payment-received emails, requests to ship to a different address than the one on the transaction, and overpayment-and-refund attempts. Only the balance and transaction history inside your own account prove a payment; an email never does.
Ship only to the address on the transaction, always with tracking and, for higher-value items, with signature confirmation. Deviating from the recorded address is the fastest way to lose a dispute even when the payment was genuine.
- Confirm payment in the account, not in an email
- Ship only to the transaction address, with tracking
- Never refund an overpayment outside the original transaction
- Use signature confirmation on higher-value items
- Keep all communication and dispatch evidence
Disputing correctly
Open a dispute in the Resolution Centre within the stated window, describe the facts plainly and attach evidence: listing, conversation, tracking, photographs. Escalate to a claim if the seller does not resolve it. If the payment was funded by a card, a chargeback through your card issuer remains a second route.
Strengthen the account itself while you are there: a unique password, an authenticator app rather than SMS where possible, and alerts for every transaction. Review linked cards and bank accounts periodically and remove ones you no longer use.