If you ever find yourself mailing bundles of cash across the country to a stranger, take a deep breath and ask yourself, “Is this a scam?” because we assure you it’s almost certainly a scam. And Gizmodo has the documents to prove it.
We’ve looked at plenty of heartbreaking scams over the years on platforms like Tinder, Venmo, and Airbnb. Today, we’re taking a look at obvious scams on PayPal—all filed as consumer complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and obtained by Gizmodo through a Freedom of Information Act request. Many involve shocking amounts of stolen money.
One of the most common scams of the 2020s, and one that popped up repeatedly in the complaints Gizmodo obtained, is the Accidental Overpayment Scam, a type of grift the FTC has been warning Americans about since at least 2004. Essentially, the scammer pretends to be part of some big financial institution like PayPal and deposits money into your account. Sometimes the deposited money is a “refund” for a charge that only existed on a fake invoice delivered via email. This big deposit was a mistake, the scammer says, so you’re asked to pay the money back in a different way. Often, the scammer will ask to be paid back in gift cards from Target, Walmart, or Apple. But the boldest of scammers will ask for cash to be mailed, as one did in perhaps the strangest complaints we obtained. The hapless victim complied, according to the…
