Probably Scammed - Refund coming?

[Ham_and_Jam]

I bought an Apple keyboard, £189 from a website with a familiar name and on face value a good looking website.

Item was bought with a business debit mastercard and processed with Paypal card payment services (not PayPal account).

Got a very badly worded email today from the vendor saying order was cancelled and a refund issued.

5 minutes later an email from PayPal saying vendor has issued a refund. It’s a genuine PayPal email.

I’ve done a quick review online and now realise the seller is not who I thought they were (their website address has an extra character ‘-‘ inbetween two words). Additionally there are multiple reviews about it being a scam website and this is their modus operandi.

So, if PayPal has sent an email saying the vendor is issuing a refund. Will this happen? Or can the vendor just inform PayPal then not send the money?

If this is the case, I presume my only recourse is a charge back. Is this still OK on a business debit card?

[wyson]

Sounds like a card detail harvesting operation.

Check your statements carefully now.

[Ham_and_Jam]

wyson said:

Sounds like a card detail harvesting operation.

Check your statements carefully now.

How could they harvest card details from Paypal?

[zedx19]

Log onto your Paypal account, go to activity and see if the refund shows up in there. Don't click any Paypal links from emails, go direct to Paypal from your browser. You can also speak with Paypal direct on the phone, I've found them helpful before.

The seller cannot harvest any data via Paypal, don't worry about that.

[Ham_and_Jam]

zedx19 said:

Log onto your Paypal account, go to activity and see if the refund shows up in there. Don't click any Paypal links from emails, go direct to Paypal from your browser. You can also speak with Paypal direct on the phone, I've found them helpful before.

The seller cannot harvest any data via Paypal, don't worry about that.

The payment wasn’t made with my paypal account. It was a card payment using paypal card processing from the vendors website.

I just entered my card details as you would any normal online transaction.

[OutInTheShed]

They may now have your card details.

I would suggest logging on to your card provider and checking your account.

[Ham_and_Jam]

Sorry was on the phone to the bank!!

Card now blocked and a dispute on the payment lodged. Should have an outcome in the next 48 hours.

No further payments taken.

[Ham_and_Jam]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yep called them.

50 minutes later, card blocked but have to say considering they were the card fraud experts they didn’t seem to know what to do. I even had suggest block the card!

[stemll]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

If you pay through Paypal even just using them as a card processor without an account, or you pay using something like WorldPay then the vendor does not get any card details, they just receive a payment linked to an order.

Assuming the OP can see the transaction on PayPal and it wasn't a facsimile of a PayPal payment page that the website presented, then his card is safe.

[Ham_and_Jam]

stemll said:

If you pay through Paypal even just using them as a card processor without an account, or you pay using something like WorldPay then the vendor does not get any card details, they just receive a payment linked to an order.

Assuming the OP can see the transaction on PayPal and it wasn't a facsimile of a PayPal payment page that the website presented, then his card is safe.

PP were just the card processor. I have a receipt emailed from Paypal (confirmed as correct email)

How would I check on Paypal that It was genuine though, if PP was just used to process the payment and no account details given or logged into? I’m assuming the receipt is the only proof.

[spookly]

Check the email address that sent you the refund notice. If it isn't from a valid paypal email then that's where the scam is.

They sell you something and process the payment, then email you to say a refund has been processed when it hasn't. A certain proportion of people won't then check they actually have had a refund.

[Ham_and_Jam]

spookly said:

Check the email address that sent you the refund notice. If it isn't from a valid paypal email then that's where the scam is.

They sell you something and process the payment, then email you to say a refund has been processed when it hasn't. A certain proportion of people won't then check they actually have had a refund.

As mentioned previously in the thread, the payment was definitely through the Paypal payment portal, and both emails from Paypal - [e-mail]

I’ve no doubt the payments are OK, just I will never see the purchase or refund.

Speaking to the bank they seemed very doubtful they would refund, but said raising the dispute would start the process.

When I mentioned debit card chargeback as an option they seemed a little confused and said I had to raise a dispute first.

[Bennet]

FWIW, I believe that spoofing the sender address on an email is a fairly trivial matter. The sender's address can't be trusted.

[boyse7en]

Ham_and_Jam said:

As mentioned previously in the thread, the payment was definitely through the Paypal payment portal, and both emails from Paypal - [e-mail]

I’ve no doubt the payments are OK, just I will never see the purchase or refund.

Speaking to the bank they seemed very doubtful they would refund, but said raising the dispute would start the process.

When I mentioned debit card chargeback as an option they seemed a little confused and said I had to raise a dispute first.

If you went to the vendor's page, and then when you went to pay it booted you across to the Paypal website to process the payment (whether using Paypal card processing service or a Paypal payment) then the vendor won't have got your card details, as these are not sent to the vendor.
The risk is that you entered details on a site that looked like it was Paypal but wasn't.