I wrote a while ago about scams, encouraging you to up your game and battle back against them. Scammers are getting cleverer, more convincing and ridiculously more sophisticated. Recently people have been falling for a scam by using the PayPal friends and family money transfer function.
What Is PayPal?
Many people won’t know what PayPal is because they may not use it. For those people, let’s quickly run through what PayPal actually is. Paypal is an online money service which lets you pay for items online using a secure account. You simply add your bank account details, credit or debit card information and whenever you complete a transaction online, you can checkout with PayPal, choosing which of your accounts of cards to pay the money with.
One of the advantages of using PayPal is that you get Buyer Protection. This is part of PayPal which ensures you get what you pay for. If something was to go wrong with your eligible transactions, you’re covered. You’ll be able to get a full refund if an eligible order doesn’t arrive or isn’t as described.
What Is PayPay Friends And Family?
Whilst it doesn’t cost you as the buyer anything to use PayPal, the money PayPal makes comes from a cut of what the seller gets. So there are fees involved for sellers using PayPal. The PayPal Friends And Family function is basically a money transfer service and offers no protection. I repeat, NO PROTECTION.
There have been reported cases of people on selling websites and apps, listing items that they don’t have and hence never intend to send. Then when someone gets in touch about buying said item, the seller asks for them to pay via PayPal friends and family in order to avoid fees. They might even offer a slight discount as they won’t be hit with fees their end. As nice or true as they might seem, do you really want to find yourself out of pocket and unable to get your cash back?
Look after your family finances.
I Use It
It’s quite odd writing this when I use friends and family. But I do it only with people that I know and trust. I get paid by one of my clients via PayPal friends and family. This is because it’s easier for them to do that in their hectic work life. I also use ‘normal’ PayPal for another client. I simply add the price of the fees I’ll be charged on top. So PayPal is great, it keeps money moving around the globe but you need to be careful how you’re using it.
Protect Yourself
Please, protect yourself and your finances. Whilst PayPal makes it easy to buy things and send money, sometimes that makes us do silly things we’ll soon regret. If someone you don’t know is asking you to send money via PayPal friends and family for something, don’t do it. It’s not worth the risk and you could end up losing your cash. Do it via the protected route and you’re covered, whatever happens next.
