ProScammers? Can our paypal emails be seen by sellers during refund?

[northmak69]

Hi.  Need help.  Please?

Navigating Ebays "Contact Us' options just leads to dead ends on this question.

Question: Can  (me as a buyer) paypal addresses be found out by sellers when we start the refund process?

Is there any way?

I'm getting paypal spoofs after so many years of nothing.  3rd spoof today.

Situation:

Bought DVD in November. 

Item not arrived on time.

Contacted Seller.  Said wait a week.

Still nothing.

Filed for refund.

Item shows up 4 days later, and seller had not issued refund yet.

I reversed refund transaction.

I'm in Canada.  Shipper is in canada. 

Item arrived with stamps on package but no return address and no postmark.

Now Seller is unlisted, and lots of negative feedback.

And a few weeks later, I'm getting my first ever spoof emails.

Never made any other purchases with that account in recent times.

Suspicious.  Makes me wonder if this is how "pro-scammers" collect paypal email addresses with slow ships.

So, I'm hoping to find out if my paypal email address ever gets exposed to sellers at any point.

Anyone know?

[aubreyclay56]

of course sellers know your address how else can they ship to you ?????? what is your point seems sketchy to me 

[dmil8030]

Hello 'northmak69', 

<<I'm hoping to find out if my paypal email address ever gets exposed to sellers at any point.>>

Yes, when you buy the item.  Your paypal address is the same as your regular email, isn't it?

Just as you have the seller's paypal address.  It will be in the receipt that was sent to your regular email as well as

the transaction history of your pp account.  

So if you do not want to hear from anyone in particular, why not add any persona non grata addresses to your

"blocked email" list?  

I assume you have first forwarded the offending solicitation to spoof@paypal.com , whereupon they will tell you it is fake. 

(or spoof@ebay.com if it alleges to be from ebay)

In your regular email, if you 'mouse over' the address portion (without opening it!) you will see where it is from.  I 

suppose it is possible a dodgy person will gather emails this way, but I would think other sources more likely.

Do you use other forms of social media?

You know enough to never click on a link in any of these emails.  If you receive something indicating a problem with 

your ebay or paypal account, do not send any info by email, -- instead go directly to the ebay or paypal account and 

sign in there.  

Same for buying.  It is a good idea to pay for items only through the site on which you bought them.  On ebay that is 

super easy, --  items requiring payment, including those where the seller has adjusted a combined invoice, will always

appear in the Purchase History.  

As for your dvd seller, . . .  it's is possible that this is what happened, but I would think it more plausible that he was 

simply clearing out his things and with the pre-Christmas back-log of mail, the item was just slow.  You say he has 

since left and that there were a lot of other negs.  I hope all you impatient buyers did not cause a decent person to 

get booted.  

When buying you will encounter slow shippers, just as sellers have to contend with slow payers.  

Just be very careful about the sites to which you sign on,  forward any dodgy looking emails, never click on a link in 

these emails, and go directly to the site (paypal, ebay, your bank, whatever).

It's a part of modern life.  Protect yourself and be safe.  

[northmak69]

edit: format went odd. deleted.  Read post below.

[northmak69]

@dmil8030, Thank you very much for clarifying that.  Appreciate the quick reply.
 I did see that email on the paypal invoice - I just had no way of knowing for sure if that was a contact email or the paypal email address.  Ebay contact and Paypal email addresses don't have to be the same (this i Know).  Otherwise, I don't know the system (I'm not a seller - just a buyer).

As for the spoofs, As soon as I got them, I did forward all 3 to spoof@paypal.com, and of course stayed clear of all links.
Blocking may work.  But if your added to a black market list (sold or whatever) then you MAY just have new players with new addresses making efforts.  

In my dealings at Ebay, I've only had 2 sellers that raised a few red flags.  This was one of them.
Could be exactly as you write, a business backlog, but I've only recently used paypal twice in recent months.  Other business is very reputable by comparison and not on Ebay.

It appears this would be a fine way to identify active paypal addresses for harvesting with intent to spoof.  Most sellers won't I'm sure.

Order very beginning of November (pre-Xmas) and waiting for just shy of 3 weeks for 1 DVD shipped inside of Canada is impatient?  3 weeks and 2 days later when shipping indication was 1 to 2 weeks?
All the other times in Canada received in usually 7 days or less.  
I never wrote any feedback in this case, so I didn't do any booting (yet).
There were quite a few sudden accusations of bootlegs on sellers page (though that seem common with DVDs with some sellers so you never know).

What I take away from this incident is keep a separate email for Paypal.  A disposable one.
When you get spoofed, it seems like your on a list for continued targeting.  
In this case, to avoid headaches change your paypal email address to a new one.

Thank you again for taking the time to clarify.

PS.  Sorry for double-post.  Formatting went "odd" in 1st reply.

[maximus7001]

If they were trying to harvest email addresses why would they spend money and actually ship something? My guess is that for this seller life may have got in the way and his life priorities surpassed his obligations to ebay buyers.