If you run a business and accept payments through Paypal, then you may want to learn about identifying Paypal fraud e-mails, which is what I will be covering today.

Note: this is not an article about Paypal phishing emails, which Paypal has an article about here on there help page.

What Are Paypal Fraud Emails & How Do You Identify Them?

Paypal fraud emails are emails that are used for the sole purpose of performing a chargeback in order to avoid paying for a (usually high priced) item. There’s no way of actually figuring out when a scammer will target your services with these e-mail address, but if you’ve already been attacked by a succession of chargebacks on Paypal, then start looking ask yourself the following questions:

1. Did you notice a sudden surge in chargebacks?
2. Are the email addresses similar in name?
3. Are all of the email address from the same domain (example: yahoo.com)
4. Did all of the accounts order 1 specific product or service from you?

If you answered ‘yes’ to 2 or more of those questions, you more than likely have scammer attacking your business. How you should deal with these scammers is entirely up to you (e.g., disabling your services for a week), how long the attacks have been going on, and how long the attacks last for. A first step to take, however, is to report the problem to Paypal before they freeze your account.

How These Paypal Fraud Emails May Be Linked To Recycled Email Addresses

Back in June, I wrote an article titled, “Hack A Facebook Account With A Microsoft Security Flaw”, that detailed a security flaw that was opened up through Microsoft recycling old e-mail address (ones that hadn’t been accessed over a year) that may have been linked to important accounts. For those of you who are astute, you may already know where this is going, and you’re correct: it’s possible that the same peopel who use this method may also be responsible either directly or indirectly for the increase in the number of Paypal fraud emails that vendors using Paypal have been noticing lately.

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/blackhat-lounge/770243-warning-recent-paypal-fraud-using-yahoo-emails.html