A Case of PayPal Fraud?

C

Collabora

Account Disabled
Hi,

Looking for opinions

About a week ago a customer from China signed up for a VPS (my smallest one). Before signing up he asked if he could pay via PayPal, for I did not have that method active on my site. I activated it and he ordered 1 VPS.

The strange thing about it is was the Paypal account name was different from client whmcs name (paypal name could be American or other Western name). I thought well, ok -- Paypal flagged it as "partially verified." A couple days later, client orders 2 more VPS under same paypal account.

A few days go by and just yesterday client ordered 10 more VPS in two orders, but this time under a 2nd Paypal account! (again a Western name) One order failed so there was just the one order of 5 to process

After that I refunded money to 2nd account and disabled VPS administrator accounts on the first three VPS. A little later I received an email from 2nd paypal account holder (or at least from the email address on account) asking why I refunded the money. WHMCS customer emailed me saying the 2nd paypal account holder is a friend helping him pay.

I let things sit silently for a while and several hours 5 VPS ordered again with same 2nd paypal account, as if a mistake was made by me or my system and so he would give it a second try. I did not process order yet.

I then asked customer to email or fax me postal address, phone numbers and photo id of the 2 paypal account holders. My policy is not to ask for such things and terminate alleged fraudster account. But here I have 8+ VPS so the effort might be worthwhile

What do you think of these events? I believe China censors internet? Is this a legit customer providing internet access via my servers and RDP to others?

And what about Paypal? This is the first transaction I used with Paypal. With cc I have Maxmind to guide me but with Paypal there really isn't much to go on.
 
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I would say it sounds fraudulent.

I had a client from China sign up with my last year and he passed the fraud check and paid using a Paypal Account registered in the UK, so i suspended the account and requested further proof of the paypal account holders relationship with him, he just kept saying the PP account holder was a friend but his friend was on holiday as was with him in China.
The PP account holders address was 20 minutes away from one of my wholesalers i use for my toy stall, so i decided to visit the wholesaler the following day and decided to make the 20 min extra trip to this address to check it out. when i did the address turned out to be a public house next door to a police station and i was the 1st person to turn up about this person, but they had 20 emails etc. in relation to him, which they had passed onto the police. so i passed my details onto them and then using the pubs computer i logged into my whmcs and terminated his account with immediate effect and refunded the paypal account
 
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Update:

I have received the requested documents including the driver's licenses of the two paypal account holders and the whmcs client's Chinese license. Unfortunately the paypal account holders are both in Canada so its an international call for me, but they both live in same area.

I will go ahead and process the order and watch VPS usage.

Thanks for responding Terry.
 
Collabora said:
Update:

I have received the requested documents including the driver's licenses of the two paypal account holders and the whmcs client's Chinese license. Unfortunately the paypal account holders are both in Canada so its an international call for me, but they both live in same area.

I will go ahead and process the order and watch VPS usage.

Thanks for responding Terry.
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Due to the number of VPS orders and the payment structure it does sound a little fraudulent. Then again as you have received the documents requested (and they are actually legit) then you could have a nice client there generating some good revenues for you :).

I'd keep an eye out on their account (more paypal accounts to pay etc...) just in case.
 
The orders definitely sound a little sketchy, but at the same time, it's not uncommon for one person to order multiple servers - especially if they're a web developer or a reseller. You might even want to bring your concerns directly to the client who ordered and ask them what they're doing with the machines.

As for the call to canada being a long distance call - it's still going to be much cheaper than having to deal with a fraudulant case. My advise is to spend the dollar or two and make the phone call. While I don't like spending money on long distance calls to England, Russia, Australia etc - the cost of the call is far cheaper than the crap I have to deal with if it turns out to be fraud.

All the same - several orders from China (or anywhere) within a few days of each other would certainly be flagged as suspicious activity on our end.
 
yes spend the few $$ on the phone calls as IDs can be fake these days and as Conor says

several orders from China (or anywhere) within a few days of each other would certainly be flagged as suspicious activity on our end.
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would you rather spend $5 on a international phonecall or $30+ chargeback per case and then Paypay say you are too much of a risk we closing your Paypal account.

Even if we get a genuine order that passes all the fraud checks and the PP details are different to that of the account holder, we always call the PP account holder, even if is just one of our basic shared accounts.
 
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handsonhosting said:
The orders definitely sound a little sketchy, but at the same time, it's not uncommon for one person to order multiple servers - especially if they're a web developer or a reseller. You might even want to bring your concerns directly to the client who ordered and ask them what they're doing with the machines.

As for the call to canada being a long distance call - it's still going to be much cheaper than having to deal with a fraudulant case. My advise is to spend the dollar or two and make the phone call. While I don't like spending money on long distance calls to England, Russia, Australia etc - the cost of the call is far cheaper than the crap I have to deal with if it turns out to be fraud.

All the same - several orders from China (or anywhere) within a few days of each other would certainly be flagged as suspicious activity on our end.
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To keep costs down you could use Skype or Twilio among other services, great for international calls. But as mentioned, best spend a few dollars once than to deal with the costs of fraudulent orders later on, especially as they are buying more and more services from you.
 
Alex - Arvixe said:
To keep costs down you could use Skype or Twilio among other services, great for international calls. But as mentioned, best spend a few dollars once than to deal with the costs of fraudulent orders later on, especially as they are buying more and more services from you.
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Skype is more expensive than a general phone call if the other party does not have Skype
 
easyhostmedia said:
Skype is more expensive than a general phone call if the other party does not have Skype
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Really? I pay around £12 per month for unlimited international calls which works great as I travel a lot, daily I call international numbers such as US (not often but sometimes Canada), UK when I'm out of the UK among other places.

I can't imagine my phone bill without Skype! - Never had a problem / limitations issue.
 
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Alex - Arvixe said:
Really? I pay around £12 per month for unlimited international calls which works great as I travel a lot, daily I call international numbers such as US (not often but sometimes Canada), UK when I'm out of the UK among other places.

I can't imagine my phone bill without Skype! - Never had a problem / limitations issue.
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Its expensive if you dont use Skype that often or if you are like me with a Blackberry, where Sykpe think its a joke when it has been promised for the Blackberry 10 OS and playbook and nothing yet and no response to many threads on their forum about these promises
 
We had a few come through in the past two weeks and they were all China based, one guy attempted to say he was living in the US but everything points back to an area in China. I am not sure if it is just the season but we had a fairly slow winter with the frauds, not they are cracking up again.
 
easyhostmedia said:
Its expensive if you dont use Skype that often or if you are like me with a Blackberry, where Sykpe think its a joke when it has been promised for the Blackberry 10 OS and playbook and nothing yet and no response to many threads on their forum about these promises
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Ah a BlackBerry 10 user, I really saw some good features of BB10 such as personal & business "profiles" etc...

No Skype on BB10 :eek:? I guess I see your point then, though in general for the subscriptions they offer it is still quite cheap compared to the normal home phone based on pricing not compatibility with phones.
 
Alex - Arvixe said:
Ah a BlackBerry 10 user, I really saw some good features of BB10 such as personal & business "profiles" etc...

No Skype on BB10 :eek:? I guess I see your point then, though in general for the subscriptions they offer it is still quite cheap compared to the normal home phone based on pricing not compatibility with phones.
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not on BB 10 yet, their BB10 phones seem to have a few bugs reading their forums, they also promised bb10 for the playbook, but this has not happened yet.
 
easyhostmedia said:
not on BB 10 yet, their BB10 phones seem to have a few bugs reading their forums, they also promised bb10 for the playbook, but this has not happened yet.
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Off topic: If they fix the BB10 issues you pointed out will you be moving to that phone? I really do think they have some innovative features in there, I just wish they built it on top of Android instead of their own OS.
 
Alex - Arvixe said:
Off topic: If they fix the BB10 issues you pointed out will you be moving to that phone? I really do think they have some innovative features in there, I just wish they built it on top of Android instead of their own OS.
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it is a possibility once they sort out the bugs and then RIM (BB) and SKYPE (MS) get together and bang their heads together to get promised Skype on BB10 along with BB10 on the Blackberry Playbook
 
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easyhostmedia said:
it is a possibility once they sort out the bugs and then RIM (BB) and SKYPE (MS) get together and bang their heads together to get promised Skype on BB10 along with BB10 on the Blackberry Playbook
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I might look into that vs the next iPhone release. Though RIM is now BlackBerry as I recall reading.
 
Alex - Arvixe said:
Though RIM is now BlackBerry as I recall reading.
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yes they are and their support is quick and strange.

I have an issue with my playbook, so they told me they would need to send it away for repair. they use fedex. I am in northumberland and their repair center is in Germany.
No problems they sent me a box to pack the PB in and instructions to arrange collection, they received my PB and sent out to me the same day ( email to say they sent replacement) this is where the fun started.

PB sent from Germany to France then France to Glasgow, Scotland then Glasgow to Paisley, Scotland then all the way back down to Heathrow, London only to be sent back up to Newcastle to be delivered to me.
I could of gone to Paisley in 2 hrs to collect it myself, rather them take a day and 1/2 for it to do a lap of the UK
 
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