[Sloper]

I know very little about paypall but this seems a little odd to me, in fact it seems very queer indeed, in fact as dodgy as f--k.

Michelle Chiaverini just sent you money with PayPal.

Michelle Chiaverini is a Verified buyer.

To complete this payment, you must accept or refuse it within 30 days.  If you do
not accept or refuse this payment within 30 days, it will be cancelled and the funds
will be returned to Michelle Chiaverini's account.
----------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------
Payment Details
-----------------------------------

Amount:  55.00 GBP

Transaction ID:  5NF430KD73W1CEQ53

View the details of this transaction online at:

https://www.paypal.co.uk/merchant/id=5NF430KD73W1CEQ53

It may take a few moments for this transaction to appear in the Recent Activity list
on your Account Overview.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------

Have you lifted your withdrawal and receiving limits? Just log in to your PayPal account
and click View Limits on the Account Overview page.

Yours sincerely,
PayPal
 
Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you
will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account
and click the Help link located in the top right corner of any page. If
your inquiry is regarding a claim, log in to your PayPal account and go to
the Resolution Centre.

but how is it dodgy? Can any paypal afficinado explain?

[underground]

Not an officialdoms as such, but were you expecting the funds? Do you know Michelle or even heard of the name? What does the URL link to (details of the transaction)?

Does anyone usually just give you money via Paypal?

Tell you what Slopes, I'll offer to help you further - in fact, I just came into rather a significant sum of money via the Nigerian government (something to do with a dead politician with 95 million quid in his estate).

All you need to do to receive 50% of this not insignificant sum, my dear friend Sloper, is to provide in immediacy, the needful detail of home address and all remaining personal and financial details of your respectful self, with the grace of god who is our guide and financial adviser in all such matter.

Also it would be most preferential in our quest for immaculate wealth by the grace of god, if you would forward to my self by Western Union service, an administrative necessary payment so I may be most urgently process advance detail of your very good fortunate payment to my associate in Lagos, please make immediate transfer for value of $1000 dollar for respectful attention of Michelle Chiaverini.

[Sloper]

I don't know the person,
I've never received payment via paypal,
I imagine this is a form of 'over spend' fraud where the person realises they've paid too much and asks for a refund for the difference which ahem is normally paid just before you notice the original amount has 'bounced'.

I just don't know how paypal works and why you need to accept or reject the amount, is this normal?

[Drew]

Make sure it's not phishing. One good test, is to write a loads of shit in the email and password boxes, and see if it logs you in. Then type in "p" "a" "y" "p" "a" "l" "dot" "c" "o" "m", and check for yourself. Other than that... I dunno 

[underground]

I don't know the person,
I've never received payment via paypal,
I imagine this is a form of 'over spend' fraud where the person realises they've paid too much and asks for a refund for the difference which ahem is normally paid just before you notice the original amount has 'bounced'.

I just don't know how paypal works and why you need to accept or reject the amount, is this normal?

Seems exactly like that- I'd do neither and report it to Paypal, let them deal with it. By doing nothing I'd presume you're not then running a risk of making any contact with the scammer or inadvertantly logging into a spoof site or sending your credentials to them...

[Jim]

I'd also run some anti malware/spyware/virus etc...

[magpie]

Don't use the link, log into your actual paypal account and see if there is any mention of it there? 

Generally with stuff like that they're looking for you to give them details once you click their link, if it's genuine you'll still be able to see the transaction by logging into your paypal account without using their links.

Nothing comes up if you google it which it sometimes does if it's a common scam, I'd still be very suspicious though.

[slackline]

   Well put magpie.

A general rule of thumb to keep your arse money safe is simply never click on links in emails that purport to be from a financial institution/on-line shop with which you are registered (i.e. PayPal, Amazon, Your bank, your credit-card, etc. etc.).

Scum-bag scammers rely on the weakest link (i.e. humans) to exploit services and extract personal login details, so just don't give them the opportunity by using your common sense.