Cautionary Tale - Paypal scammed?

.Wanted to put this out there because it's been a pretty big lesson for me, and I'm out £750.

I found an Internet seller who was an elderly woman who was looking to get rid of her iPhone X for a very small price - £750. Her story was that it was just too finicky and she was happier with her older phone so she wanted to get rid of it. I took most of the common precautionary measures - made sure the phone wasn't stolen, talked to her at length about why she was selling the phone for so cheap, etc. I consider myself pretty intelligent and intuitive, and I didn't have a bad feeling about this person.

Although this was not Ebay (it was another e-commerce site) she suggested we use PayPal for the transaction. "Great!" I thought, since I know PayPal has plenty of protection on items purchased using their service.

I'll skip to the end of the story - she scammed me.

So I contacted PayPal and learned that this is a common, VERY common scam where people can make Hundreds of thousands a day (PayPal reps words). Payment was through Friends and Family on her request.

I suppose the point of this story is this - don't think of PayPal as a safe transaction service, necessarily. Maybe a lot of you know this, but I didn't - criminals love to use PayPal, and I'm absolutely shocked that there aren't more safeguards in place (maybe a few more verification steps in setting up an account, or requiring a checking account be linked would help)

Is there anything I can do considering I sent the funds as friends and family? Paypal mentioned that no physical items should have been sent because of the payment method… Is this something the Police would ignore if reported? I have her home address too… This is why the situation is a little off, she seemed so sincere over the phone

Personally, I would have made her put the phone on ebay, with pictures, hefty description, & all the details you could think of.

PayPal is great, but it doesn't have the security of eBay.

I might be wrong, but I've had a fair bit of trouble with PayPal. Once I had trouble with a seller on eBay, but eBay resolved it, & swiftly too.

Nice of you to share your story so others will be aware, but since it isn't a question, that makes it a violation and subject to reporting/removal. Just be aware of that, and edit it to include a knowledge seeking question (you can add Updates to the question as well).

Talk to Action Fraud. https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/
Your 'old woman' may just have been a 'young male'…

You fell for a scam.
But this isn't even a question.

Since you didn't make it clear in your story, where you messed up is by specifying "friends and family," instead of "paying for goods and services." F&F means that PayPal doesn't get any fees from the transaction, and that you get zero buyer protections, including the ability to get the money refunded.

People do this (as I'm sure you did) because it screws PayPal out of their 6% of the transaction costs. Normally, the seller pays these costs, so if you buy an item for $100 and pay for it properly, the seller only gets $94. You can offer to pay the extra 6%, by paying $106 for a $100 item for example, and that should satisfy any seller instantly. If it doesn't, that offer is 100% a scam.

You shouldn't have to pay the extra 6%, as that's the seller's problem. If they needed to, they should have built that into their selling price. But, for seemingly once-in-a-lifetime deals, this is an option.

This isn't PayPal's fault, at all. You agreed to make an unprotected transaction. I understand why you did this, but you're to blame here, not PayPal. They did everything they were supposed to do. This is no different than sending a stranger £750 in cash by mail, and then complaining that the post office didn't have better protections when you didn't receive an item in return.

2 things
paypal only protect transactions done via ebay

paying by "friends and family2 = you transferring money from your account to another account - i.e no "transactions" involved

this bit is just stupid
"(maybe a few more verification steps in setting up an account, or requiring a checking account be linked would help)"
Most likely the account was 100% valid- - all you did was put money into it

"or requiring a checking account be linked would help"
how does that help- you put money into the account as if you were putting into a friends account
NOW you are complaining you want the money back
There's no way ANYBODY can check that the money you paid into the account was part of a fraudulent transaction
The ONLY thing we got is you CLAIMING it was

There's only so far you can go in protectign stupid people from their own negligence - YOU were stupid

That wasn't paypals fault - IT WAS YOURS

Criminals don't love paypal as such - just that there are so many people who use it negligently

(and you must be really dumb to think £750 is a "very small price" for an iphone X - thats about average for a 2nd hand one

" Payment was through Friends and Family on her request. " You decided to by pass the paypal protection, so the one at fault is you, not paypal… Scams work as you have two greedy people one who is scamming and one who knows the deal is too good to be true but takes the risk anyway…

What would you suggest as safeguards? They've done all they can legally do.

Pay Pal did not scam you. You set yourself up to be scammed.

First… A NEW iPhone X is only 737 British pounds…
…

… Why on earth would you decide to buy a USED one for 750 British pounds?

If you'd purchased a NEW one from a reputable 'brick and mortar' you would have saved 13 pounds, gotten a NEW phone (with warranty and all) and not have been scammed.