The Most Common Scams on PayPal and How to Avoid Them

Oct 12, 2025  Jortty

PayPal is the most prominent service for those who plan to send money online, search for digital accounting services, or shop with e-commerce sellers. But, there are numerous ways in which PayPal customers would often fall prey at the hands of tech scams and frauds.

Here at Jortty, we will discuss the common PayPal scams and the best way to avoid them.

Common PayPal Scams

Let’s now examine the common scams you may encounter on PayPal and what you can do to avoid them.

Paypal Email Fraud

One of the most unique ways scammers often trick individuals into using PayPal is through PayPal email scams. These happen in numerous forms; however, you will get emails that appear to be sent by PayPal but are sent by criminals. They may pose as a legitimate company email, and you may often be asked to click on a link or prompted to enter the account details that give the scammers access to your PayPal account and funds.

How to avoid:

• Check who the sender is before reacting to any PayPal email
• Never click on links present in emails, but log into your PayPal account
• Avoid sharing PayPal passwords with anyone

Paypal Fake Charity Fraud

Since PayPal is the easiest way to make payments, it is also the common way to make charity or donations. However, this also means that scammers are using it to trick people into sending money to fake charities, as these are scams targeting adults. This is common when there is a specific issue across the headlines, like natural disasters. People will often donate to the cause, and therefore, the scammers publicize their fake charity, catching a few people.

How to Avoid:

• Always verify the charity you consider to donate is legitimate
• Search for charities that have a website, registration details, and physical address
• Never click on links sent for charity donations. Here, enter the company name into the browser, making sure to avoid landing on any fake website.

Paypal Gift Card Fraud

There are a couple of PayPal gift card scam that operates differently. In the world of AI tech, scammers often advertise competitions where PayPal gift cards will be given as rewards or prizes that are designed to get victims to click on the links to unsecured sites disclosing their details. The other PayPal gift card scam impacting people selling online is when a criminal is posing as a buyer, asking the seller to send them a PayPal gift card at the same time as the item they buy.

How to Avoid:

• To prevent scams, stay aware of the competitions, websites, and emails offering rewards and prizes for PayPal gift cards
• When a seller insists on getting paid by gift card is often a scam to avoid

Paypal Phishing and Fake Hyperlinks

There are a couple of phishing scams PayPal always warns about, including social media messages and emails that have fake hyperlinks. These operate by scamming you to click a link or giving away personal details that are used for hacking into your accounts or stealing money. PayPal confirms it as they will never ask you to download software or open attachments in emails you get. It recommends that customers search carefully for the details of the sender, along with watching out for the smaller errors that reveal that the message is not real.

How to Avoid:

• Never click on the links sent to your email or through social media messages
• Search for the contact details of the company asking for payment and call them to check about the request
• Never give your passwords and account details over email or phone, as legit people and companies will never ask for this.

PayPal’s Recommendations To Avoid Scams

• Stay cautious about the offers or deals that appear to be real
• Check for the legitimacy of the messages that claim to be sent by PayPal
• Never click on hyperlinks that come in the messages, and never download any attachments
• Do not send money to anyone unknown or you do not trust
• Never share your account details or password with anyone
• Stay aware while interacting with companies and people online

Final Thoughts

PayPal is a huge platform for making payments online, so it is associated with scams; however, the best news is to avoid them. So, think twice before performing any action, like clicking a link, sharing your personal details, or sending a payment.