Thanks to the internet, there are plenty of ways to make money online these days. For a tech savvy entrepreneur, it’s possible to make a lucrative living working from home, and for many people working online brings in a much needed second source of income. Unfortunately, there is a large contingent of people that think that it’s possible to make money online without actually working. And it is these people that fall for online scams like the PayPal Money Adder scam.
These scams look legit and understandably tempting, but let’s get one thing straight: there’s no such thing as ‘money for nothing’ on the internet. If someone is offering you the opportunity to make money by doing absolutely nothing, you can be 99.99% certain that the offer is a scam.
The Real PayPal
Before we look at this particular scam, we’ll take a take a quick look at the real PayPal service works. PayPal is an online wallet that acts as a middleman between your online purchases and your bank account. PayPal is an accepted form of payment method at a huge range of online retail outlets. You can also use PayPal to make deposits into your gaming accounts. PayPal casinos, for example, have grown in number recently because many players are reluctant to use their credit card to play casino games.
A PayPal casino works in the same way as a regular casino, but one of the preferred payment methods will be PayPal. If you wish to use PayPal to make a deposit, all you need to do is click on the PayPal option in the banking section of your casino account. Rather than input your credit card details you simply connect to your PayPal account and type in your username and password.
Online casinos have beefed up their security a great deal recently, but a PayPal casino UK offers an advanced level of protection. A hacker would not only have to get through the casino’s security system to access your financial details but would also have to then break through PayPal’s security systems to get anywhere near your account. And PayPal are renowned for having one of the best security systems in the industry.
The Scam
PayPal have absolutely nothing to do with the PayPal Money Adder scam. It is truly unfortunate that a company that has worked extremely hard to build a reputation as a trustworthy and secure enterprise should have their name dragged through the mud. The PayPal Money Adder, or sometimes called the PayPal Money Generator, is an ap that claims to credit your real PayPal account with real money. All you have to do is pay for the app, or in some cases they’ll give it to you for free, and then download it on to your PC. Once the app is installed you can sit back and relax while the money flows into your account. Sounds great, right? But does it sound rational? No, of course it doesn’t.
The age-old adage, Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees, could not be more apt in this scenario. Where is all this free money coming from? Well, that’s the point, free money isn’t coming from anywhere. Your account will not receive any additional funds – none whatsoever.
Selling Emails for Spam
The creators of this Money Adder app benefit from the scam in a number of ways. The first and most obvious is that they make money from people who actually pay for the app. And then they conveniently disappear before these unfortunate people can ask for a refund. However, it’s not actually that easy to get people to part with their money so in most cases the PayPal Money Adder is marketed as a free app. All an unwitting victim is asked to do is give the scam artists their PayPal address. What many people don’t realize is that these email addresses are actually worth quite a lot of money. Once a scammer has collected enough email address, they can sell them in bulk to various companies. These companies can then send advertising directly to your inbox. This is how your spam inbox fills up on a daily basis.
Stealing Directly from Your Account
The next reason for creating an app like this is to use it to try and get people to give over more sensitive information. In order to get the app, you’ll be sent an email, all you have to do is give your email address, but you will then be sent an email from the fake PayPal asking you to resolve a certain issue. In order to do this, you’ll be sent to a login page where you’ll need to input your password.
The log in page is a fake. Rather than logging in to your actual PayPal account you will simply be handing over the details of your account – basically giving your money away to the scam artist. This is why you should never follow any link to your bank account or PayPal account that you receive in an email. Always go to your account by typing in the web address in a new webpage.
Don’t Fall For it
The app looks like the real deal, it has the PayPal logo, it looks professional and it will have plenty of amazing reviews by satisfied customers. It’s easy to see why so many people fall for it. As previously mentioned, the real PayPal has a solid reputation for being trustworthy. By making it look like PayPal is offering you this special deal, these scam artists can easily con you in to making bad decisions.
The worst part about this scam is that it is usually the most vulnerable people that fall for it – the ones who are most in need of money and who certainly can’t afford to have their accounts cleared out by a criminal. Our advice to you is to always go directly to the source to check if any offer you receive is real. Check the web address carefully before inputting any sensitive information. And use google to check for warnings.
