PHOENIX — Did you get an email saying you were charged hundreds for something you never ordered?
Don't worry, there's a number to call if you want a refund.
It looks like an email from PayPal.
It says, "you have successfully made a transaction for your Bitcoin."
And it says your account was charged $499.
OK, so you say you don't buy Bitcoin and don't use PayPal?
Maybe there's a forgotten account you set up years ago, and someone got in.
If you want a refund, there's a number to call.
It's an invoice/refund scam and it is big in Arizona right now.
It works by getting you to believe you've been mistakenly charged for something and can easily clear it up with a phone call.
Anne let me know she was a victim.
She got a different email, with a different charge, but it was the same scam.
"I didn't want Norton Antivirus, so I called the number on the email," she says.
She had supposedly paid $500 for renewing her antivirus.
When Anne called the refund number, she's told they need to transfer the funds back into her account.
And they needed access to the account in order to do that.
In the end, Anne lost $4500.
So, what do you do with questionable emails?
You can forward them to some businesses:
- spoof@paypal.com
- spoof@ebay.com
- stop-spoofing@amazon.com.
I've seen so many of these scams, I don't click on business emails unless I prompted it.
Instead, if you're a customer and concerned there's an issue, contact the business through your account or go to their legitimate website.
Just don't take the chance.
The Federal Trade Commission offers help in spotting fake emails. PayPal and Amazon are also warning about scams they are frequently seeing.
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