What to do if you sent money on PayPal to a scammer
You sent the money because it felt like the right thing to do in the moment. Maybe a seller on a marketplace asked you to pay as “friends and family” to avoid fees, or someone you trusted online needed help, or a caller said your account was at risk and told you to move your funds. Now the pit in your stomach has arrived, and you are wondering whether that payment can be undone. Scams like this work on ordinary, careful people, and there is nothing to be embarrassed about. What matters now is moving quickly and calmly.
The honest starting point is this: PayPal’s Friends & Family payments are designed for sending money to people you know, and they do not carry PayPal’s purchase protection the way Goods & Services payments do. That is exactly why scammers ask for them. It makes recovery harder, but it does not make it impossible, and the first hours matter most.
Save the evidence first
Before you do anything else, capture what you have. Screenshot the PayPal transaction details, including the amount, date, transaction ID, and the email address or phone number you paid. Save the conversation that led to the payment, the listing or profile, and any messages after it. Scammers delete accounts quickly, so a record made now can be the difference between a report that gets traction and one that does not. Our guide on preserving evidence in the first 24 hours covers how to do this cleanly.
Report the payment to PayPal right away
Log in to PayPal, open the transaction, and use the Resolution Center or the option to report a problem. If the payment was made as Goods & Services, you can open a dispute, and there is a limited window to do so, so check PayPal’s current terms and do not wait. If it was Friends & Family, report it as unauthorized or as a scam anyway and say exactly what happened, in plain and factual language. The FTC’s advice for any payment app scam is the same: report it to the app immediately and ask them to reverse the payment and refund your money. They may not be able to, particularly if the scammer has already moved the funds, but a prompt report creates a record and sometimes gets the account limited before more people are hurt.
Contact your bank or card issuer
How you funded the payment changes your options. If you paid with a credit card, call the issuer and ask about disputing the charge, since cards generally offer stronger dispute rights than a bank transfer. If the money came straight from your bank account, tell the bank it was a fraud, ask whether they can recall or flag the transfer, and ask them to watch your account. If you also gave the scammer any login details, a verification code, or remote access to your device, treat your accounts as exposed: change your PayPal and email passwords, turn on two-factor authentication, and review recent activity for anything you do not recognize.
File reports that leave a paper trail
Report the scam at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and add a report at IC3.gov. These reports feed the patterns investigators use to go after the people behind the scheme, and they give you confirmation numbers to reference with your bank or PayPal. A local police report helps too, mainly for the report number. Do not expect a quick answer from any of them. If you have already reported and heard nothing, our piece on what to do when no one responded explains why that happens and what to try next.
Be careful of the second scam
People who have lost money are often contacted again, this time by someone offering to “recover” it for an upfront fee, or by a fake PayPal representative asking you to verify your account. PayPal will not ask you to send more money to get money back. If anyone contacts you out of the blue about your loss, treat it as part of the same scam and let it go unanswered. Stop all contact with the original scammer as well, and block them once your evidence is saved.
If it was a different payment app
The steps above apply broadly, but each app has its own reporting path. If your money went through another service, see our guides for Venmo and Zelle.
Not every payment comes back, and it is better to know that up front than to hope. But acting within the first day, reporting through the right channels, and protecting your accounts gives you the best chance, and it keeps the same thing from happening again. You are not alone in this, and you do not have to sort it out by yourself.
— Gus