A new scam alarms consumers: Criminals exploit the PayPal feature "Pay without a PayPal account" to make unauthorized payments with other people's IBANs. This guest payment option allows transactions without a PayPal account by providing only an IBAN – a loophole that fraudsters deliberately exploit.
According to the Consumer Center of North Rhine-Westphalia, affected individuals often notice the fraud only when unauthorized debits appear on their account statements or reminders arrive because payments were reversed. A central problem: Unlike setting up a regular PayPal account, there is no verification of account ownership for guest payments.
Banks and consumer advocates therefore call for swift measures to close the security gap. Affected individuals are advised to promptly reverse unauthorized direct debits and report the incident to the police and PayPal. Regularly checking account statements and using IBAN data sparingly are crucial steps to protect oneself from such fraud attempts.
PayPal is criticized for not having sufficiently tightened security measures for guest payments so far. Consumer advocates demand additional verification mechanisms to prevent misuse and ensure customer trust.
