A father has accused PayPal of failing to protect children after his 15-year-old daughter was scammed out of £227 for a fake iPhone.
Consumers must be 18 to open an account with the online payments giant – but the girl managed to register using her mother’s debit card details.
She then fell prey to a bogus seller on marketplace app Shpock, who told her to pay using PayPal’s Friends and Family service which is designed to move money between individuals and offers no fraud protection.
The anonymous dad, from Bexley, South East London, said: “We told our daughter she could use our PayPal account, knowing we could monitor transactions, but she set up her own without telling us.
"The first we knew of it was when £227 went from our account.
“PayPal should ask for proof of age when people open accounts as teenagers can easily fall for scams.”
PayPal said customers are asked to declare their age when opening an account but identity verification only happens once an account is up and running.
It added: “We generally request more information when customers hit a set limit or based on activity.”
PayPal has now closed the girl’s account and repaid the money lost.
Shpock closed the seller’s account.
Fraud warning
In other scam news, taxpayers face being ripped off by fraudsters targeting the Government's Covid-19 financial rescue schemes, a new report has warned.
The Policy Exchange think tank fears measures introduced to save individuals and businesses from economic ruin are especially vulnerable to scams because of the sheer size and speed of the packages introduced.
The paper, Daylight Robbery, estimates fraud and error could cost the Government between £1.3 billion and £7.9 billion.
The cost is based on expected fraud rates for Government expenditure from the Cabinet Office and the Department for Work and Pensions.
"The true value may be closer to the upper bound, due to the higher than usual levels of fraud that accompany disaster management," the report said.
"This is a serious squandering of public finances and properly resourced post event assurance will be required to reassure the public that every possible step has been taken to reduce this level of fraud."
