Written for RDP, where Martha asks us
to get creative with the word “duplicitous”.
Thanks, Martha! Here’s where the prompt took me.
BEWARE THE SCAMMERS!
THEY ARE DUPLICITOUS BOTTOM-FEEDERS!
This morning, an innocent-looking popup on YouTube caught my eye. I clicked it, gave it a quick glance, decided it wasn’t for me and exited. One minute later I received an order confirmation via email from PayPal for $79.00, identifying the merchant as the name on the popup … and this is without providing my ID, email address or credit card info.
WHAT??
Here’s where they get you in these days of smart technology. If you do any sort of online shopping, your credit card info is somewhere and everywhere in the ether. I was charged for simply being curious!
WTF?!?
I’m a smart person but scammers are smarter than me and you! Beware the click bait! I immediately contacted PayPal to stop all payments to this fraudulent company but I won’t relax until I receive an email confirming a stop payment action and cancellation of charges.
TOTAL DUPLICITOUS BS!
NAR©2026
This is “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who
Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.
The Elephant's Trunk 
Scammers get more and more insidious all the time.
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Glad we ditched our credit card years ago and we are not happy shopping online for this very reason, unless we have no alternative. I like the sites that have the double security and codes to your phone but even they aren’t 100% safe. Hope it gets sorted Nancy.
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I’m sure it will, DI. PayPal is thorough about these things. The weirdest part is that I wasn’t even shopping …. I just opened a pop-up! I will be very careful in the future not to let my curiosity get the better of me. Fortunately, I have had very few incidents while shopping online. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Di.
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That’s awful – and happened so easily. They’re getting so smart and so sneaky. I hope you get it sorted soon ❤️
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It was scary easy and the transaction email was received by me in less than a minute. Thanks for your good wishes, Esther. PayPal is very good about resolving these problems; however, there should be much better safe guards to prevent this sort of thing before it happens. ❤️
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These scammers are becoming too clever.
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And it goes beyond clever, my sister. They are criminals …. abusive violators without a shred of decency. They set out, without a single care, to profit from unsuspecting people, even at the risk of destroying innocent lives. No one is immune.
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This has happened to me several times, but I don’t keep any money in my PayPal account, so there is no way for these scammers to get it.
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That’s interesting. Answer something for me, Jim. Don’t you have to have a credit card on file with PayPal? I do. I think getting someone’s card number would be easy for most spammers.
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No, you do not need to keep a credit card on file to have or use a PayPal account. You can fully operate a PayPal account using only a linked bank account, a debit card, or by maintaining a PayPal balance, though a credit card is often used as a backup funding source. I deposited cash in my PayPal account to cover a transaction without linking a bank account or credit card.
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Wow! That is big news to me and I’m really glad I asked you. Thanks, Jim.
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I report those as SPAM when they come through my email. Annoying theft of my precious time.
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Anything that looks suspicious in my email remains unopened and gets reported. I also have RoboKiller installed which cuts back on spam significantly, but this was different. Thanks, Liz.
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OMG! i had no idea this could happen! Thanks for the heads up.
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Neither did I!
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