Possible scam buyer! Using PayPal Friends & Family = NO PROTECTION if you get scammed

[FakeNatty]

Did PayPal start allowing accounts where you could not select the option for buying goods and services? I recently tried to send a payment where friends and family was the only option. Red flag? I didn’t even know it was possible to limit this on your account.

It's a country/region thing, not a user setting.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Did PayPal start allowing accounts where you could not select the option for buying goods and services? I recently tried to send a payment where friends and family was the only option. Red flag? I didn’t even know it was possible to limit this on your account.

It's a country/region thing, not a user setting.

ok thanks. So I guess it's a risk if you're buying from some regions as you just won't get buyer protection? But good to know that the user. might not be able to do anything about it.

So a paypal user can't chose to only allow friends and family as opposed to purchasing goods and services?

[dvelop]

Good tips!

[D-Fusion]

I woke up to a completed License transfer of Phoscyon 2 to this E-Mail Acount: marcelato@proton.me, so someone has been in my account and made a transfer while i was asleep.

The person did not change my password in my account which was a good thing so i have now changed it so it doesn't happen again with my other products there and i have contacted the D16 Team and i hope they can give me my license back.

They Replied and reverted the Transfer and gave me this reply:

"Unfortunately it's hard to prove that the marcelato@proton.me user is behind this. Since they could be just buyer and someone that got into your account could just sold the license to marcelato@proton.me. Anyway will keep an eye for their activities.

Cheers,
Sebastian"

[everyPlugin.com]

Delete

[No Sonic Limits]

I wanted to raise a voice of concern over the user @houlihan, that I suspect is gifting illegit Xfer-accounts (Serum/Serum 2).

Most of the time I do my due diligence before purchasing 2nd hand software, however this time I opted not to, as I was having my toddler running around. I got a bit suspicious as I wasn’t able to choose Goods & Services on PayPal, however I know this is not an option in some areas ie. Ukraine atm, so I went on and transferred the agreed amount - and did accept that if it was fraud I would loose the money. The real first suspicion was the users name on PayPal, River Plate, which is a known football club in South America - however, I couldn't be entirely sure it's not a real name too.

I had quickly checked the user, and although being a fairly new account (December 2024), he had 33 posts here on KVR-forum.

I received my gift, logged in, and everything was fine. However, I decided to investigate a bit further, as houlihan did not mark Serum as sold initially, so I decided to print out the original purchase invoice from the order history in my newly gifted Xfer-account. Serum was originally purchased by a person with Korean name and address, which differed a lot from the email used on PayPal (kimzacalo@xxx.xxx).

After checking the feedback thread I saw that houlihan has sold Pigments and gifted Serum to @LijEyasu on July 16th, and sold Serum to @lilulo on July 13, before I purchased it yesterday - which doesn't entirely align with the selling post.

Checking up again on houlihan's user profile I can see, that most of his post on other forum-pages here on KVR was all created on April 1st within few minutes apart, so I do suspect these sales are illegit.

Although I don’t want to jump the conclusions and I actually hate being part of a public dispute, as sound design is my trade of living, I’ve decided to do this post, as a warning to others.

My next step will be to contact Xfer Records to raise the flag on my part only, as I don’t want to use possible illegal software in my day-to-day business.

If houlihan will answer in this thread with reasonable doubt regarding my concern, I will be happy to delete this post.

Best,
Lars

[starflakeprj]

Since Xfer Records doesn't allow account transfers (the gifting option is only for newly purchased licenses intended for someone you know), this license is essentially already invalid. Sorry to say.

[No Sonic Limits]

Since Xfer Records doesn't allow account transfers (the gifting option is only for newly purchased licenses intended for someone you know), this license is essentially already invalid. Sorry to say.

I'm not too bummed, just wanted to raise the flag to not let anyone else fall into this one.

[starflakeprj]

Since Xfer Records doesn't allow account transfers (the gifting option is only for newly purchased licenses intended for someone you know), this license is essentially already invalid. Sorry to say.

I'm not too bummed, just wanted to raise the flag to not let anyone else fall into this one.

Still, I feel for you. I was too scammed once here, bought a plugin that the seller sold twice. In that case the developer was kind enough to give me an NFR license of that specific plugin though.

[No Sonic Limits]

Still, I feel for you. I was too scammed once here, bought a plugin that the seller sold twice. In that case the developer was kind enough to give me an NFR license of that specific plugin though.

Cheers mate, appreciate it.
I've written to Xfer - will see what happens from here.

[lilulo]

Still, I feel for you. I was too scammed once here, bought a plugin that the seller sold twice. In that case the developer was kind enough to give me an NFR license of that specific plugin though.

Cheers mate, appreciate it.
I've written to Xfer - will see what happens from here.

I don't really understand how it is possible to do a scam in this case. I've got account transferred to me and this account has a license attached to it. So, this part was fair and square. You think this account was stolen from somebody else in the first place? My account has a nickname attached to it "onerebel", which I cannot change. I don't see anybody with this nick here or anywhere else. The first account owner didn't use "Generate Invoice" so I cannot see their name. I'll write to Xfer as well.

Ian

[No Sonic Limits]

I don't really understand how it is possible to do a scam in this case. I've got account transferred to me and this account has a license attached to it. So, this part was fair and square. You think this account was stolen from somebody else in the first place? My account has a nickname attached to it "onerebel", which I cannot change. I don't see anybody with this nick here or anywhere else. The first account owner didn't use "Generate Invoice" so I cannot see their name. I'll write to Xfer as well.

Ian

Yes, I suspect accounts might have been sold to us, that didn't belong to houlihan. Mine is registered to pla2n, and was originally purchased (Serum 1) in 2021 by a person from Korea.

I've written a PM to houlian regarding my post here in this thread and can see he has read it, however no reply in my Inbox nor here as of yet.

[FakeNatty]

Yep, if you're buying the serum account takeover, make sure it's a safe payment and a seller that frequents the forum (like me XD). I don't like to go around mindlessly repeating "Xfer doesn't allow license transfer" because plenty of people sell account takeovers on other things yet no one comes in spamming these comments. It's just a fanboy mindset more than it is about respecting policies. I have also sold my Serum license here, but I did that only AFTER I've spent a long time on the forums buying and selling, chatting, trolling, arguing, etc. They buyer was also respectable and didn't try to low ball me.

Xfer doesn't want to deal with license transfers anymore because of fraud, but they nonetheless keep the option to gift just in case. But, this also means it's entirely your own risk to bear and none of their responsibility, because it is just a gift after all and not a sale of goods.

To be honest to you, I doubt Paypal will even allow you to claim the money even if you paid with goods and services. But Paypal is very unreliable and inconsistent, so their incompetence may just work in your favor sometimes. I tried to read your long post, but the moment you mentioned it was a non-refundable payment, you should have ended the story there, let alone the few posts they have and the suspicious paypal info.

For my short few years on this forum, I can give the large majority of buyers here this general advice:

You can pay $80 for something that's supposedly around $120, and get nothing. Or, you can pay a fair but nonetheless decent $140 and get what you wanted.

TLDR: just scroll past this comment. Some lessons are just best learned first-hand.

[No Sonic Limits]

Since Xfer Records doesn't allow account transfers (the gifting option is only for newly purchased licenses intended for someone you know), this license is essentially already invalid. Sorry to say.

I'm not too bummed, just wanted to raise the flag to not let anyone else fall into this one.

Still, I feel for you. I was too scammed once here, bought a plugin that the seller sold twice. In that case the developer was kind enough to give me an NFR license of that specific plugin though.

You were absolutely right, Xfer revoked access to the account - well, lesson learned.

[starflakeprj]

Since Xfer Records doesn't allow account transfers (the gifting option is only for newly purchased licenses intended for someone you know), this license is essentially already invalid. Sorry to say.

I'm not too bummed, just wanted to raise the flag to not let anyone else fall into this one.

Still, I feel for you. I was too scammed once here, bought a plugin that the seller sold twice. In that case the developer was kind enough to give me an NFR license of that specific plugin though.

You were absolutely right, Xfer revoked access to the account - well, lesson learned.

Still, you acted in good faith, sort of at least, so I think Steve could at least have given you an offer with a pretty good discount on Serum.

Anyway, sorry to hear..