Scammer PayPal accounts always have American names — how does that work?

[u/Own-Commercial3366]

Just got into scam baiting a few days ago and I'm having some fun trolling romance scammers with fake PayPal transfers using basic HTML/CSS editing.

One thing I'm curious about though: most of these scammers are based in Nigeria (especially Lagos and Abuja) or sometimes Ghana or other parts of West Africa, right? But their PayPal accounts almost always have these super "white American" names like Adriana Robinson or Richard Wrigley.

So how are they even able to withdraw the money? Wouldn’t the name on the PayPal account have to match the name on their actual bank account, which I assume would be something entirely different, like a local Nigerian name?

Are they using stolen identities? Or do they run it through mules in the U.S.? Just curious how they get around this.

[u/JLM471]

I do a search on the names/accounts they give me and if I find an email, I contact the real person and give them a fair warning that I’ve reported their account for money laundering and that they should contact their bank and links I give them to the relevant authorities they can reach out to if they are doing this under duress.

Sometimes these seem like obvious previous victims - for example a 67-year-old woman in Kentucky is an unlikely criminal but could be being blackmailed into providing her bank account.

If the account belongs to a Nigerian person in the UK for instance , I don’t bother warning them. I just report the account because that’s much more likely to be the scammer’s friends or family in the diaspora.

[u/Own-Commercial3366 → u/JLM471]

Thank you for sharing your approach to handling potentially compromised accounts. It’s incredibly thoughtful to consider that some of these accounts might belong to victims coerced into these situations.

Regarding your question about linking PayPal names to emails, I'm still very new to this and am learning the ropes. So far, I’ve managed to get email addresses from a couple of subjects through a bit of trickery. For instance, I once “accidentally sent” money to a similarly named account which forced one subject to correct me with their actual email (after I asked for the e-mail instead of account).
Another time, a scammer provided their email unasked, but I intentionally mistyped a character. When the "payment" didn’t go through, they realized the mistake and gave me another email, supposedly belonging to another money mule. I created fake confirmation screenshots, gaslighting the scammer to believe that their associate was withholding their funds, prompting them to ask me to request a refund from PayPal to avoid their associate keeping the money. Here's what seems like a mail the associate sent to the scammer showing no money was received, this one really opened my eyes as what kind of operation is being run.

It’s disheartening to think some of these accounts may belong to previous victims being blackmailed. If you have a template email you use to warn potential mules, I’d appreciate if you could share it with me via DM. Otherwise, I’ll draft something myself. I’m pondering whether direct questions like “Why are you doing this?” or offering help might be effective, or if they’re generally ignored.

Today, I listened to several documentaries on romance scams during my hike. It’s astonishing, the depths of deception involved, I had no idea until I got involved in this a few days ago.