I was checking my PayPal account tonight and came across an unpaid invoice for the sum of £20 to the Down's Syndrome Association. Couldn't understand what it was for or why it was there, so I cancelled it, feeling pretty bad because it was a payment to a charity. Almost paid it, thinking hey, it's almost Christmas and it's a charity, but something in the wording of the "detail" struck me as odd. Something about "£20 can help an adult" ... and I wondered how. And I couldn't understand why I would be indebted to the charity without knowing when this had happened.
So I lobbed an email at PayPal and then googled the Down's Syndrome Association, which exists (of course). Luckily then on their home page I spotted a reference to a PayPal scam and it turns out I'm not the only one to be scammed in this way.
What a rotten, filthy, nasty trick to be playing at this time of year and with a deserving charity as your "cover".
If you have a PayPal account you might just want to check whether you, too, have been scammed with an invoice and make sure you don't pay it. The email address for the Down's Syndrome Association is wrong, and that's your best clue (apart, of course, from not having volunteered the money in the first place).

Anne