I had a BOMB Money community member reach out recently and they were wondering how they could get scammed if they received funds via PayPal first.  They shared this conversation they were having with the scammer:

First of all, at this point it’s safe to say that 100% of anonymous DM’s you receive should be ignored as they are scams.  This is the best way to keep your funds safe and avoid getting scammed.  Hackers/scammers continue to become more and more clever as their targets learn about more and more scams.

Back to “The PayPal Scam”.  In the message above, the scammer agrees to pay a much higher rate for bitcoin from the victim in order to entice you to actually proceed.  For example, if 0.1 BTC is worth $2,100 the scammer will offer to pay you $2,500 for 0.1 BTC.  The victim, thinking they’re outsmarting the scammer, will say “If you send me payment first, I’ll send you Bitcoin.”

At this point, some victims actually proceed with this and send the scammer the Bitcoin once they’ve seen $2,500 USD appear in their PayPal account.   They then send the 0.1 BTC to the scammer, and the deal is done.

…That is until a day or so later they get an email from PayPal indicating that they either received funds from a stolen account OR that the buyer has requested a chargeback.  Even though you have “proof” that the scammer bought Bitcoin and you have the transaction ID that proves you sent it, PayPal will always side with the stolen account and refund their money.  Unfortunately, the victim’s Bitcoin is gone and there’s nobody to complain to and ask for a refund.

Moral of the story:  Don’t trust anyone and ignore your DM’s for anything to do with crypto!