OT: Paypal Fraud

So I go into the Wawa this morning to get my Redbull, Pop-tarts, and pretzels (just like every morning) and when I go to use my debit card, the cashier told me the system rejected it. I went to the ATM and it told me that I had insufficient funds. Now, I know this can’t be right, so I make a call to my bank when I get to work. It starts listing off my last transactions and starts listing $200 repetatively. Well, I knew I didn’t spend exaclty $200 all those times, so I got in touch with an operator, and she told me those purchases were from Paypal. Turns out, there were four $200 transactions, two $100 and eight $50. I then had to leave work and drive 40 minutes to my bank to sign a paper saying that they were not authorized transactions and then drive all the way BACK to work. They are putting all the money back in my account, but what a morning. By the time I got home my Paypal account had been frozen. They are sending me a letter to verify that I am now the one on my account (as I changed the password and such) and until they receive it, my Paypal account can’t be used. Needless to say, I will be canceling that account as soon as they open it back up. I doubt I will ever use them again. I work hard for my money (pouring concrete ETC) and the fact that some douche bag can click a couple of buttons and charge upwards of $1400 to my bank account pisses me right off. Just warning everyone to watch out for things like this. If your balance doesn’t seem right be damn sure you check it! Thanks for reading. ~Snuffy

Yeah, I’ve had a popup disguised as paypal on my computer telling me to log into paypal because there was a suspicious transaction on my account. It looked very legit, and if it werent for the fact that the popup had a different email (but it was still one of my email addresses) listed as my paypal email I might have logged into their site and given up my account/password in the process. But yeah I hate paypal too. The only thing secure about paypal is I can rest assured they are gonna get their 3% or whatever per transaction.

I had the same issue earlier this year, but with my credit card instead of paypal. Someone tried to spend over $2000 on various plane tickets. Luckily my credit card company recognized it as suspicious and did not authorize the transactions, and shut down my credit card until it could get straightened out. Now whenever I try to buy snuff from overseas they see that as suspicious, and I have to call them to let them know I’m making the transaction. But I’d rather they stop payment unnecessarily than not stop it when they should.

I agree leman. The only time it bothered me that the credit card company was trying to protect my account was when my wife used our card at a restaurant and ended up on the phone with the cc company. She asked where the card had been used that day and found out that I had purchased jewelry earlier that day (for our anniversary). Surprise ruined. Lesson learned…when buying a gift for your wife don’t use a joint credit card. The only account I’ve had breached was ebay. Someone in Italy was trying to make under the table deals using my ebay name and such. I was just glad that they didn’t put bids on anything. Snuffy and Matt. Just curious of how secure of passwords do you think you had? And for how long. I mean like “buymorejunk” could be a password but so could “rDS5ilF9”. I think it’s pretty obvious which is more secure. Also, I’ve been told passwords are like underwear…change them often.

Well, onefortheroad, my password was more secure than the first but far less secure than the second. I don’t typically change my password(s) as I would forget them easily if I was constantly changing them. I know it would be safer, but when I lose access to certain things I would be cursing it. I changed the password on my Paypal and it is currently frozen until they receive further confirmation from me via postage. ~Snuffy

I go to a meetup group for ebay sellers. The #1 thing they say is never trust paypal. If you are making a living on ebay, like many people in that group do, paypal is a must. All of them use zero balance accounts to do business. That is generally not practical for individuals, so that is why my paypal is tied to an account that only has about 10 or 20 dollars over what gets paid out of that account. I only put money in when I am going to buy something. Also, I transfer what ever I get in as soon as I can. I would recommend that system to anyone who uses paypal.

onefortheroad - My account was never hacked so to speak, rather I was asked to submit my account info and password to “paypal” due to “suspicious activity.” A phishing scam I think it’s called. The pop-up or email or whatever it was had my paypal email listed as an email that isn’t tied to my paypal account in any way. So I knew that something was up, but other than that the scam looked very real. The fonts and page layout were the same. The url for the site had “paypal support” in the title but it was an unsecure connection.

I had a call from my bank a while ago. My counsellor wanted to verify if I was seriously supporting some republican politician in the US - with the slamming amount of 5USD? It turned out that somehow someone got access to my PP account, and my counsellor said that what they do is to try transfer a small amount at first, and if that goes unnoticed they try with a bigger amount! Thank God my counsellor was vigilant. I called the supposed receiver of my smashing donation of 5USD and they were extremely embarrassed and told me that this had happened a couple of times actually. Regarding the “verify your account” business - please please use your head! Why would you need “verifying” a perfectly operating account? Whether it be with PP or others? Call them first - always!

Well for the record they didn’t get me. But I can see how someone could easily be duped by some of the scammers methods.