# Pay Pal Screws Me Big Time



## 5th Time Around (Jul 8, 2008)

I know this is way off topic but I am really upset and hope to share my experience so others don't have the same thing happen.

Last Friday I got several emails from PayPal saying that I had purchased almost $1500 worth of stuff from places I never heard of. One was findyourmoney.com and was for $295 - 4 TIMES! The other was Vessio, LLC for $49.95 and the other was some persons name for $34. They stated that the purchases were made with my signon name and my actual password!

As soon as I got these emails all within minutes of each other I logged onto my Paypal account which had like $70 from selling stuff on ebay last year. I disputed them immediately and called PayPal. They were not very helpful stating that they would look into it.

This Wednesday my checking account was wiped out of almost $1200 from PayPal and my Discover card hit for another $350! This is AFTER I called them and told them the charges were fraudluent.

So I spent most of my day yesterday disputing the charges with the bank and Discover card, freezing my credit and putting fraud alerts on all my credit reports.

Now I am waiting to see what happens.

About 2 weeks ago I had my old laptop act up and get really sluggish. This was only used to surf the internet. I hadn't put any anti spy or anti virus protection on it. Well that was my first mistake.


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## Doxie-Doglover-Too (Jan 25, 2007)

OMG! how awful. I am so sorry.


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## bill_pfaff (Mar 11, 2005)

I never consider Identity Theft off topic under any condition.

I think the "Off Topic Discussion" is the perfect place for this.

Good luck and please keep us posted. Knowledge is power and when it comes to Identity Theft we need as much power as we can get.


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## CamperAndy (Aug 26, 2004)

PayPal itself is not the problem but linking the account to your bank account and not having anti-virus protection on your Internet computer would be a problem.

Good luck getting it resolved.


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## tdvffjohn (Mar 10, 2005)

I have a checking acct solely for use with paypal so the house acct can t get frozen or emptied in that instance. The credit card as secondary payment, I might have to consider taking off the acct now tho.

Hope you can get it resolved

John


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## Doxie-Doglover-Too (Jan 25, 2007)

2 days ago we got notice of a Fed Ex pkg coming from Detox Diet Center in Syracuse . It says the cost was $289 for the product. We did NOT buy anything and nothing has been charged to our accounts. However, the tracking number for Fed Ex appears to be legite. Of course we would never accept anything COD. I am puzzled. Calling Fed Ex today to see what they say. Weird huh?


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## rdvholtwood (Sep 18, 2008)

5th Time Around said:


> As soon as I got these emails all within minutes of each other I logged onto my Paypal account which had like $70 from selling stuff on ebay last year. I disputed them immediately and called PayPal. They *were not very helpful* stating that they would look into it.


I found this on Paypal's website:

*PayPal provides 100% protection against unauthorized payments sent from your account. If you notice any charge on your PayPal account that you did not authorize, go to **PayPal Dispute Resolution**.*

Not sure if you saw this or went to resolution - but - again I had used the dispute resolution at one time while selling on ebay and its a long drawn out process and dosen't necessarly mean that it will be in your favor. Again, in the not to distant past, I had yet another issue with them that took some time to straighten out.

Granted, everyone may not have these experiences and for some it may be ok, but, not for me. If paypal is supposed to provide 100% protection, than, IMO, they should have never touched your money.


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## kmsjs (Apr 14, 2008)

We had this happen to our PayPal account also. Like you, we had several transactions on or around the same day. The biggest one was for $495.00, several for $295.00, and some other random amounts. Paypal actually called us on a Saturday afternoon, and informed us of the unusual activity. We immediately froze our Paypal account, but since it was Sat, was unable to contact the bank. All told, close to $2,000 was withdrawn from our checking account the next Monday. Paypal reversed all of the charges, and our bank refunded all of our overdraft funds. It took a lot of work with Paypal to get the charges reversed, and the bank asked for proof from Paypal that the charges were fraudulent. But eventually, all of the money was returned to us.

I know it is a pain, but keep on it. Eventually it will get resolved in your favor.


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## Nathan (Jan 2, 2007)

Thanks for the warning. Just deleted my bank from my paypal account.


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## 5th Time Around (Jul 8, 2008)

I did go through the PayPal dispute resolution center on last Friday and disputed them as unauthorized. The thing that gets my goat is I spoke to them last Friday and they still wiped out my checking account on this Wednesday. They said that there was no way for them to stop the ACH, AFTER they took all the money, not on Friday when I called them. I will eventually get all the money back, but if I didn't have overdraft protection this could have been a disaster. PayPal said it could take 7 - 10 days to straighten all this out.

I have learned my lesson, and will not have PayPal linked to my personal checking account ever again. I will do as someone else said and open a checking account only for use with PayPal.

They also are sending me a FOB that I can use as another layer of protection when using PayPal for purchases. I believe that it is essentially some long string of numbers that they issue me for verification that it is really me. There usually is a fee for this, but they waived the fee.

Monitor your accounts and close them if you are not using them. That is what happened with this one, I hadn't used it in over 6 months and never checked it. But PayPal sent me email receipts for purchases and that was my red flag.


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## rdvholtwood (Sep 18, 2008)

7 to 10 days?







You better keep up on that.

We *closed* our account - dosen't matter if its checking or credit card - once someone is in the charges can still occur.

Thanks for sharing this info with us...


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## Dub (Dec 8, 2008)

About a month ago I bough the backup camera for my truck on eBay. I told it to pay with my credit card as I have done hundreds of times before. I get a confirmation saying that it would be deducting it from my bank account...which doesn't have the cash. So I call to stop it and they can't. So I get hit with not 1, but 2 insufficient fund fees because PayPal not only tried to deduct money once, but tried again a week later before charging my card which is what I wanted in the first place. I immediately deleted my bank account. If I have problems with them now, my CC will do a chargeback and it becomes PayPal's problem and not mine.


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## Doxie-Doglover-Too (Jan 25, 2007)

Doxie-Doglover-Too said:


> 2 days ago we got notice of a Fed Ex pkg coming from Detox Diet Center in Syracuse . It says the cost was $289 for the product. We did NOT buy anything and nothing has been charged to our accounts. However, the tracking number for Fed Ex appears to be legite. Of course we would never accept anything COD. I am puzzled. Calling Fed Ex today to see what they say. Weird huh?


it ended up being a doll bed I ordered for my grandaughter. Evidently the same people own 2 websites/businesses but had the detox site first and their Fed Ex account is tied to that. So they ship doll stuff from it too. She told me I wasn't the first to question it but that my email was the most threatening







( my email to the Detox site was NOT nice as I KNEW I hadn't ordered from them and I wanted answers NOW as to why there was box coming from them) . I asked her if perhaps it would be best for them to not use the same Fed Ex account for both businesses as I came so close to telling Fed Ex to stop the delivery. I wonder if she'll do anything about it now


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## bradnjess (Mar 25, 2007)

I'm sorry all this has happened, hopefully you can get all this straight without losing any money. Like you I don't use my paypal account much and I was concerned when I read this. I always refused to link my checking account, getting verified I think they call it, but I did have my check card on it. I removed my check card even though it has all the protections of a credit card someone could still drain my checking account before I knew what was going on. Now I just have a credit card on there for the few purchases I may make each year.

Thanks again for sharing this with us and best of luck getting all this sorted out.

Brad


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## campingnut18 (Mar 11, 2004)

OMG! All I can say is that well ... sucks!

Thanks for the heads up.

C-


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## outbackgeorgia (Jan 28, 2004)

Do NOT link your bank account to PayPal or ANYTHING!
There is NO LIMIT on what can be withdrawn from your account.
Use the Credit Card option ONLY with PayPal, you then have some protection with the credit card company.
PayPal has an option to be "verified", but this is NOT necessary and exposes one to have their account drafted!
BTW, this also happens with merchants and their bank accounts are withdrawn against if the purchase is fraudulent.
They then have to dispute with the bank, usually lose! I know from experience.

Dave.


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## 3LEES (Feb 18, 2006)

I also removed my checking account from the PayPal site. I can't afford to have my checking account wiped out.

A similar thing happened to me with my Visa/debit card. I check my account online almost everyother day. One day I found 4 transactions totalling about $700.00 Each transaction originated in Yokohama, Japan. I've never been to Japan and have never ordered anything from Japan.

I alerted my bank, and they immediately refunded the charges, closed that Visa card and ordered a replacement. Visa repaid them after their investigation.

I have firewall/antivirus protection on all my computers. All I could figure is they lifted my Visa numbers from one of the websites I bought from.

Makes me want to strangle someone when something like this happens. I work hard for my money and earn it honestly. Why can't those who steal do likewise?

Dan


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## Justman (Jul 22, 2006)

" A similar thing happened to me with my Visa/debit card. I check my account online almost everyother day. One day I found 4 transactions totalling about $700.00 Each transaction originated in Yokohama, Japan. I've never been to Japan and have never ordered anything from Japan. "

My bank actually monitors for this type of charges... If I seem to purchase anything out of the norm, they give me a call and ask me about it. Pretty cool!


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## Doxie-Doglover-Too (Jan 25, 2007)

Justman said:


> " A similar thing happened to me with my Visa/debit card. I check my account online almost everyother day. One day I found 4 transactions totalling about $700.00 Each transaction originated in Yokohama, Japan. I've never been to Japan and have never ordered anything from Japan. "
> 
> My bank actually monitors for this type of charges... If I seem to purchase anything out of the norm, they give me a call and ask me about it. Pretty cool!


the new thing our credit card does is occasionally deny a charge. It has only happened to Rick. He carries the debit card as well. To get the card to work again , we have to call and tell them some of our recent charges so they know it really is us. At first we really hated it but the idea behind it is great. It is happening with big and small charges. Frustrating for sure when it happens but beats the alternative.


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## clarkely (Sep 15, 2008)

We have a separate checking account, not linked to any of our other checking or other accounts.

We use that one as the one linked to our paypal account, and we only keep the minimum required by the bank in it to keep it open.

I am confident it will get reversed and fixed............but it will be a pain in the arse getting it done..........

and unfortunately................you always feel like your talking to an idiot.and not getting satisfaction............i had had a minor issue once with double paying for an item.............and it was frustratung to say the least.

Good luck


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## 4ME (Sep 11, 2006)

We received a charge for a magazine subscription we didn't order around 25.00 dollars.
we disputed it and they said they found no basis for our complaint. What a crock of cheese!


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