Paypal account hacked

Adsta

Adsta

Adsta

Soldato
Joined
7 May 2008
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Born in the U+K
Well after 5 years of having a paypal account and not once have I ever had problem.
I check my bank account today to find that ~1500quid has been taken out of my bank via Direct Debit through Paypal. Straight away I was onto the paypal website to find out what was going on. Seems that my account has been put on hold because of these transactions.

I couldnt figure out what to do so I called paypal. I finally got to an agent, I talked to him about the situation (Although I could hardly understand him) He told me that they are aware of it and that it is being looked into. I asked when can I get my money back, after all that is all I am worried about to be honest. He said it will take at least 10 working days before they can refund it.

10 days ! I mean come on why does it take so long. The agent on the phone told me they need to make sure they have all the right details...

So I phoned my bank just to ask about it. They said that paypal have contacted them and that my bank is aware of what has happened. They have marked the transactions as fraudulent and hopefully I should receive the funds (in full) within 10days.

Overall I must say I am quite happy that paypal picked this up as quick as they did. Although I am pretty annoyed that it is going to take at least 10 days before I get my money back.

I have spent a good part of the morning. Changing passwords to every e-shop account I have and removing card details from all sites. Really annoyed as I am awaiting my credit card to come through which I was going to use for internet purchases instead of my Debit card.


Short version: Use a credit card not debit. Thanks for the info.jpeg
 
Surely you'd link a current account with paypal... and normally one wouldn't have that much in a current account? I've always been taught (from parents, the like) to never keep any more than required in a current account, ship the rest out to savings or the like!

Bad luck though, mate :/
 
Thats the thing I dont really keep money in my current account. I only put money in there for purchases :(

It has sent me straight into overdraft

Really frustrating though. I've never had this happen to me before. Its not like the password I had set was even easy it was a random 8 letter + digit password.

I think when I get home I am going to need to scan my PC just to make sure I havnt got any virus or such.
 
10 day wait with no retribution from the bank > £1,500 debt with unauthorised overdraft charges mounting.

Maybe you should be thanking Paypal. :)
 
Adsta said:
So I phoned my bank just to ask about it. They said that paypal have contacted them and that my bank is aware of what has happened. They have marked the transactions as fraudulent and hopefully I should receive the funds (in full) within 10days.
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No need to worry. I was going to say as a matter of urgency you should contact your bank.

With whom do you bank?
 
I bank with RBS

The overdraft is not a problem as I have a 3k overdraft anyways. Not that I ever need or use it but I was "given" it by the bank incase I ever do need it.
 
Order yourself a PayPal security key or if you have an iPhone/iPod touch download the Verisign VIP application for free. They generate a 6 digit one time password that you append to your normal eBay or PayPal password which makes it a lot more secure, even if someone does get hold of your password.
 
Just as an update,

I gave paypal a call today after trying to log into my account. I tried using the “forgot my password” on the website last night (Sunday the 6th Sept 09) However I still have not received an email from them. So I tried again today. It seems that the account has had to many attempts at inputting a password as such I need to call the customer services.

I did just that, once I got through to customer support they gave me a number that I would need to use to input in a link they had sent me via email. After about 5-10 mins I had still recieved no email. I called paypal again this time navigating through their automated call service I finally got through to a real person ! I told the person on the phone the problems I was having. They said basically the same as what the automated service did. They gave me a number and sent me an email. I stayed on the line as an email should only take a couple of mins to come through. I still had not recieved any emails from them. The person I was talking to told me she had sent the email 5 times now O_o

So the only alternative was that they would send me the password by post. This would take anywhere between 7 to 14 working days….. bloody hell.

While I had the chance I asked about the fraudluant transactions to my account. Apprently the calls had been closed, meaning that they had all the information had been sorted. I now have to wait for the funds to clear…. (erm the money is already out of my account) once they have cleared it will be placed into my paypal account. So to transfer my money that was taken out of my bank account, I need to log into my paypal account (which is locked at the moment) to move the money from my paypal account to my bank account.

/sigh. So now not only do I have to wait for this coming friday or possibly monday for the money to go into my paypal account, THEN wait another 10 days or so before I can put it back into my bank account.

I think I really want to close this account to be honest. But with ebay being the way it is. Paypal is just about the only easy way of paying for items. That said once I have all the money back into my account and I can access my paypal account, I will remove my bank details from it and either leave it blank (if I can) or just have a credit card attached to the account. So if this does happen again I will have more protection and it will not impact on me as much as it has this time round.
 
Have you checked your junk/spam mail? I've had a problem with gmail in the past when certain emails which normally came through without any issues weren't arriving in MS Outlook via pop3. When i logged into my gmail account via a browser, all the offending emails were in the spam folder.
 
Yea I have checked my spam folder through browser. They are just not there. I even turned off my spamguard. When the agent tried emailing me. Still got nothing.

The email account is deffo working because I can send an email from my work email account to my personal one. So I have no idea why I cant recieve any emails from paypal. :(
 
Hate when this happened... I had my first fraud this year as well through Play, logged on one day to find Mp3 players and headphones on order for an address in south London!

Felt like someone had stolen my virginity :p

Hope you get your money back, paypal can be hell to deal with from what I've heard!
 
Yea wasnt nice, This is the first time this has happened to me too. So at first I was a bit shocked.

As mentioned in previous posts. I use paypal to buy off ebay. Sure there is the option to not use it but then again not a lot of sellers will accept any other form of payment. You can argue as much as you want about how bad paypal is. But end of the day I use ebay to buy things I cannot buy from other shops so paypal is the only easy viable option.

Hopefully I should receive the money in my paypal account on friday or monday. Even if I cannot log into my paypal account. You can be sure I will be on the phone to them to see if the money has gone in or not.

To be honest the agents I have spoken to at paypal have (both times) been very helpful. Sure the automated service at the start is very annoying. But once you get passed that the agents are not too bad.
 
Maybe someone changed your paypal email address?
Is that even possible? If so then it sounds like they have done it
 
I only ever keep about £200 in my current account. Everything else is in flexisaver (which I don't use as a savings account, merely a safehouse for my cash) and just transfer accross when need be.
 
The 10 days is so that Paypal can make some money off the interest, when you do this to everyone it starts to mount up a bit.

Sadly they don't give a **** if it leaves you short for a week and a half, you just get fobbed off with excuses.

I'd rather contract an STI than use Paypal, it's just a risk, quite frankly, and very easy to scam. You should just use BT to pay for things, not perfect but a LOT safer than EBay's lovechild. If the seller won't accept it then move on, they're not worth dealing with, and "Paypal only" as a payment option would set alarm bells ringing with me anyway.
 
Tute said:
The 10 days is so that Paypal can make some money off the interest, when you do this to everyone it starts to mount up a bit.

Sadly they don't give a **** if it leaves you short for a week and a half, you just get fobbed off with excuses.

I'd rather contract an STI than use Paypal, it's just a risk, quite frankly, and very easy to scam. You should just use BT to pay for things, not perfect but a LOT safer than EBay's lovechild. If the seller won't accept it then move on, they're not worth dealing with, and "Paypal only" as a payment option would set alarm bells ringing with me anyway.
Click to expand...

to be fare its no better if your CC gets stolen / cloned etc - my card was used last weekend by some scammer. charge-back is in progress but it'll take them 7days to get the forms out to me, during which time i'm still set to pay the ballance off via DD.

even when they have the forms it usually takes them 20days average to get the money back.

looking at it annother way - if you lost your debit card details online you'd still be £1500 out of pocket and it would be up to you to chase your bank and try and get the money of them, instead of PayPal pro-actively taking a few days to confirm the fraud and pay you back...
 
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