Ughhhhh!!! Thieves STINK!!!

[Andrea]

How did they gain access to your account?

[kermit]

I had the same thing happen to my debitcard. Someone in Canada starting paying small bills with it. Thank god that Wachovia caught it. Apparently the thieves will try any account number with a small charge and if it works they keep going. I had about seven charges in five minutes. New card and account and no problems since.

[amelia05]

ugh...my sympathies. The same thing happened to my paypal account a couple weeks ago. 10 charges, about $100. I do use my bank account with paypal (never had problems before), and even though I disputed it immediately, they still haven't put the money back in my account. It'll probably be at least another week before I'll get the money back, since their policy is to settle claims in 30 days. Grr.

I'm pretty sure that my account was compromised when I followed a link to an auction site from a google ad (damn curiosity! ). The unauthorized charges came from that same site the next day. What's irritating (well, MOST irritating) about the whole experience is that even though Paypal flagged the charges as suspicious and restricted my account's send privileges right away, they released the hold as soon as I logged in, before I could tell them that the charges were unauthorized. So, by the time I filed the claims, they had already sent the money. What good was the hold, if they were going to release it without my authorization anyway?

Anyway, I called paypal after that, and they said they had to let the payments go because it was automated (?...whatever), but once the 7-day seller's dispute period had lapsed, it would go back in my bank account. What it actually did is go to my paypal account. Sigh. I'm canceling it as soon as this is resolved.

And yeah, thieves suck.

[Aggie_Ama]

Andrea- No freaking clue!

I haven't used my Paypal in over 60 days so it isn't even because recent activity. It is very frustrating because I know with my CC I can resolve it but I shouldn't have to.

Paypal is a load of BS and I will be very cautious about using it. With their reputation they should try a little harder to prevent this crap instead they are the only thing people accept if you do Ebay. And darn it if I don't really want to get my brother an out of date collectible I can only find on Ebay!

I will be deleting my information stored on there if I have to use it or maybe I need to look into the virtual account numbers my CC offers. Paypal sucks, thieves suck and I just really don't need the stress since it is aggravating my neuro condition. They all suck.

[Geonz]

So... I have been getting ready to set up online sign-up for our bike club... you're sayin' PayPal isn't the way to go?

[emily_in_nc]

Interesting...I've been using Paypal extensively since 2003 (I do a lot of ebay buying, selling, and also use it at other sites and for charitable donations) and have never had any problems other than the usual phishing emails, which I always forward to Paypal's abuse/spoof dept. and then delete.

I am very, very careful what I click on -- not saying that y'all who have had problems are not, but I'm careful to the point of paranoia. I only go to Paypal by linking the site directly (and making sure the URL is https, not just http), not through clicking a link. But I'm sure part of it is that I've just been lucky.

Sorry for those of you who have had problems! There sure are a lot of jerks out there.

[Aggie_Ama]

Emily unfortunately I did not click on anything. At least one person I have known get scammed by Paypal is extremely cautious. Paypal did notify me of the suspicious charges so that is something. There is only one they did not credit and I am waiting to see what happened with the last charge that I didn't get a refund notice on but is also not on my card.

Anyway, Paypal is just a high volume site and therefore the sleeze are drawn to it. I will use it with EXTREME caution in the future.