Thursday, September 18, 2008

Argh! Paypal Fraud!

Sorry for my screaming, but this afternoon has been a complete nightmare. This is nothing to do with stitching so please feel free to ignore my post, I just need to vent.
I got an email earlier from Paypal to confirm that a payment had been sent and my bank account debited.... Now only DH and I use the account so I wondered what DH had ordered. When I looked at the amount, $1,150.00! I knew immediately that it couldn't be DH, but by this time my bank account had already been debited with £659.57!
I then got an email from Paypal to say that they had flagged it up as a suspicious transaction and I immediately followed this up by reporting it as an unauthorised transaction, which will take 10 days to either resolve and for us to get our money back, or we're over £650 out of pocket.
Now I don't know how you girls that use Paypal use your account, but for ours when we buy something the money comes straight from our bank account, and if there is not enough money available it is charged to a backup credit card.
So we've had to ring our Bank and credit card companies to stop our bank and credit cards, and on doing so we found that someone had tried to charge £6,000.00 to our credit card as well! Thank god they had immediately flagged it up as suspicious and when we rang it was then rejected. It's going to be 7-10 days before we get new cards, so until then we can't get any money out or buy anything!
In the meantime our Paypal account has also been frozen and I don't want to give anymore bank/credit card details until I know if this is going to be resolved.
I feel totally sick to my stomach right now, can't stop crying and am really worried that we're not going to get the money back.
So another reason for my posting this is to ask if anyone can give us any advice to help stop this happening again. How do you use your Paypal account? Do you have a bank account registered as well as a credit card, or just a credit card? Do you use a separate card that has a small limit on it specially for things like Paypal and Ebay? Right now I just want to close the account I'm so worried and scared because I don't know what I'm supposed to do....

9 comments:

Annie Bee said...

Wow I feel your hurt. I have a CC only for Paypal with a $500 limit on it and it is not linked to any other accounts. I hope that you get it sorted out quickly and that you get the money back. This really sucks and I can't believe what is happening out there.
Hugs and more Hugs

Anonymous said...

Lisa-
I use my paypal the same way you do, so I don't have any suggestions for you. But I couldn't read and run-I hope this all resolves itself quickly and painlessly!

temari by the sea said...

So sorry to hear this, I use paypal at ebay too, but I use a debit card. I only have a certain amount of money in it and when I use it up then I add more, its a hassle but at least they can only steal a limited amount should it happen. hope all goes well for you.

Sally said...

I'm so sorry to hear about this Lisa. As I said on MSN last night I don't have mine attached to a bank account as if anything goes worng that's all your money gone so mine is a credit card. These days Cc companies are very keen and will stop any transactions they think are fraudulant. Hope you get everything sorted soon.

Karan said...

So sorry this has happened to you Lisa (((((hugs))))). I just use my CC & won't hook PP up to my Bank account, no matter how much they try to force it.
Hope this is all sorted out quickly & you get all your money back (((((hugs))))).

Jennifer said...

I'm so sorry you have to go through this, but my experience with Paypal is that they're usually reliable and fair, so there's a good chance your money will be recovered. I don't know what they do in the UK, but if you have credit bureaus, make sure they're all alerted, then get yourself a small limit credit card strictly for use on Paypal and detatch it from your bank account.

Good luck and do let us know how it turns out!

Anonymous said...

I use a debit card from the bank...it's worked so far for me...knock on wood.....
I'm so sorry your have to go through this....I pray you get your money back!

Elisa said...

OMG what a blooming nightmare...I do hope you manage to get it all sorted.

Stitchingranny said...

As usual Lisa I am playing catch up so have only just read this. I am really shocked. I thought that the whole point if paypal was that your credit card was safe and it could not be accessed by anyone else. Obviously I was wrong. I think I shall be closing my paypal account as mine is linked direct to our debit account.