Fraudulent charge on my PayPal account - PayPal is demanding that I be responsible for it

[Greg33]

Hello,

In early December there was a fraudulent charge on my PayPal account for over US$1600.  I filed a dispute with PayPal and also with my bank.  My bank returned the money within a few hours and a few days later, PayPal indicated the issue was resolved.  

Nearly one month later, I login to my PayPal account and find a negative balance for nearly $1600.  I immediately contacted PayPal and was informed that this was becauase my bank returned the money twice, as well as initiating an ACH Return against PayPal.  I then went to my bank to discuss the matter and they stated that the information provided by PayPal was entirely inaccurate (why is that not a surprise?).  I spoke to somone else at PayPal and he informed me to upload my bank statements showing my transactions for the past month.  I called the next day and spoke to somone in their so-called "security" office in Ireland and he informed me they would not need by bank statements as they would not provide clear information about my account.  He promised to investigate and call me back the next day with further information as well as initiating a conference call betwen myself and a representative from my bank.  Of course, I never receive any return phone call.  I then call yet again and need to explain this situation with someone else who gave me an entirely different story about what's going on.  He also "promises" to investigate the matter and I would receive a phone call and email within 48 hours.  And yet again, I get no such phone call, nor email.  

At this point, I'm at a loss about what options I have.  PayPal is demanding I add funds to resolve the negative balance.  Every single person I have spoken with at PayPal has given me contradictory information about what's going on and everyone refuses to provide any information in writing.  I'm supposedly just supposed to take their word for it.  The last person I spoke with stated that he could understand how frustrating this must be for me.  Well, I am far beyond frustrated, I'm now furious.  

I just cannot even fathom why PayPal is demanding payment from me, the fraud victim. rather than going after the individual or company that initiated the fraudulent transaction.  Had PayPal provided a basic level of account security and protection, this mess would not even have occurred in the first place.  

I'm about ready to get my attorney involved, but PayPal will not even provide an address of where I can send any documents.  This situation is so absolutely ridiculous.  

Has anyone else had a similar situation?  What were your options and how did it ever get resolved?  I have already told the last representative from PayPal that there is no chance I will be paying for someone else who PayPal allowed to steal money from my account.  For PayPal to think I would do so is beyond ludicrous.  

Thanks!
 

[angelleye]

Certainly a frustrating scenario.  What was the purchase that was made, and who was the seller?  

You mention that "Had PayPal provided a basic level of account security and protection, this mess would not even have occurred in the first place."  If somebody used your account to make a purchase, really the only way they could have done that is if you were phished, which means you clicked a link in an email or from a website and logged in a bogus PayPal copy site, which gave your credentials to the fraudster.  I don't say this to try and put the blame on you, but simply to try and educate you about what it sounds like happened here so the same thing can be avoided in the future.  Have you changed your PayPal password since this all happened?  If not, it's highly recommended that you do so, and you want to make sure to not use links in emails or random websites to login to PayPal.  If you get any sort of an email telling you to login for some reason just close it, go to the PayPal site directly, and if anything is indeed wrong you'll see the info on your overview page.

So the first person at PayPal told you that your bank pulled money from them twice..??  Your bank said that was innaccurate, but what did the bank was accurate about what happened?  Typically a bank would give you a temporary credit while they investigate, and they wouldn't pull the funds back from PayPal to provide that credit, so that sounds like a little odd.  You mention that next person gave you "an entirely different story"...but what was that story?  Kinda difficult to help with all the details here.  

Getting an attorney involved is probably going to cost you more than the $1600 (or near it) anyway, so unfortunately that probably won't be a great option for you.  Is there anything about this open in your account Dispute Resolution Center?  Often things like this can be resolved more quickly by providing documenation there.

[Greg33]

Thanks for the reply Angell EYE.

I don't believe I was phished or otherwise compromised and I changed my PayPal password immediately.

I'll try to explain a bit more about what's happened.  There were actually two fraudulent transactions (US$1600 and US$700).  Both originated in France and both had no address supplied as part of the purchase (these already should have been red flags to PayPal as I have never used my PayPal account to purchase anything in France (nor anywhere in Europe) and I have always supplied my home address to anything I have ever purchased in the several years I have used PayPal.  Nobody at PayPal will even tell me what the purchase was even for.  The thing that's so strange about this is my bank handled both fraudulent transactions in the same exact manner and now PayPal is attempting to get me to pay the US$1600 transaction.

What's so aggravating is that nobody at PayPal seems to have any real grasp of the situation.  When speaking with their "customer service"(?) personnel - I get so many "stories" that I'm now starting to get confused by this mess.

PayPal Employee A: Advised me to upload my financial statements so PayPal could verify that I only had one transaction from my bank and not two liked PayPal has claimed. 

PayPal Employee B: When I called the following day to confirm my financial statements were received, the next PayPal employee asked me the purpose of uploading anything.  He stated the financial statements would not assist them in anyway since PayPal would have credited my account rather than returning money to my bank.  He then stated my bank had stopped payment on the original transaction as well as initiating an ACH Return.  

When I spoke to my bank about this, they said there was only an ACH Return and no other transactions to or from PayPal for that particular transaction.  Employee B also promised to call the next day while I was at my bank to speak with the bank personnel and myself at the same time in an attempt to get everything straightened out.  So, I take time off of work, go to the bank and wait for a call that never occurs.  And PayPal makes it impossible to be able to speak with the same person more than once.  They refuse to supply any direct number or extension number of the people I speak with.

PayPal Employee C:  When I spoke with yet another employee, he would not agree to speak with anyone associated at my bank and stated he and his "team" would investivate this issue and get back to my without fail within 48 hours.  Employee C also advised that he did not see a "stop payment transaction" as Employee B had claimed.  He advised that I would receive a phone call and an email with what they found.  It's now been nearly a week since the promised 48 hour window and surprise (not), no phone call and no email.

The personnel at my bank (ended up working with three different departments) provided me with a letter stating there was only one transaction associated with PayPal and no stop payment as PayPal Employee B had suggested which has also been uploaed to my account. 

When I login to my PayPal account it shows the dispute is closed and it cannot be disputed again.  

What's so completely ridiculous about this is that there are two completely different fraudulent transactions.  I disputed both of them in the same manner.  My bank handled both of them in the same manner and now PayPal is trying to claim that I be responsible for the larger of the two transactions.  Plus PayPal absolutely refuses to provide anything whatsoever in writing.  They only will give me details on the phone and via their website.  And it's even more aggravating that various employees at PayPal continually contradict what another employee has previously stated to me.  Which one, if any, is providing any accurate information?  And to not provide me with any hard copies of their so-called findings is dubious in and of itself. 

PayPal just expects me to arbitrarily pay them $1600 without providing even the slightest bit of evidence of why I am even remotely responsible for this. Completely beyond belief.

[angelleye]

It sounds to me like Employee A saw the two separate fraudulent transactions and somehow confused that for two bank credits or something like that. That would at least explain why that one said what they said, and why the others are saying something else.

If they're promising to call you back at a scheduled time and aren't doing it...yeah, that's bad on them. Unfortunately, I think you're dealing with a first line of support when you call the general number, and as you've found (and as it is with most large corporations) you end up talking to somebody different each time, having to explain everything again, etc. Frustrating for sure.

I don't think they're arbitrarily expecting you to pay, though. It sounds like their system just had a hiccup of some sort, and now you're struggling to get people to help because they're just as confused as you. Human nature sometimes leads people to pass things off to the next guy. Acceptable? No, but happens.

Now we had the weekend, and of course tomorrow is a holiday. Bad timing. If you don't hear back by Tue/Wed let me know and I may be able to get one of my direct reps involved to help get to the bottom of this. I can't promise anything, but we can try. I don't like to do that unless all other forms of help have been exhausted, though. I realize you're close, but I don't think you're quite there yet.

Hopefully somebody will help you resolve this, but let me know otherwise and we can try another route.

[Greg33]

Hello again Angell EYE,

Well, I have now spoken with another person at PayPal and he managed to come up with yet another new story about what happened.  Now PayPal is claiming I had requested a temporary credit while the fraudulent transaction was investigated.  I advised him that I had requested no temporary credit and until he had mentioned that, I didn't know requesting a credit was even an option.  On top of all that, I would have had no reason whatsoever to request any credit as my bank had already returned the funds from the fraudulent transaction.  And, of course he had no answers as to why I was being asked to pay for one fraudulent transaction and not the other one when both of them had been handled in an identical manner.  He stated he would put me on hold while he looked over previous notes, but he disconnected the call instead.  

I'm not sure if I've been dealing with first line of support or not.  When I first called about this situation I had requested to speak with someone in the fraud department and was told by the PayPal representative they did not have a "fraud department" (difficult for me to believe by the way).  She proceeded to transfer to PayPal's "security department" in Ireland.  Since that initial phone call, I have requested to be transferred directly to that department each time I have called and those representatives have all told me it's not possible to escalate matters beyond their department.

Now I'm at a total loss of what my next step can be.  PayPal is offering ZERO customer service and ZERO transparency.  They continually refuse to provide any details in writing and just expect me to take their words at face value.  This would have actually been easier to do if they hadn't kept changing those words with each and every phone call.  It's absolutely incredulous the different stories they keep coming up with regarding this transaction.

If you might know of some other route I could try to proceed with this nonsense, it would be very much appreciated.  This has been going on for over a month and a half now and still no help whatsoever from anyone at PayPal.  Only excuses, a variety of stories and empty promises.  

Thank you!