Money withdrawn to a bank account that is not mine.

[backfall]

Ok PayPal, so far you've been very little help on this matter, so lets see what the forum makes of it.

Before I start, may I say that this is not 100% PayPal's fault, and I must take some of the fault for myself.

I recently completed a sale of items of ebay, which I had paid to me via PayPal. The money transfered to my PayPal account with no problems. The problems occured when I tried to withdraw that money to my bank account, on 12/02/2014.

Basically, the money has never appeared in my account. I spoke to Paypal twice a day since 12/02/14, and it was only on 17/02/2014 when they asked for the sort code and account number of the account I transfered the money out to. It turns out the system has my bank account for one account, paired up with the sort code of another - end result - not my account. The money has been transfered out to another account, not mine. So now I have lost all this money. There was no way on the PayPal website to check the details of the account I was withdrawing it to. Just the name of it, and the last 4 digits of the account number. Surely PayPal you would have noticed that the account the money was being withdrawn out to doesn't have the same surname as me! Thats a BASIC check!

Now within the last hour, I have received a email from PayPal with a FPID asking me to contact my banks FPS department. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BANKS FPS DEPARTMENT! FPS stands for Faster Payment Service, its a type of payment service, NOT a department!

I now need to call back tomorrow and speak to a manager to see if they can find someone that can help.

Now I understand the view that I may well have setup this bank account on PayPal with the wrong details myself, but the inability to be able to go back and check this details is a PayPal failing. Add to that it took several days, and over 10 calls to PayPal before someone even asked for the account details it should have been transfered to, then FAIL PAYPAL! Then add the massive FAIL that PayPal didn't even check if the account the money was being transfered to was in the same name as it showed on PayPal! Actually, thats not a FAIL, thats a MASSIVE BREACH OF SECURITY!

So PayPal, you have now washed your hands of this issue and left it to me to resolve! Not very good at all. This looks like it is going to take a long time to resolve. Once it is resolved, it won't be the end of the issue. My solicitor has already advised me to take legal action against PayPal, based on breaches if financial regulations. Now I don't know, nor pretend to know what these are, but my solicitor is insisting on this action. Whether I do this, I don't know.

So tomorrow, I try the bank again, see if they can help. But PayPal, the ball is in your court on this one. Step in and help/take some responsibitly. I'm holding my hand up in error for my part played in this, its about time you did so as well.

Thanks

[backfall]

Well, this gets worse

30 minutes on the phone with my bank this morning. Provided them with the FPID, they did the checking, confirmed it has gone into another account.

They can not retrieve the money unless PAYPAL call them with the FPID and ask for the funds to be put back into the PAYPAL account.

I am currently 15 minutes into a call with PayPal, and the advisor is refussing to do this.

HELP ME!

[backfall]

This evening, call number 11 to Paypal of this now week long saga.

This mornings call (call number 10) resulted in me having a argument with your member of staff as they refussed to do anything. He said he would do me a favour and speak to the tracing team again!

This evenings call, spoke to a helpful (as much as she could be anyway) north-eastern lass, and I learned something new. The people dealing with this, the tracing team, are a back office team. Any notes that they put onto the system do not appear on the system the front line staff use. WTF!!!!!! Thats ridiculous!

Oh yeah, the lad this morning said they would re-open the case, and it would take another 72 hours. WHO THE **bleep** CLOSED IT OFF ANYWAY!

I have still never received a call from anyone in PayPal about this.

Time is now a ticking PayPal. You have until 2pm GMT tomorrow to resolve this, before legal action is started.

[backfall]

Another day, and still no contact from PayPal.

Oh well. You have 30 minutes to at least get in touch with me, or other options will be explored into getting my money back.

It seems as if the BBC's Watchdog report about PayPal was right. As long as they have your money, they don't give a stuff about your own problems with the service.

Hi ho, off to the courts we go.

[Lauragod3]

Hi, Did you get any further with this? The EXACT same thing has happened to me and basically PayPal have closed my case end of and some random person has £114 of my money!

[kernowlass]

If you add the wrong bank account to your paypal account then I can't see that its paypals fault that the money you transfered went into that account.

And once processed they can't dip into another persons bank account especially when you authorised the transfer of those funds. 

[Lauragod3]

I have no idea how the account and sort numbers became confused. Even if I had manually entered them that way I do believe that as in Internet banking, you should have to enter the account and sort code twice to confirm it is correct. The thing I'm most disappointed with is that as soon as I realised (the same day) I contacted PayPal where a lady advised me 'not to worry' and because the name on the PayPal account won't match the name on the bank account the funds wouldn't go through and would be redirected to my PayPal account. Clearly their advisors need more training if they are giving out incorrect information to customers!

[kernowlass]

If the name did not match then you would think it would bounce back to your paypal account wouldn't you.

Has it been a long while as there may be a chance if that is what they said that it still may bounce?

[Matopos]

Hi,

This just happen to me as well today!!

I transferred 190euro to what I thpught was my account and later, when I saw it was converted in a USD transaction I realised it's not my account at all!

I never had an account with eTrade.

Could it be there has been a major security flaw at PayPal, linking paypal accounts to fraudulent accounts?

One thing is sure, i never had an account at eTrade bank, and never linked that to my payéal..

What can we do? I'm gutted.

regards,

P-M

[Matopos]

I received my money back! Pfeww! Thanks.