BREACH OF PAYPAL SECURITY

Musaic
New Community Member

I am using this forum because I have tried 4 times in the last week to try to talk to someone from PAYPAL, but the wait time for phone access has been impossibly long. But I definitely need to talk to someone from PAYPAL, because if they don't figure out what happened, not only will they lose me as a customer, but since I am a public personality, I'm going to share this news with everyone I care about so that they will lose confidence in PayPal's most important aspect - it's security. 

I was arriving at my home airport after Thanksgiving week with my 95 year old frail mother. My texts came back on after being on airplane mode, and found a text from my landlord telling me that my rent payment hadn't been released, and for ten days she's not been able to release her rent payment. 

Concerned, I immediately googled PAYPAL customer service, forgetting that my iphone actually had PayPal's phone number. I called and spoke to an individual who had what appeared to be either an Indian or Pakistani accent. Since outsourcing these calls is so common, I didn't think anything about it. 
They went through the normal confirmation of details. I simply gave them my name and told them what my primary email address was with PayPal. They immediately confirmed information that I believe only PayPal would have and PROCEEDED to ask me to confirm the last 5 transactions on paypal. They had my information completely accurate, including amounts, dates, and such. ONLY INFO THAT PAYPAL would have. 

I of course, assumed that there was no reason to doubt that this was truly PAYPAL. 

When they themselves confirmed the payment I made to my landlord, including the name and the amount, I told them that the problem was that that payment was being withheld for some reason, and that it hadn't cleared for some reason, after many days. They looked into it, and suddenly they were very alarmed. They told me that I was being hacked, that my paypal websites were not available to me due to the hacking, and that the only way I could prevent the rent money from going to the hacker would be if I stayed on the phone until I could go to any nearby retailer and buy a Google Play Card. Being a boomer I didn't know what that was, but was sufficiently alarmed and convinced that these people were on the level. They told me that the only way to circumvent the rent money from going to the hacker is if I bought a $500 Google play card, shared the number with the Google representative that they'd transfer me to, and upon reading the scratched out number on the back, I would be able to divert the rent payment back to me directly. I suddenly got very suspicious, but due to the sophisticated nature of their capacity to prove that they were PayPal, I reluctantly agreed to do it. Sadly, when I read them the first google play card number on the back, they of course told me that the CVS store I purchased it from had a bad series of cards that were no longer valid and needed to go to Walgreens instead. Still very upset but afraid I might lose my rent money, I was completely snagged, and they instructed me to buy another Google Play card. Like an idiot, I did it, gave them the number, extremely distraught but by this time realized I was being had after it was too late. The fact that there were actors posing as PAYPAL with a truly professional looking page on google that responded to my query to find the PayPal Customer Service number - only to have fraudulent actors not only at the end of a fake PAYPAL line, but with the information to my account, including transaction amounts and dates is terribly disturbing. Unfortuntely, because I purchased the playcards with my ATM card, when I tried to cancel payment with my bank they sadly told me they couldn't do anything about it, because the cards were probably already spent, and that they were unable to address the payment  to the fraudulent actors. I lost $1000, felt like a complete fool, and it took days for me to recover my self respect and composure. Of course I'd love someone to reimburse me my lost $1000. But more importantly, how can I ever trust PayPal again if there are people able to hack my information accurately, pose as PayPal, and convince me of doing such outrageous things? Who at PayPal is smart enough to recognize that if I spread this story all over the internet, or all through my large friend base (I have 5000 friends on Facebook, and more as fans.) Wouldn't they want to stem this somehow? I have proof of purchase of the transactions for the playcards at CVS in northern California. Yes, I've learned a horrible $1000 mistake. But what can we do to make sure no one else is ever violated like this? 

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Wesleyalan
New Community Member
Some1 in a state 700 miles away had access to my bank thru PayPal and were topping off 4-500 a day on purchasing.. It ruined my bank account which I'm -300 and pay pal tried to make it right by deposit 770 ..but now they want the money back after I used to try to get my bank msg fees down.. What steps do I take
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