Why did an unauthorised address in the Cayman Islands (KY) show up during an on-line transaction

Raffty
Contributor
Contributor

During an on-line purchase using PayPal an unrecognised and unauthorised address, using my name, appeared as one of the options along with my account primary addresses. Seems like a potential hacking to me.

I reported this to PayPal but they are not helpful, and somewhat dysfunctional with their standard FAQ menu screen responses. Paypal's "customer service officers" give advice about how to change your address and, ironically, how to gift money to other countries!! They don't seem to comprehend the problem because it is not in their FAQ bank of answers - still Paypal staff take a best guess and send a couple on to me to fob me off. They even  suggested the problem was because we had gifted money to the Cayman Islands!! Of course we haven't!!  In another attempt they treated the issue like a claim and told me it was denied!! Go figure?!

Paypal also admitted to me that they do not have  a security section. This seems odd given they claim to have a secure system. I have asked to speak to a manager but apparently they dont have any of those either.

Anyway, I would be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced this unauthorised "ghost" address appearance.  Let me know and I will include it with me letter to ACCC.

 

 

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4 REPLIES 4

PayPal_JonK
Moderator
Moderator

Hello @Raffty,

 

Welcome to our Community Forums! I'm sorry to hear you have an unrecognized address on your account. Instead of it being Caymen Islands (KY), could it possibly be Kentucky (KY), USA? The only reason I ask is because our Global Shipping will show an address shipping out of Erlanger, KY. Could that be the case?

 

 - Jon K


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Raffty
Contributor
Contributor

No - sorry - it was definitely Cayman Islands. Even it was Kentucky as you suggest, we still did not put it there, nor authorise it, nor gifted anything to there!

 

As I say, someone has seemingly hacked into something, somewhere, somehow to be able to have this KY postal address using my name, appear as an option along with our registered address during an on-line purchase. (No this strange address is not visible in the account).

 

BTW Paypal "resolution center" still can not seem to process the above problem,  and they persist with standard FAQ menu responses about how to dispute a claim, or how to change your address, or to check with family members to see if they laundered money to the Cayman Islands!!! There is just no way to communicate anything to PayPal if the issue does not fit their standard resolution center "categories."

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PayPal_JonK
Moderator
Moderator

@Raffty,

 

Thank you for your time. Unfortunately our Resolution Center isn't particularly designed for this specific kind of issue. Unless you've had an unauthorized transaction or a purchase didn't go as planned, we would normally recommend removing any addresses that have been added without your knowledge and updating your password and security questions. 

 

If you'd like to follow up further on that address, I'd recommend reaching out to our Customer Support via Facebook or Twitter to review the matter a bit further.

 

Have a great day!

 

 - Jon K


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Raffty
Contributor
Contributor

Yes, I know Paypal is unable to think outside of the pre-determined FAQ categorizations, hence my post here.

 

It is  ironic to think that Paypal offer themselves up as a "secure" system, and they claim this to be a core competency and strategic competitive advantage, yet they have no system security staff/management or gateway to be able to receive information about potential hacking /laundering and ghosted addresses appearing during on-line transactions (such as the above). In other words, the only thing PayPal can process is disputed transactions - not unauthorized ghost addresses. This tells us there is no security as claimed since, clearly, both occur.

 

Equally ironic is  your insular response above.  That is, once informed of a potential issue with their security and limitations of their processes and systems to deal with it, instead of  PayPal  setting-up  something to plug the gap, you instead tell me to go to an insecure platform such as either facebook or twitter to see if anyone else can help!!!

 

Its ok, please do not trouble yourself any further. I have now raised this with Scamwatch, ACCC and now heading to the financial industry ombudsman. If anyone else has a similar experience please let me know and I will include it with my correspondence.

 

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