USPS unauthorized charge scam.

Crun
Contributor
Contributor

So I log on today to pay my credit card bill, and I find that on October 21st, someone found a way to use my Paypal account to apparently send $26.63 to the USPS, 19 times.

 

Has anyone encountered this?

 

Also, all the steps I took to cancel my Paypal credit card have been futile.  I'm becoming quite disillusioned.

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10 REPLIES 10

BruisedEgo
Member
Member

Wow, I feel like I really got bent over and you-know-what.  Like most of you have reported, I just had a similar occurance.  Except I had 28 charges for shipping labels at $31.28 each to Russia.  USPS Express International, no less!  For those doing the math, that's $875.84.  They had also modified my account from personal to business - LaFler co - but retained my address and personal info to hide their tracks.  They were at least nice enough to put $200 from someone elses account into mine first, to help offset my losses.  How kind.  I was fortunate enough to see the email receipts about 90 minutes after creation and immediately phoned paypal customer service (once I finally navigated the web site maze to get the phone number).  For all those who, like me, also got caught up in the phone menu maze, if you yell into the phone, "Just let me talk to a f****** person" enough times, it usually gets you to a human.  Isn't technology lovely.  The customer service agent was very kind, and immediately created fraud cases for each transaction and restored my account back to a personal account.  I went a step further and tried to cancel the shipping labels, but got an error saying "Paypal shipping currently down".  The scammers were very clever and launched their fraud on a Friday evening, making it impossible to get any kind of law enforcement office with proper juridiction until Monday morning.  Meanwhile, several packages, mailed from multiple states, have already made their way out of the country.  (Oh, if I only had a passport and the money for the plane ticket, would I give them a piece of my mind!)  I've filed the online complaint form with the FBI's IC3.  I'm awaiting the morning to contact the USPS Inspectors office.  If I can at least succeed in stopping them from receiving some of their packages, it will restore a little of the smile back on my face.  My big question is still how they broke into my paypal account.  I have a professional background in IT security, and my passwords are obnoxiously difficult.  I have all the appropriate security measures in place.  The only questionably weak element is the new android phone I got in the past 6 months.  Despite having the appropriate anti-spyware/security software, you never really know about some of the apps you download.  Anyone else out there who experienced this scam using an android or iPhone recently before your hack? 

 

Now I just have to wait and see if any of the money I lost can be recovered...

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