Inactive account notification by letter

[Weeviv]

I have received a letter from PayPal (not an email) about an inactive account relating to an email address which is shown partially redacted.  However, I can tell even with the redaction that this is not an email account I have ever had, nor have I ever had any account other than my present ( very much active) one.  The letter says I will be charged £9 if I do not reactivate this unknown account.  But I cannot access this supposed account as I do not know what the email address is.  I have been all round the houses with the help and messaging system to no avail.  

Is this a scam?  I find it strange that PayPal would contact me by letter and also it is addressed to my husband but I am the PayPal account holder.  Can anyone help, please?

[Papillonuk59]

I too received a letter this morning dated 23rd November 2020. 

From PayPal (Europe) S.a.r.l

22-24 Boulevard Royal

2449 Luxemburg.

It said I had an account registered to my address using poi******@mad***********

I do not recognise this address, I have only had one PayPal account in my life time and that is no way near my account

Tried phoning up PayPal, what a joke that is, unable to speak to a human & get sent back to the help website which is no good.

[Ian_P]

Another here. also dated 23rd November. Letter even looks legitimate.

Its' listing an email address I haven't used in probably 10+ years or more most likely (its that old it's still listed as a netscape.net address on the letter and not an active account I generally used for anything ever), although I do recall Netscape change their format a few times, and I do still have access to what is now AOL to see if anything was in the inbox (pretty empty to be honest and had multiple AOL product upgrade email notifications). At the very least it's prompted me to delete the aol.co.uk account.

The weird thing is that I've never had a PayPal account registered on the email address in the letter, or any other except ones I've used for what now feels like an eternity; when I try to reset the password using the email address provided to see if I can delete the account, what it does do is try to call a landline phone number to give me a code to login, which is also concerning and I obviously cant do and also don't have as I haven't had a landline in probably a similar timeline.

It feels like someone has had my details and set this account up, but I've no idea how or why.

I tried to call the 0800 number for Customer Services (showing as PayPal Here), and all I keep getting is 'This persons phone is switched off, please try later or send a text' - This is the number from PayPal themselves, not on the letter.

So:

- I have no access to the PP account in question

- I am unable to contact customer services

- Using my 'actual' PayPal account to contact them is probably not wise and one has nothing to do with the other

- I'm struggling to see how they can enforce the charge with no linked bank account, and a PP account that isn't mine.

My other question I guess here, is if this is legitimate, and on the off chance I inadvertently did do something, why has it taken until now to mark the account inactive. It should simply have died many many years ago.

EDIT: Just managed to get through to PayPal and they have now closed the account down. It had been used and had a balance of £0.93. This was not me, but PP where not able to tell me if there were any recent transactions in the last 180 days as none showed.

Stinks of a fraudulent account IMHO.

[Johut]

Hi. I too have had a letter. Can please tell me how you managed to contact Paypal. Thank you.

[army360]

Johut, I called them on 020 3901 7000.  I do find that the result I achieve with PP customer services depends very much on the ability of the rep that you end up with.  Good luck!

[carol-ann1]

everytime ive contacted PP ive ended up with the village idiots and still no answers 

[Astralmimi]

Every time I call I get/ " we cant support your inquiry over the phone right now, please visit the website" and its cuts off.

What did you say to get through to an actual person?

[army360]

Astralmimi, I went through the website 'contact us' options until I got the option to 'Call us'.  I think this option is only available in working hours which (I think) is 8am to 6pm - frankly ridiculous in this day and age.  I got the 6 digit code which you type in on the automated phone response.  I've not had a problem talking to an actual person as long as I call within working hours.

[SusanSaunders]

You can contact them via message in the help section and they will reply. I contacted them via message last weekend and if you read back through the thread you will see the full replies I got. First they blame you. Then the next message says it isn't identity theft but they cant answer the who, what's and whys as to what the frig is going on.

Surely now that a week has passed they must know what has happened and why these letters have been sent out, why the emails have nothing to do with the person named and addressed in the letter. Like mine, the email is 100% not mine, yet its linked to my name and address.  So why is there another account in my name? Is this identity theft, have they been hacked, is it a scam? They should know whats going on buy now 🙂

[Dtronics]

Can confirm I've received a letter myself.

Email address is one that I don't recognise, from an email provider I have knowingly never used before.

I've dug around in my old and current email inboxes and general files and can't find anything that relates to an email account with that provider, or an additional PayPal account for that matter.

Judging from what I've read, PayPal will close the inactive account if it has a negative balance (or no balance at all).  I hope this is the case and there isn't any repercussions of closing the account so that it will affect my legitimate account.

What I worry about is, if someone has fraudulently set up this account years ago and has put it in the negative and PayPal close this account, will they attempt to chase me for it?

So far I haven't found anything which suggests this, but it still worries me.

[Whitmann]

Finally an answer that puts my mind at rest: