Yesterday my brother was able to get into my Paypal account and change the password, add his phone number and address and make a purchase to eBay (using his credit card). I guess this whole process was done when a link was sent to his cell phone. I have never heard of a "password reset" being sent to a new phone number on an account. My cell phone never received any indicator of anything happening. I had no idea this was happening at all -- I haven't spoken to my brother in 2 years.
My niece was helping him do this -- and I guess they didn't really realize they were using my Paypal account until after the purchase was made. (our emails are similar -- his is hotmail, mine is gmail. )
So, my brother phoned me and notified me of this event and told me the new password. Luckily he phoned me before I started receiving the emails from Paypal saying a purchase had been made, password changed, phone added, address added, etc.
Now, I am in total and complete shock that someone could access my account (I don't use it much at all and actually my expired credit card was linked to it). I have phoned Paypal several times now and each time have received very outlandish answers:
1. one person said the system may not have understood the difference between the two email addresses -- confusing hotmail for gmail.
2. another person said my brother must have access to all my passwords and be a very talented person (He needed his daughter to make this purchase!).
3. another said we must have been at the same location when this happened, even after I told them I haven't spoken to my brother in 2 years.
4. another said they can't tell me what happened unless I was willing to press charges and make a formal legal complaint
5 another told me they have to protect their information and not give it out to anyone.
6. another told me to just close the account and I won't have anymore problems.
Well, I don't care to know the technicalities, I was hoping that someone at Paypal would care enough about this glitch. I spent time on the phone to inform them of their glitch and they don't seem to care enough to look into how this could have happened. Luckily my brother was not able to get into my other, Paypal business account, because there is confidential purchases and customers in that account.
Here is another clue -- the purchase was on Ebay and he has an Ebay account. (I myself have never been on the Ebay site).
So, my questions are:
1. Does anyone have an idea of how this could happen? It frightens me to think that this could happen to another person or bank account. Maybe our grandparents were right and we should put our money in our mattresses?
2. How do I get through to Paypal to talk to a technical person to find out how this happened?
I would like to be assured they have looked into it and cleaned up their problem.
