About three weeks ago I received a (real) email from PayPal about a security breach due to some error by PayPal. While my account was not compromised by anyone, PayPal insisted that I needed to change my password. OK, that's a small annoyance, but better safe than sorry, so I logged in to the PayPal website and changed my password.
I got the acknowledgement email from PayPal telling me that I had changed my password. So far so good.
Then I got another email from PayPal telling me "Checking out with PayPal just got easier" -- so how did checking out get easier? According to the email, PayPal had detected what computer I happened to be using at the time and had decided that it would never bother asking for a password any time anyone used that same computer to access my PayPal account!
PayPal has long offered this stupidly unsecure "feature" - but until recently they asked if you wanted PayPal to remember you so you wouldn't need a password. (It always annoyed me that the only choices were "Yes" and "Maybe Later" with no choice of "NEVER!!"; but at least they asked). Now PayPay had unilaterally applied this terrible setting to my account without asking.
The email provided a link where I could turn this "feature" off -- which I did, and of course PayPal demanded that I change my password again for that.
I was unhappy that PayPal had compromised the security of my account without asking so I contacted PayPal's so-called Customer Support. We exchanged messages back and forth for several days before I finally found someone who actually read what I had written and recognized that having PayPal make this change without asking was a problem. First I was told that this never happened, then eventually I was told it wouldn't happen again (at least not to me).
Fast forward two weeks... Yesterday I made a purchase that I paid for using PayPal. Of course I had to type in my email address and my password. The transaction proceeded smoothly and shortly after I received the email from PayPal with the receipt for my payment to the seller.
Then things went to hell! About a minute after the receipt I got another email from PayPal, again telling me "Checking out with PayPal just got easier" -- yes, again PayPal had recognized the computer I was using, and again PayPal decided to enroll me in "One Touch" without asking.
I just spent just over 37 minutes on the phone with "Customer Service" taking with two very nice young ladies who were very willing but totally unable to be any help at all. Apparently everyone in Customer Service knows that this "feature" is called One Touch but no one knows how it works or why PayPal has suddenly started applying this setting without asking.
