Money stolen from my account - PayPal is refusing to help

[jakmwin]

About a week ago, I received an email from PayPal that said I had sent a payment of $199 US to a seller whose name I did not recognize. I did not purchase anything from this person, and when I searched for the name and email address, I could not find any information about this seller (according to PayPal, this seller is "Non-US - Unverified) . The item title is listed only as "Update." I have no idea what this transaction is for or how it was made on my account (I've changed my password and security questions, as I suspect someone hacked into my account).

I have been a loyal and frequent PayPal user for many years, with over 100 satisfactory transactions, so even though I was upset that someone had stoled $199 dollars from me, I assumed that it would be a simple process to report the fraudulent activity and receive a refund, since PayPal makes such a big deal of its protections against fraud. I filed a claim and checked the status every day waiting for a decision - supposedly they were asking the seller to provide documentation about the transaction, and there is a section on the claim site to post documents, but nothing was ever posted (no surprise - I didn't buy anything from this person!!) Today I received this message:

"Through careful research of your claim, PayPal’s Fraud Team has determined the transaction(s) you submitted do not represent unauthorized account activity because they are consistent with your account’s transaction history. As a result, we have denied your Unauthorized Account Use Claim."

I'm posting this message here for a couple of reasons. First, because I'm quite devastated to have had 200 dollars stolen from my bank account through PayPal, and I wanted to warn other people that PayPal is not as safe as they claim. I was also hoping someone out there might have some advice for further steps I might be able to take to recover this money. Might I have some recourse through my bank??? Is there anything I can do (besides closing my PayPal account for good and relying on credit cards for online purchases, which I would have been doing had I not believed the shameless lies about PayPal being a "safer" way to pay for things)?

[TsufakTuna]

Hi jakmwin,

just because you changed your passwords and security information does not mean your account cannot be compromised. Have you scanned your computer with reliable antiviral and antimalware software? Have you visited any unsafe or fishy websites (includes torrent / downloading illegal freeware)? 

If your PayPal and bank account are linked, you should immediately contact your bank. Any accounts that are compromised could have stolen bank account data, which needs to be looked after before any PayPal problems.

Some bank accounts will offer as a good gesture or in certain cases part of their online banking policy a zero liability agreement. You may be reimbursed the amount which you had deducted if you can prove that these amounts were not authorized by you.

[jakmwin]

Update: I spoke with a PayPal agent yesterday who seemed very helpful and agreed to reopen my case and send it to a supervisor, so I'm cautiously hopeful that this can be resolved.

Thanks for the advice - No, I haven't been downloading torrents or anything like that. I thought my Mac was supposed to be fairly secure, but I'll look into the possibility of viruses or malware now. I'll also get in touch with my bank and see what can be done to secure my account.

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@TsufakTuna wrote:

Hi jakmwin,

just because you changed your passwords and security information does not mean your account cannot be compromised. Have you scanned your computer with reliable antiviral and antimalware software? Have you visited any unsafe or fishy websites (includes torrent / downloading illegal freeware)? 

If your PayPal and bank account are linked, you should immediately contact your bank. Any accounts that are compromised could have stolen bank account data, which needs to be looked after before any PayPal problems.

Some bank accounts will offer as a good gesture or in certain cases part of their online banking policy a zero liability agreement. You may be reimbursed the amount which you had deducted if you can prove that these amounts were not authorized by you.

---

[chrisfromdevon]

The eaxt same thing has jsut happend to me (litereally in the last 20 minutes) $199 from a non US account in USD (I am in the UK)  How did you get on in the end as I am going to have to wait until the morning (its 0051 now) to sort this out.

Thanks.

[jakmwin]

Hi - Sorry to hear that you also had money taken out of your account. I did eventually get the money refunded from PayPal, but it took a few weeks. At first, they did an investigation and concluded that the transaction was legitimate, since they said it was consistent with past activity on my account. I then called in to challenge this decision, since the unauthorized transaction was actually pretty unusual (I've only used my PayPal account for payments to established companies, and never to random individuals - this was an "unverified PayPal user") and I asked them to get in touch with the seller and find out what exactly this payment was supposed to be for (it was listed as an "update," so I said I wanted to know what it was an update for, since I had never made an initial purchase that might need to be updated. Anyway, the person I spoke to escalated the case to be looked at by a supervisor and a few weeks later (I called back after I hadn't heard anything in a while) they reversed their earlier decision and refunded the money.

Good luck - hope you're able to sort this out.

[ThanHec]

Hi,

Could you tell me how your claim went as I got an email today that I just sent US$290 to a person I dont know. Luckly it is not off my credit card but from my Paypal balance so it is not going to create family problems right now. Surely Paypal must keep track of IP addresses when you login to the account?

I am actually worried that my credit card could get abused like this and I am looking for an alternative to Paypal as this does not leave me feeling very safe with credit card details on the system.

[joshuadmasters]

I have had money taken from my account as well. Not as much as you folks, but I never kept a large balance to begin with. So only $29 was taken from me. Paypal obviously has a problem. I opened a claim, but am skeptical I'll get my money back. My loss was a "donation" I apparently made around the the 20th of March. I've updated/changed all my passwords and triedto add a level of security by requiring a sms 6 digit code to verify login and push notifications when any transactions happen. I fear it's too little too late.

[monteh]

I was hit for three 10 dollar transactions this morning for ebay gift cards that I never authorized. I lodged a complaint and may be in luck as my credit union puts a 4 day hold on any credit card transactions so I should be able to cancel the transactions.

[isipak]

So sorry to know about this. Actually I know the main reason as I research too much about these type of problems. I think some one asked you to login to paypal through a website that is not paypal.com. And you did so. In fact your password is saved in their database or simply as a text file in web hosting space. They wait for your maximum money in account and do hacking.

Now there is no chance to refund as I also know some methods that paypal can not refund your money because money is already spent from their account or transfered to any bank account.

Remember that if someone use your password and security question to transfer credit, then you have no right to complain against them as this is your own mistake. I think you understand all and will be careful. May Allah (GOD)  Bless You.

[aftabnaveed]

Some one just stole 200 euros from my paypal account,  I am not sure how the heck is that even possible? , it sems like Paypal is not as secure as it claims to be, have opened a dispute and transferred all of the money from my account to a different one, so it cannot be deducted by paypal, would that save my money from being transferred?

  I am from Sydney/Australia.