Text message from <removed>

Rutro
New Community Member

I received a txt from <removed> asking the following is this from paypal?

Msg from PayPal: Transaction of -$**.00 USD with The **** **** on May 9, 2017 has been marked as suspicious. Reply "Yes" if authorized or "No" if not authorized.

 

I did make the transaction but have never received this before and in todays world, one never knows.

 

THX

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75 REPLIES 75

TXGRunner
Contributor
Contributor

Ashley:

 

Thanks for replying in this thread, but your timeline is off, at least in my case. I checked my account online before responding to the text. The transaction was already completed. As several people in this thread mentioned, there was *zero* indication in their account any transaction was pending or in suspension pending approval. 

 

As BenGunn mentioned, the reply to <removed> failed in his case. Therefore, the transaction never was authorized. So, what is the point of the system if transactions go through even when no authorization reply is sent/received?

 

In a previous post, I raised several questions. PayPal should give us a response to those questions.

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Reimaj
Contributor
Contributor

Hello!! I spent a while on the phone with PayPal today. Here's the facts: <removed> spells PayPal so it is them. If you have any questions call them first. They do send when a transaction is declined. I say ALWAYS call first to be sure. Maybe you forgot, who knows, but safer to just call first!!

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Danilo867
Contributor
Contributor

PayPal is clearly not a secure payment platform. Have people ever heard about paypal losing millions of customers password to fraudsters? So this may likely to be the case here. I get exactly the same "suspicious" message and when I hit 1 the message fails to send. I have enough balance and all....

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PayPal_AshleyM
Moderator
Moderator

Hello everyone!

 

I just wanted to provide an update here with what information we know. The discrepancy regarding the misspelled words is related to character count with some phone providers. We were encountering issues with our messages being too long and random characters were being removed. This is being looked into.

 

As far as the inability to respond with "Yes" or "1" to the text, what phone provider do you use? We are aware of issues again with specific phone providers not relaying messages correctly back to PayPal, which causes the confusing messages. We are working with them to have this corrected.

 

Regarding your comment about PayPal losing passwords to fraudsters, I apologize, but that's simply not true. PayPal is and always has been secure. There are three most common ways people's passwords are compromised:

  1. They use the same email and password combination on multiple websites and one of these other sites isn't secure. The fraudster gains this information and tries it on multiple websites hoping it will log them in.
  2. The computer or device they are using is compromised either with a virus, malware, or key-logging software (yes, Macs can get viruses!).
  3. They click on a fake link in an email or on a bad website and log into their PayPal, giving their details to whomever sent the email or created the website.

There are of course other ways this information may be gleaned by the wrong individuals, but it is not due to any kind of breach or leak from PayPal. I hope this information helps.

 

- Ashley M


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ladysnausages
New Community Member

Just wanted to jump in here as well. Got this text this afternoon. The last time I used my PayPal to purchase anything was 3 days ago. Recent, but not for any reason to receive this notification.


Mine doesn't have an actual amount listed so I have not the slightest idea what somebody was attempting to use my account for. It just says "Did you recently attepmt to make a payment for ? Reply "1" if yes..." and so on. No other notifications though, in email or call, which I found odd. At least send an email also with more detailed information about suspicious activity like that!

 

I logged into my account on my work computer and changed my password, email address, added security questions and a second PIN to be text to me that will need to be used to approve any transaction. Obviously I was protected initially but it's more comforting knowing I have all these additional hoops someone will have to jump through to try to take that little bit of money I have. C'mon man, it's almost Christmas. You're really going to try and play people like that??

 

Anyway, thanks for all the info everyone, helped to quell some of my worries. Just thought it was weird that it listed no amounts on there when you all got amounts and such. I'll keep popping in here every so often to see if there are any updates.

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Abhi777
Contributor
Contributor

I got a text from the same number with with a confirmation code - twice. But I havent made any transactions using paypal. This looks like a phishing expedition.

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jmag1
Member
Member

I also received this text today regarding a legit transaction I made. I immediately thought this was a scam because the second "authorize" is spelled "ahorize" - any explanation for this? I would expect a banking company to at least proof read their messages.

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wdfp
Contributor
Contributor

 I have an explanation, the message was NOT from paypal. I got one this morning just after 7:00 am saying a charge was declined, one I knew nothing about so I thought ok this is weird as I have never had texts from this place before or anywhere actually that I do business with. I couldn't get an answer here for some reason and it would not let me post here at that time either. 

 Anyway, I contacted my phone company and they confirmed the text came from a 3rd party. So I would put no trust in anything from that number, Get online and check, there was no activity on my account over this either. The number <removed> did not have a hyphen in it either if that makes a difference though.  thats what I found out about it..

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WymanWood
Contributor
Contributor

Wdfp: did you recently get a new cell phone number? I think it's been established here that PalPal isn't checking their phone numbers - to make sure that a cell number that belonged to an account at one time, hasn't been reissued to someone else by a phone carrier. It would explain how you got a text for activity that isn't yours.

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wdfp
Contributor
Contributor

Do not know how that could possibly make a difference, the text originated outside of Paypal, spoofed their #. Anyway, no I have had this # for quite some time

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