Account hacked, fraudulent charges, PayPal won't help me at all

jkwilso3
New Community Member

Someone hacked/stole my information and completed four Instacart transactions in a row. My Instacart is connected to PayPal, so that's how they paid for it. I immediately contacted my bank, Paypal, and Instacart. Instacart sent an email saying yes, they were fraudulent charges. My bank blocked the charges, but Paypal is STILL saying I still owe them money. I called and customer service was useless. They recommended I just pay it. I'm not giving Paypal money that was stolen from me!!! I also filed a fraud claim, and Paypal denied and closed it with no communication whatsoever. What is the next step? File with the BBB? Hope someone can help because this is ridiculous. Thank you.

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8 REPLIES 8

PayPal_Bindu
Moderator
Moderator

Hello @jkwilso3 

 

Welcome to the PayPal Help Community and thanks for posting here!

 

I completely understand your concern about the outcome of the unauthorized claim. When a payment is initiated through PayPal and paid by bank, a payment to the seller completes instantly because we fund this on customer's behalf and wait for a bank transaction to clear. If your bank declines your transfer and the PayPal is unable to get the funds from your bank/back up funding source, it will be added to your balance which makes it negative. It's possible that the case got automatically closed as the charge is a part of subscriptions and you can contact the Instacart support team to refund the payments. If this is not the case, You can request an appeal by contacting Customer Support.

 

Good luck and have a great day!

Bindu

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Fibielectro
Contributor
Contributor
Currently going through the same thing with PayPal, PayPal denied the claim with not details or communication. I requested an appeal through customer service, the rep was rude and said nothing is guaranteed, I feel like I am unable to get any suooort and have zero confidence in PayPal security even though they market customer assurances for security. I now have a charge back a month after reporting fraudulent activity and they won’t allow me to close the account, I am unclear what this means for me and can’t get answers other than file a claim wait and see, then file an appeal request and wait and see, meanwhile my personal information is still on the account. There is a CITI bank account added that is not mine, and the account was upgraded to business without my authorization. This is terrifying that this can happen and pay pal has taken no accountability or offered meaningful support. I am going to file a complaint with BBB, contact the ombudsman and file a police report.
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PayPal_JonK
Moderator
Moderator

Hello @Fibielectro

 

Welcome to PayPal's Community Forum. I'm sorry to hear about your recent experience with PayPal's dispute process. Whenever you notice unrecognized activity on your PayPal account, you may want to check your Automatic Payments for any billing agreements or subscriptions for that merchant. If the appeal on your case does not come back in your favor, and the transaction was paid with a debit card, credit card, or bank, you may also want to reach out to your funding source to see what options are available. 

 

Best wishes with this and future transactions through PayPal, 

 

 - Jon K


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Fibielectro
Contributor
Contributor

The “funding source” is a CITI bank account that was added by the hacker, not mine, and is still showing in the wallet. Pay Pal has the ability to locate the owner of that account, I do not. As reported to Pay Pal on Dec 25th, Jan 8th and Jan 22nd, my account was accessed on Dec 22nd, a CITI bank account was added (not mine), and my personal account was upgraded to a business account (without my authorization). Funds were transferred in by a name Epiphany [removed] (I do not know this person or company), then transferred out to the same CITI bank account that is not mine. On Dec 25th, four separate deposits were made by a different person who I do not know, on Dec 26th (after I reported the suspicious activity) the hacker attempted to transfer those funds to the CITI bank account (not mine). I then received a claim result notice from Pay Pal that the activity is consistent with my use and no unauthorized activity occurred, no further information was provided by pay pal. I phoned Pay Pal, because there is no option for responding to the email, and without my asking for this, the rep said that I had to wait for the other institution to conduct their review and that he would personally monitor the cases and provide me with updates. I did not receive any updates from this rep, and received another system generated email indicating that pay pal reviewed my case and determined no unauthorized activity occurred. I phoned back and asked for a supervisor this time, she was very rude and did not care and said there is nothing she can do except appeal it again. Which she says she was putting through. I received another system generated email an hour later stating that the activity is consistent with my use and no unauthorized activity occurred. As a personal account holder since 2013, with only a credit card attached, how is an upgrade to a business account, adding a bank account, selling fake items and receiving payments then transferring cash consistent with a decade of personal user transactions only. Pay Pal has failed to uphold the user assurances marketed to customers, and has failed to provide evidence of a business agreement that I supposedly agreed to enter into. I followed the instructions to report the unauthorized activity, was told different things by the customer service reps the first two times I phoned, Pay Pal customer service is atrocious and the resolution centre is simply lip service while hiding behind system generated processes with zero accountability for security.

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Fibielectro
Contributor
Contributor
AND, to be clear, I did not buy anything or use my “funding source” (credit, debit, etc) so there is no funding source to see what options are available. Pay Pay should investigate the CITI bank account that was fraudulently added to my Pay Pal account. I didn’t think it would be necessary to spell this out but because that is not my bank account, I do not have the ability to see the full account number or follow up with that institution as I am not that account holder. Pay Pal is the institution who can do this, and can confirm that the name in that account does not match mine. Pay Pal has not provided evidence that I was the one who upgraded the account to business, or followed up with the CITI bank. In fact, the system generated notifications ask me to verify that CITI bank account and although I’ve reported it to PayPal on Dec 25th, Jan 8th, Jan 22nd and via response to the request for more information about my claim, nothing is being done to follow up with that unauthorized activity and there is no option on the system to select that the bank account is not mine, no I do not verify.
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Fibielectro
Contributor
Contributor
Next step is to ensure the complaint is filed with BBB, FTC, and the ombudsman. A police report is also recommended. Clearly Oay Pal is incapable of upholding their security assurances and the resource centre is a joke, so far I don’t see anyone receiving success in this only denied claims for what is clearly unauthorized activity. Use your bank of credit card, avoid pay pal.
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MissElliesMom
Member
Member
Same exact issue here. Someone hacked my PayPal. They used my funding source (my bank account) and completed multiple instacart transactions on Feb 8, 2024. They even had a big screen TV delivered to their home in California (yes, I was able to see the entire address it was delivered to.) P.S. I live in Idaho! Instacart found that they were definitely fraudulent charges. They said that paypal took the funds back from instacart and would issue me a refund. It is now March 19th and I just received the same emails that you did. They will no return the money to me. However, they took it back from Instacart!
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surfnpacific
Contributor
Contributor
I am going through a very similar thing with PayPal. I had $150 worth of charges in three different charges with two different companies that I've never done any kind of business with. I reported it and they have now closed one the $100 case which is the largest amount of money saying that it is authorized and I knew about this. They still have one open that they're supposed to have figured out by the 6th of June which is the same company as the one they closed. I try to appeal this and even call their customer service and then was told that I'm not allowed to appeal this case. I am so frustrated I am going to file a police report and report them to the BBB and if there's any other thing I can do to get my money back I would I welcome any responses that might be able to help with that. This is looking like a class action lawsuit to me hmmmmm....
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