Paypal Prenote Transaction

[kcw4]

I recently saw a $0 Paypal Prenote transaction posted to my linked checking account.  I have never seen this before.  As I understand it a prenote is a way of validating account information. I did not recently setup any kind of direct deposit. Is this normal or some sort of phishing/fraud attempt?

[PayPal_JonK]

Hello @EdwardM21, @kcarter98, @SharBee, @Jamz2720, & @chpis, 

Welcome to the PayPal Community! I can certainly understand how something unexpected such as a prenote can cause a bit of confusion. We appreciate your feedback regarding this new practice. As always, we are always looking to improve our processes and services to better meet our customer's needs. In the mean-time, I'm happy to shed a bit more light here.

At your leisure, I recommend taking a moment to review the Help Center Article Olivia provided above and I have  linked here detailing Prenotes. We've found most banks may not show zero-dollar transactions or prenotes to customers on their statements at all.  However, some smaller banks may as this is considered a non-standard industry practice. Either way, I understand the concern and I hope this and the article above clears things up a bit further. 

Thanks again for reaching out and have a great day!

 - Jon K

[Temp20220601c]

I also have the prenote transaction list on my history dated for yesterday. Considering how difficult it is to have to close an account, open a new one, and update occurrences of saved banking information everywhere including direct deposits, I will monitor for now.

Please, you must notify customers in a better way. This caused me a lot of panic as someone who has had their card information stolen too many times to admit. A simple email to all PayPal customers would have sufficed. This is the first time I've seen such a transaction and for someone like me who is already skeptical of saving card information, I don't have the option of having no default payment option currently if I just remove my banking information from my account.

[K9Dad]

This morning saw the PAYPAL PRENOTE $0.00 dated May 26.  1st call, bank, they have no idea if it's legit or a scam probe into the account; I can always cancel that account and setup a new one - are you kidding?  

Next call Paypal; system gave me option be called back in 17 min so I took it.  When he system called me back, it failed ("press 1" and I did, then it said invalid or something) and hung up on me.

Started whole process over and just stayed on the line.  Rep eventually (after getting much info from me and being on hold for many minutes) said that it was a legit account verification from Paypal and not to worry - now moot since it's unlinked.  While I was waiting for the original callback, I had changed my PP psswd and delinked my bank account.  I was asked if I got an email from PP advising of this and answer was NO, she confirmed they never sent email.

I spent over 1-1/2 hrs of billable time checking this ... and a 15 sec email from PP would have prevented the whole thing.

I don't use PP so often anymore, maybe time to just cancel it and avoid such a waste in the future?

Meanwhile, I'll have to continue monitoring ....

[jmkmim]

The online chat and the automated phone system do not help with this. Most searches on Paypal prenote take you to dubious sites saying you are about to be scammed and have links to actual scams. When I saw this transaction in my account this morning I assumed someone was trying to take over my bank account with another Paypal account or to take over my Paypal account.

Paypal should let users know beforehand in an email that they may get this on their accounts. Fortunately, after being on hold and waiting on an agent, I did a search in the help section on Paypal and got this response when I typed "prenote" in the box:

Why am I seeing a zero-dollar deposit or prenote from PayPal on my bank account?

PayPal is recommended by the banks that we use to process our transactions to identify inactive bank accounts that may be linked to PayPal accounts. To do this, we send a prenotification (prenote) in the form of a zero-dollar deposit to all bank accounts on file linked to PayPal accounts.

This prenote does not affect the balance of your bank account and may not show up on your monthly statement, depending on your bank. There is no action needed from you if your bank account is verified as an active account.

Please note that prenotes won't show up in your PayPal account activity.

If your bank account is inactive, the prenote will be returned to PayPal and we will send you an email to notify you of the inactive bank account being unlinked from your PayPal account. PayPal plans to send these prenotes every 6-12 months to ensure all linked bank accounts are still active.

[thfsfsd]

This "smaller bank" thing is not a real explanation. I had this shown on one of the 8 major consumer banks in the US.  We should be able to verify this was actually paypal for our own account.

[jdorrance]

I agree with you 120%.. The Fraud Specialist where my account is held has told me he seen several of these entries recently and mine was the 2nd one this week. If this is not a scam then Paypal needs to have a notice on their home page about it.

[pbenevides]

I went to check my bank account tonight and noticed that there was a credit, posted today, from Paypal. The only information that it says is "Direct Deposit" underneath that it says "Paypal." The credit is for $0.00.

Such a weird question but any idea what happened here? I didn't link my account recently. I didn't purchase anything. All I did was send in a payment to my paypal credit last week. I just want to make sure my account isn't messed up or anything like that and I'm hoping someone will be able to tell me how this happened.

[Sheeeeela-la]

Please note this is not necessarily as the PayPal rep stated. There is a paypal PreNot Scam out there - be aware and 

be careful... https://www.velocitycommunity.org/watch-out-for-the-paypal-prenote-scam-in-2022/#:~:text=In%20some%2....

[thfsfsd]

Rather than call Paypal, I:

1) deleted my bank account from paypal and venmo

2) turned on 2 factor identification, changed my passwords

3) called my bank who put a stop on any ACH debits from Paypal.

I recommend folks do the same. 

If this is really Paypal doing a maintenance check they need to also be sending a notification to users that can be independently verified on Paypal.

[kcw4]

So its been about 7 weeks since this thread was started about Paypal Prenote.  As mentioned in a previous reply, via the faq question at this link, Paypal makes it clear there are legitimate reasons why Paypal will issue a prenote. Of course that doesn't say there aren't fraudulent reasons that one could be issued as well so I am not specifically refuting that.

I have the following follow-up questions.

1. Has anyone seen fraudulent activity on their bank account after the Paypal prenote was issued? I personally have not.
   
   
2. Has anyone seen a Prenote more than once on an account?  The link referenced says that Paypal will issue these prenotes every 6-12 months and it appears that its only been a few weeks since this started so I would suspect not.  
   
   
3. As discussed in the link, if Paypal determines that the account for which a prenote was issues is inactive, they will send the Paypal account holder an email indicating that the inactive bank account has been unlinked from their paypal account.  Has anyone received such an email?