Hello, @stivensgamezone. I understand completely how seeing a charge on your bank account but not in your PayPal account would pose a concern. Here's what I can tell you in addition to the great information from @kernowlass. PayPal processes payments for customers who log on to their PayPal account and for customers who do not log on. When a customer logs on to their PayPal account, a transaction appears in their Activity. When a credit or debit card is used to pay a merchant, but no log on take place, PayPal still processes the payment, but no transaction appears in the Activity section.
When a purchase is completed without logging on, that's called a Guest Transaction. Guest Transactions do not appear in a customer's Activity because a log on did not take place so it's not possible to associate the transaction with a customer's account. However, PayPal keeps track of the purchase and the transaction, and a receipt is sent by email so a customer can also keep track.
Whoever did this either checked out through a merchant's website and chose to have PayPal process the payment (which is called a Guest Transaction) or the merchant used PayPal to process the payment based on the way they have their business set up. Either way, PayPal processes payments both for customers who log in to their PayPal account and for customers/others who choose not to log in to an account.
Having said that, your messages suggest that you did not make a purchase and you want to know how someone could use your financial information and not have it appear in your PayPal account. I'm sorry for any confusion, but it sounds like someone was able to obtain your financial information and they used it to pay for an online purchase. PayPal processed the payment, but no transaction appeared in your PayPal Activity since no one logged on to your PayPal account.
You also likely didn't get an email receipt since whoever did this likely used an email address other than your email. I assure you, however, whoever did this did not get your financial information from PayPal. They obtained it somehow in the real world. I recommend that you check all of your financial accounts to make sure they are secure.
In this situation, please contact your bank or card issuer and report the transaction as unauthorized. They should close your account and issue a refund. They will then contact PayPal to work out the details and arrange for any money sent to us to be returned to them. If you haven't reported the transaction to your bank or card issuer, please do so as soon as possible.
I hope this helps to clarify things. The most important this is that you should report the transaction to your bank or card issuer right away if you haven't done that already, they should close the affected account and you should work with them to get a refund. Thanks for your patience during this time. Sincerely, Michael PayPal_Michael
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