I recently awoke to an email message from PayPal stating that I had transferred £201.10 GBP (Which is exactly $380.00 AUD) to a random Microsoft Live email account. Because I have no knowledge at all of this transaction, I log into Paypal and look for details, only to find that there are none. So I register a dispute with PayPal immediately. PayPal close that dispute within 5 hours with the following response: “We've reviewed your unauthorised activity case, and determined that there was no unauthorised use of your PayPal account. Based on our review, we found this transaction is consistent with your PayPal payment history. As a result, we've closed this case” Now with even the most superficial look at my PayPal history: 1. I have never conducted PayPal transactions at 03:00 am 2. The only times I have ever conducted a PayPal transaction in foreign has been with a PayPal invoice 3. I have very rarely used the "send money" money feature, not within the last twelve months, never without adding notes to the transaction, and never in foreign currency. So it's clear that this transaction is NOT "consistent with my PayPal payment history". In response, I find an Australian-based phone number to call, but they don’t work on weekends, so I have to wait until the next working day. On the next working day, I phone PayPal. During this call I asked if they could provide the IP address from which the transaction originated, and they claimed “they don’t share those details”. However, they did open a new dispute, changing the type to “Goods not received”, although I don’t know why. That resulted in PayPal claiming to write to the person who received my money, and reportedly get some sort of response. Regardless, after two weeks, they simply closed the case again. When I attempted to re-contact PayPal by phone, I was unable to get through. Switching to social media channels, I got sporadic responses over the course of 3 days, but eventually get an email from PayPal stating: “We reviewed the claim(s) you filed on XXXX. Unfortunately, we had to deny your claim(s). This decision was made because this transaction was not unauthorised.” During this process, I get this gem from PayPal: “Your account security is our top priority. To help protect your account, we've temporarily limited what you can do with it. You’ll need to complete some steps to ensure the security of your account. What's going on? We noticed some unusual activity on your PayPal account and are concerned about potential unauthorised account access. What to do next Please log in to your PayPal account and follow the steps there to confirm your identity and recent account activity. To help protect your account, your PayPal account will remain limited until you complete the necessary steps.” So they are aware that someone other than me is attempting to access my account, and yet they still deny my claim. I know all the PayPal fans are going to want to blame the victim, so let me say up front that I’ve been using PayPal for 15 years and never had a problem. Never even filed a dispute. The first time something goes wrong, and they have gone to every possible means to not honour any form or customer protection. Just to finish it all off, they are threatening to ban me from their various sites because I am documenting their actions in public. I’m not done with PayPal yet, but I just want the world to know what you are dealing with. Any thought that PayPal provides some form of “protection” is misleading.
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