PayPal Community

I am a South African who uses an intermediary bank to transfer from PayPal to my own bank account with another bank. I have a habit of going through my bank statements rather minutely and have had several instances now where a small amount is deducted by a company or organization I don't recognize and certainly didn't authorize. It's usually described as a "subscription" and your bank should be able to give you a website address from where the charge was initiated. My banking app gives me all the details of whoever made the charge and on several occasions now I've had to go to that website, where a bot will ask you what you want, you say that you were charged for something you didn't buy and that you've never even heard of them before. The bot will typically ask you for the first 6 digits of your credit/debit card and the last four. In all cases I have been refunded, but the amounts they put through are so small that if you're not watching your account with eagle eyes you will never know that $3 or $5 were just deducted by someone you've never even heard of. I spoke to my bank about this. They said it is no use to replace my card, but that they've had similar complaints and the common denominator is that all of those who get these mystery charges are PayPal users. So just a heads up...if every $1 counts for you like it does for me, you must go through your bank statement every month line by line, charge by charge and if you see a small charge from a name that could be a website, look for that website and get the refund. They rely on people not noticing a $1 here or $20 there, but it is theft none the same. ... View more

Good day   A deduction for $44.85 was made from my account on the 7th of November by a company called FastSpring. The beneficiary organization they were collecting for was called highpaying.net, ostensibly for a "subscription" with them. The thing is that I never created a profile or signed up for any subscriptions with them because they don't accept freelancers from my country, South Africa. So how is it possible that they can be under the impression that I have a subscription with them?   I've looked at these PayPal community pages and noticed some others with the same experience, and always quoting the EXACT SAME AMOUNT of $44.85 for "subscriptions". I've checked with all my platforms and none of them charge for subscriptions, and the best part is, that on my PayPal profile, FastSpring has loaded two payment instructions, one for highpaying.net and one for guru.com. I've checked with guru.com, they don't charge a subscription for the basic plan that I'm on. As for highpaying.net, their support email is fake and keeps bouncing back and their website contains no contact details, physical address, support channels, or even a phone number or a company registration number. I also see from your comments, and from the email I received back from FastSpring that someone from tasked.io was copied in on my complaint, so we'll wait and see if this is also a fake email.    I have in the meantime reported highpaying.net with the FTC.    If you have had a similar experience, where an amount of $44.85 was deducted from your account by a company called FastSpring for a subscription you don't have or don't remember having, please contact me directly. I'd like to compile a list of people with the same complaint in order to pursue this matter further with PayPal, FastSpring, highpaying.net, tasked.io, and the FTC and your explanations of what happened to you in this regard would help me greatly in terms of evidence. The mission is to get a refund ASAP. It doesn't matter that it's a relatively small amount, the issue here is that fake/fraudulent companies like highpaying.net and tasked.io illegally STEAL money from our PayPal accounts, and with FastSpring as the front company to this fraud. I never signed up with these platforms,  so how do they know how to access my PayPal account in the first place? Or how do they figure I owe them a subscription fee? No, no, no, there is something illegal going on here. It's a scam, through and through.    If you have a similar story, please contact me directly on my LinkedIn account: <Removed> ... View more