PayPal Community

However, the most reasonable explanation for it is that it WAS from PayPal and the PayPal person you talked to was mistaken, or was overlooking something.   It could have been another PayPal account you might have opened three years prior and forgot about. Does seem very plausable that the email was from PayPal. ... View more

"Accounts do not get closed after a year of inactivity. There are time periods of three years or more, depending on the state, where if a Paypal acocunt sits dormant with no log ins , an attempt is made to contact the account holder to demonstrate that the account is still active. If they do not log in to the PayPal account or perform any activity on the account, the funds are then turned over to the state of residence so that the state can get those funds to the appropriate party. This process is not limited to PayPal, it's tied into state laws for dormant activity on finacial accounts. It's called escheatment if you're interested in learning more about it. If you're referring to a limited account, that's different than a dormant account. If there were funds in a limited account that had a 180 day lock, PayPal may opt to not allow you to use our services any more, but after 180 days, you could withdraw any balance on the account as the timeframe for a buyer to dispute a transaction has elapsed"   --PayPal Jason   Original Question and Reply: http://getsatisfaction.com/paypal/topics/inactive_account ... View more

The only reason I can think of for the email is that it could it have been possible that a PayPal hacker had attempted to keylog your PC, or had keylogged a PC you had used, (such as a public computer, or a computer just before you performed virus scans) and had gotten a hold of your email address. Since their keylogger hadn't found an eligible PayPal username/password combination (in the case of a single use of a public computer, or removal of the keylogger shortly after its activation via an anti-virus/spyware program) they attempted to coerce you into logging into PayPal and hence, giving the keylogger the information it needs.   This is just a farfetched theory however. There doesn't seem to be any way even modern day hackers could be capable of such a co-ordinated scheme. They just seem to operate around preying on mistakes, such as accidentally clicking something that looks like what you're looking for but isn't, it's just an image of what you're looking for with a link to a virus website or something hidden behind it. Or those frustrating activex plugins and tricky coding that make little message boxes pop up and pressing the [X] makes another window pop up. An orchestrated scheme like the one above doesn't really seem possible when compared to all this patheticness. ... View more

@jmznesky   By default, PayPal will ignore the credit/debit status of your bank account and simply do an echeck payment.   Only once you link a credit/debit card (I am unsure which cards fall into this category, but I'm assuming it's anything with the "Buy now, Pay later" style, where you don't pay heaps of fees if your bank account goes below zero) to your account, PayPal will use the Visa/Mastercard to pay the payment instantly for you, then your bank account will be indebt to PayPal until the transfer from your account to PayPal clears.   So without a linked card: You must wait for the money to transfer from your bank to PayPal, then PayPal pays the amount to the seller With a linked card: PayPal pays the seller for you, and then you are in debt to them until your bank transfers the amount to pay PayPal back.   Again, this is my first time internet banking, and this is what I've concluded from what I have seen ... View more

No, you do not have to have funds in your paypal account.   Paypal will transfer the money from your bank account directly through to the seller. However, this will usually take about the same amount of time that it takes to transfer funds from your bank to paypal. The status of the transfer will be called "Pending" and the buyer will not (well, shouldn't, unless they are silly) ship the items until the payment clears.   I believe this method of payment is called "eCheque". A seller is notified that their payment is pending and via eCheque so you won't have to worry about them filing non-paying buyer complaints about you.   To speed up the process, paypal recommends you link a credit card to the paypal account (this may even be the credit card associated with your bank account that is linked with paypal) so that the transactions can be performed instantaneously. If you do not wish to link a credit card, you can simply transfer funds into your paypal account and they will be deducted from there instantly instead of having to wait for the eCheque to clear.   Please note that I am new here, but this is what I have deducted (or is it "deduced"?) from my small amount of experiences so far. ... View more