A year ago, or so, someone hacked my eBay account and tried to use it to make a bunch of purchases. Fortunately, I had no automatic connection between eBay and PayPal, so their efforts failed. I didn't get charged anything on PayPal and, as far as I know, they didn't get any of the merchandise they ordered on eBay.
With that experience in mind, I was very surprised to find that PayPal raided my bank account for a recent purchase when there wasn't enough in my PayPal account. I didn't want them to do that. There was either a security hole on eBay/PayPal or a mistake on my part. Still trying to figure that out. Regardless, if I wanted to use my bank account for purchases, I would just use my bank account -- I wouldn't route those purchases through PayPal.
I appreciate the advice about changing passwords regularly, but that doesn't always keep the bad guys out.
A PayPal representative tells me there's no way to tell PayPal not to use my bank account, if the PayPal balance is insufficient. So if someone does get access to my PayPal account, or if there's a mistake (on my part or otherwise), my bank account gets emptied too. Or if there's not enough there, I get an overdraft fee.
Am I missing something, or is that not a potentially massive security hole for the ordinary consumer or businessperson?
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