posted on March 20, 2002 08:41:22 PM new
PayPal's security is horrible and they don't live up to their guarantee. They allowed someone that I never knew and that I had never had any contact with accces to my account. One day I came home from work to find that someone had charged up my credit cards and tried to steal money from my bank account through Paypal. Luckily we check email every day or this person would have gotten away with siphoning all the available funds from my bank account. This person made charges to my credit cards including the Pay Pal credit card and if you include the bank account for $3,000K+ . I have been in contact with another person who has been defrauded. There are 5+ people thus far that I have found similarly affected. Paypal won't refund the amounts charged to my other credit cards or their own credit card even though I filled out all of their paperwork. The night it happened I called PayPal and the FBI and the Shelby County Sheriff to make reports. I have also contacted the FBI, the Secret Service, Local Police departments, the FTC, the IFFC, the Better Business Bureau, the Attorney General for California. I contacted PayPal's insurance company, who could only refer me to PayPal Investigations. They said that PayPal had a large deductible so I didn't qualify for an insurance claim and would have to go through PayPal. Travelers Insurance for PayPal. [email protected]. Another person at Travelers is Lisa Hirai at 860-954-4088. Of course I sent the information to PayPal Investigations like their website says but they keep asking for the same stuff over and over. The person I talked to at Pay Pal (Artie in Fraud) wouldn't return my calls last week and now Pay Pal is saying they don't know who Artie is. IF YOU LOOSE YOUR MONEY THROUGH PAY PAL THERE IS NO WAY TO GET IT BACK. I HAVE BEEN TRYING FOR OVER TWO MONTHS WITH NO LUCK!!!!!! Of coure, they are collecting interest on their credit card and to make matters worse charge me a fee for the illegal transactions. PayPal keeps saying I haven't sent in the necessary paperwork. I sent about 50 pages to them and then talked to their fraud department about the case (Artie). He asked me to fax a credit card statement, which I did twice. Of course now he won't return my calls and they won't credit our cards. They are stalling so they don't have to refund my money. What if they are doing this to thousands or millions of people? What kind of interest can they be earning if they scam 10,000 people for $1,000 a piece. Calculate it. And the kicker is that they won't let me close my PayPal Account. They have restricted it though so I can't get to the money that is in it. They messed up all of the auctions and they won't listen. They don't care.
Here are additional people who were victimized by the same person or with the same time period as I was:
Linda Compton. I supposedly send her 2 PayPal transactions of $1,000 and $300, however, the transactions were sent to [email protected] which is not her email address. Her real email is [email protected].
[email protected] ... Rusty Vernon (he's in Texas) and I have become friends because of this. He says his PayPal was hacked also, but he lost only $25 because it was an old bank account that he never got around to closing. But he did show one transaction of $25 that went thru to none other than Christian Corpuz. In fact, Rusty has used PayPal only once before, almost a year ago, and it's just been sitting there since with no activity until now.
[email protected] ... Michele D'Souza is an ebay seller and this is her correct email address. It seems the hacker used her name when they added a new email address to my PayPal account, because one of the emails added was [email protected]
Laura Leonard ... [email protected] ... Her PayPal account was hacked on 1/24/02 (I think that's the right date?). The name Christian Corpuz never came up in her account, but her account was hacked using an operamail.com email addy.
Mark Arsenault ... [email protected] ... http://www.goldrushgames.com/paypal.html ... his company's PayPal
account was hacked on 1/30/02 using an operamail.com email address. You can read his entire story at the link here.
Operamail is based out of Oslo, Norway as far as I can find out.
Artie at [email protected] is the fraud department that won't return calls or emails. His number is 402-935-2329. Neither will Tim.
posted on March 21, 2002 07:10:35 AM new
Wow, that is really too bad. If you're waiting for Paypal to pony up the money, you may be waiting a long time. I'm not familiar with Paypal's protection program, but I would suggest you contact a lawyer, together with the other victims, and see what your legal rights are.
This is the second time in a couple of weeks that someone claimed their Paypal account was hacked.
posted on March 21, 2002 02:07:33 PM new
Hi bethamy,
Part of the problem with your issue is that you are not the authorized contact on the account. In addition, a piece of the documentation requested has not been received. Your case is being worked through the team that handles access issues.
In addition, board rules prohibit your posting the email addresses of other parties. I would recommend removing them before the moderators ask you to do so.
posted on March 22, 2002 10:42:39 PM new
PayPal collected for an auction and then restricted the account.
I took most of today attempting to solve the problem but all I got was put on hold until I eventually gave up. All three people I talked to gave me different resons.
It seems that they have a group of front-end telephone operators who will say just about anything to put you on hold for the Appeals Department (if it really exists.) The last one hung up on me.
The post before mine does not surprise me. With some minor information about your checking account, a person intending to commit fraud can help themselves to your money. That's what the "Verification" process allows them to do. Go into your checking account and take your money. Simple.
Now they have requested that I send them some ID, Bank Statement, C/C statement, and utility bill. And they want me to send this to an unsecure place. Each one of those statements alone has enough information for someone to steal my identity. Identity Fraud is a major problem, and I have already been victimized by this problem. I am a little smarter now, and simply refuse to set myself up for another 4 years of He**.
After two years and 300 transactions, I think PayPal knows who I am.
posted on March 23, 2002 01:28:11 AM new
Now I am not defending PayPal and I am not accusing them of anything. But all the horror stories we have read about PayPal have something to do with a third person. Well at least that is what I am getting out of the information here and in other postings. I to would be upset, very upset if someone hacked into my account but remember passwords, single computer use, is something that has to be followed. I don't think that even a different email address from the same computer is a good thing. Never share your computer with anyone. People are to smart these days and anything can happen. I am sure PayPal will try and get to the bottom of all the problems we hear about, at least I hope they do. Good Luck Bethamy.
It was kind of sweet, actually, reading Mark's log. He starts off being confident, in charge, acting quickly and not blaming PayPal in any way for this breach of his account.
Then days go by without the contact promised by the "Spoof Team". His emails and phone calls are met with vague promises. His confidence starts to slip.
Then he starts wondering who in fact is "spoofing" him, an anonymous hacker or our friends at PP.
Then he has a run-in on Motley Fool with Damon who is busily stamping out fires with his tiny feet like always. (Hey, Damon, do you get paid by the word to write this stuff?) He wonders if Damon is the "real thing".
Finally, the case is closed. He's disillusioned, having learned nothing about how his account was hacked in the first place. He still thinks PP is a great concept but "communication and customer
service are not the mainstay of PayPal."
Sadder but wiser, Mark moves on with his life. Oddly, his company still lists PayPal as a payment option. So perhaps he's not THAT much wiser.
posted on March 23, 2002 12:14:49 PM new
Thanks, fluffy, for the link to the log from goldrushgames.
It is an indictment of irresponsible and callous behavior from Paypal to one of its customers. Paypal Damon seemed seemed more concerned with erasing any negatives about himself than in helping solve the problem.
I am starting to understand why there is so much mistrust of Paypal.
From the evidence, they are simply not there for you when something happens. Either that or the customer service people are undermining the whole operation.
posted on March 24, 2002 02:49:08 PM new
Contact an attorney. NOW. Resubmit all the requested documentation to PayPal and send it via registered mail. I have never had a problem with PayPal (excuse me while I find a chunk of wood to knock on), but have had problems with a major banking institution. Someone somehow got my debit card number (TWICE!!) and charged over $1500 on that card. The bank said that it was "impossible" to credit my account for the disputed amounts until their "investigative team" finished their investigation. As I only had about $1600 in the account, I was more than a bit angry about this. All the charges on the account were from Italy, of all places, and I've never been there in my life. All it took was a (registered) letter from my attorney and the account was credited within 24 hours. It cost me $100 for the letter, but it was well worth it. By the way, I changed banks.
Another piece of advice: When signing onto any website where you are required to produce a bank account or credit card number, make sure the URL (web address) starts with "https". The "s" means it is a secure site. It's not a guarantee that their system can't be hacked, but it's a bit safer.
posted on March 25, 2002 05:48:40 AM new
I'm not a PayPal basher. In fact I have used them for three years now without incident but the first time I encountered a problem I must say I wasn’t impressed at all. Here’s the story:
Recently I bid on an eBay auction for a web site design. My brother-in-law paid for the auction by PayPal For me as a gift. The person who created the site copied another web site style, text, content, etc. almost word for word. they even copied graphics and banner designs. Another words they plagiarized another web site already on-line.
My brother-in-law filed a fraud complaint to recover some of the funds paid out for this web site that could not be used for both eithical and legal reasons. Here is the response from PayPal:
Dear XXX XXXXXXXXX,
PayPal has concluded the investigation of your Buyer Complaint.
PayPal's Buyer Complaint Policy does not apply to disputes about the attributes or quality of goods received. As a result, we cannot reverse the transaction or issue a refund. We encourage you to continue to work directly with the seller for an amicable resolution.
PayPal does not tolerate fraud or illegal activities. Your complaint will be noted in the record of the PayPal user you reported. If we find this user to have violated our policies, we will restrict this user's account until complaints against the user have been resolved satisfactorily. If we take such an action against this user's account, we may ask you to confirm whether or not your complaint has been resolved.
We value your business and regret that you have had this experience. To avoid similar experiences in the future, we recommend that you read
our Security Tips on our website located at:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/fraud-prevention-outside
Sincerely,
PayPal Complaint Resolution Department
So even though the seller stole the content and copied it from another web site developer and owner and the design could not be used at all ,the money is gone and PayPal does nothing about because their policy don’t apply to the “attributes or quality of goods received”. That’s a pretty vague Statement So if you receive something you bid on even though it doesn’t work or may be broken PayPal buyer protection means nothing because their policy doesn’t apply to the “attributes or quality of goods received “. This could mean anything and can apply to any transaction you have, what a nice simple Out for PayPal.
Wouldn’t it be nice if a customer of mine complained and I answered back with that statement, I mean heck they received their merchandise its not my problem if they don’t like the quality or if its wasn’t as represented as long as they received something. Imagine if other companies operated this way (he said sarcastically).
So here is a clear case of fraud by a seller and I have no recourse with PayPal because their policy doesn’t cover the “attributes or quality of goods received “. So much for their buyer protection prgram...
posted on March 25, 2002 06:31:58 AM new
kolonel22 do a chargeback on the credit card if you used this to pay for the "goods" this way paypal gets hit with the chargeback fees
posted on March 25, 2002 06:43:22 AM new
it is paypal policy and you will find it on its website,it does not get involved with disputes with quality of the item and any transaction involved in non tangible goods such as website design,it is considered service,not goods.
but your cc company will side with you.
as for your debit card being used in italy,some one is selling your debit card data to the italian.
it could be the store clerk where you used your card.
posted on March 25, 2002 08:18:11 AM new
I'm no Billpoint booster--I dropped 'em like a hot rock after the first unfair chargeback--but I've got to wonder:
posted on March 25, 2002 08:36:24 AM new
i was the opposite i dropped paypal like a rock and switched to billpoint i like them ALOT however had no experience with a chargeback but you have to wonder why all these sites and stories relate to paypal 99% of the time and no other payment service.
posted on March 25, 2002 08:38:19 AM new
billpoint is discussed on ebay board and ebay monitors the content .
i have heard billpoint is worse than paypal when it comes to chargeback.
i think the degree of sophistication varies among all these payment services in detecting fraud and progamming ,i would think amzn and paypal are ahead of the other payment services.
