Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Victim of Pay Pal Thievery

Yesterday I got a very horrifying surprise. I received an email from Paypal that said there's a $400 charge against my account that would be debited to my bank account. The email was genuine but I had no idea what the charge was for. Oddly enough, there was another charge for $240 that happened at 11:40pm the night before that I didn't authorize. They were from HACKERS.
The first one is from someone in Idaho. The second one is from someone in Mountain View, California. I immediately called Paypal, and they said that the one that went through at 11:40pm ET the night before was "gone" for $240, so that money is lost and removed from my bank account. I filed an "investigation" with them, and hope to recover the money. In addition, the $400 charge that was put on yesterday morning around 5 a.m. ET, didn't seem to go through yet, but PayPal said it would, and that would also be debited from my BANK account. That's also now under investigation.
I changed my passwords immediately, and once these are resolved, I'm closing the Pay Pal account. Turns out once a hacker figures out your password, they can drain your account if you're not paying attention to your emails from pay pal. In fact, if you're away on a cruise for 10 days, for instance, you could have ZERO in your bank account. SO- I recommend closing your Pay Pal account. This is financially dangerous. Just buy things on-line with a credit card. PERIOD.
I also called my bank and put stop payments on both $240 and $400 pay pal charges, and all future pay pal charges. That was at $20 a stop payment. SO, either way, because of hackers and evil people, I'm out money this holiday season. I can't believe people would be so evil. Sad.

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