I had an e-mail from "PayPal" a week or so ago confirming an order for a Taylormade golf club in the amount of $537.48. I panicked like crazy. I called PayPal (wasn't too easy to find the phone number, though), and they confirmed that there was no transaction on my account. I went to the credit union the next morning and cancelled the debit card attached to my PayPal account. (However, the teller COULD have told me there was a $5 fee for that.) I watch my bank account very closely as I am on unemployment.

If you get e-mails like that DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS in the e-mail. Go to the link by typing the URL in the menu bar. If you go through the e-mail, they (and we all know who THEY are) have your information and can hack your accounts.

This is why I do not use Pay Pal. There are a lot of times I see quilting board members who have beautiful fabric for sale but accept Pay Pal only so I don't order from them as I just don't trust using Pay Pal. I know we are all a little leery about personal checks but with small amounts I don't see it as a problem and prefer to pay with my personal check.

I have been the victim of bank account fraud 2x in the last year and both times my bank caught it quickly (within minutes/same day). I keep all my account alerts at any transaction over $.01, I get instant text messages (literally 5 seconds while I am putting my wallet back in my purse!) and then a phone call. Sometimes its a pain but I would rather 1 minute of my time versus all the hassle of getting new cards, etc. I have had a paypal account for over 10 years and not once had any issues.

This just made me think, we get paypal "receipts" to our department email account at work and we do not make any purchases! Does keep one on their toes for their own accounts.

This is almost exactly the same thing that happened to me. I no longer have a paypal account & won't ever deal with them again. Customer service -- eh, what's that?

have your credit card block or cancel any transaction with Pay Pal''''that usually takes care of it. Good luck!

I think you got scammed big time. Contact paypal. I have been getting emails from people who said I ordered from them and thenuse paypal to notify me. Paypal and Ebay use your name. these others were just trying to get a person to click on the link an dthey are in your money whereever you have it. and it can take a couple of years sometimes before charges show up, as we had a friend who took his motorhome on a trip to the bike rally in SD. two years later he had charges pop up from somewhere and he had to straighten that out. that is why we don't have credit cards. too easy for someone to make a copy when you are out eating and give your card to pay the bill.

Nancy, I think you possibly saved yourself from a big scam by not shipping the order until after the e-check had cleared.

The scam was probably intended to work a little differently, i.e. they were hoping you'd ship the order before the e-check cleared, then would do as they did -- call you and claim it was a fraudulent order. They get the merchandise, the e-check gets cancelled, and you're out all of it. The e-check was possibly also purchased with a stolen credit card.

Another, even more likely possibility is that your customer was the victim of the well-known "secret buyer" money order scam. That works like this:

The scammer "hires" the victim as a "secret shopper." Scammer sends the victim a large money order, like two or three times the amount required to purchase the product, then instructs the victim to buy whatever product they want for a certain amount, say 1/3 or half of the face value. The victim is to cash the money order, send half or two-thirds of the money to the scammer, then use the rest to buy product which they are then to keep for their "fee."

Too good to be true? Right! The victim ends up finding out after several weeks that the money order is counterfeit, and the victim is required to pay back the entire amount to the bank that cashed it. It has happened that the victim has even been arrested for passing counterfeit money orders.

Your buyer could very well have been caught up in this kind of scam, and is too ashamed to admit it, thus the failure to acknowledge your calls or emails.

Anyway, happy it turned out ok for you.

It's a really good idea to use a separate pre-paid credit card or a separate bank account debit card for your online transactions.

However, as a seller who handles lots of these transactions, there is one condition that you need to be aware of when you're using this method;

When you charge something to a credit or debit card, in most cases its a two-step process.

First, when you place an order online, your seller puts an "authorize" transaction in for the amount you are charging, sometimes for more than the amount you are charging. This reserves the funds for the seller, but doesn't actually transfer them to the seller.

When the seller ships the order, she puts in a "capture" transaction, which completes the process and transfers the funds from your account to hers.

However! And this is a big However! If the amount of the transaction changes in any way, by even one cent, from the authorize to the capture, MANY banks and cc companies require a re-authorization on your account before the funds can be captured.

Well, you say, why should I care about this? Here's why.

Say you ordered something and the shipping cost was estimated a little high to start with, and the seller adjusted the shipping cost down when they went to ship. If you had one of these accounts, like Capitalone Mastercard among many others, the seller's system would be required to re-authorize the transaction when it attempts the capture transaction. Since it's for a different amount, the credit card company or bank's system treats it like a new transaction. However, the original authorization is good for up to a month, and the funds are already reserved by the original authorization. Thus, if you ONLY HAVE enough funds to cover the amount of the purchase, the capture transaction will be refused by the card company. Then the seller will have to contact you and get a different method of payment. It's very frustrating for everyone, since the buyer knows they have the funds available.

So, what I would suggest, is that you use this method of having a separate account for online purchases, but always have DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF FUNDS that you need to complete the transaction. That way you will be able to avoid situations like the one described, and your seller will be able to service your order more quickly and with less hassle.

I don't think this is a good idea if you're shopping online, or using a credit or debit card anywhere.

Perhaps you weren't aware of this, but Paypal is one of the largest merchant services credit card processors on the planet. Probably 1/2 or more of all online stores, and many of the brick and mortar stores that you shop at use Paypal as their credit card processor.

Blocking Paypal wouldn't be very productive, if, in fact, say your local grocery store was using Paypal as their credit/debit card processor. You might have a nasty surprise in the checkout line.

:o

Isn't it interesting how many of us have different experiences with paypal?
I also have used paypal for over 10 years and never had a problem with it.

You have to be sooo careful these days! If you receive an e-mail, supposedly from Pay Pal saying they need more info in order to keep your account, it's fraud! I verified with Pay Pal that they don't do that. I didn't provide any info to the e-mail, but as a precaution, I changed my user ID and my password. Seems to have stopped any potential problems.

I have received numerous emails advising that I have money in my paypal account from sales and ones that also say invoice from paypal that I need to pay. The problem is I haven't been buying on line for a while except through trusted sites that I have used before. And have not bought anything on Ebay in a long time. These are all fake/fraudulent attempts to get money from you.

Even with echecks, they could have something set up that shows the funds available to you they can use a pyramid type system to cover the check but then somewhere down the line they pull the funds and then everything collapses and people get ripped off. So be very careful who you deal with.