PAYPAL and Debit Card Fraud
 

I want to put this out here for those of you that might not be aware of something I discovered
by accident a few days ago while making an online purchase.
for this online purchase there was a button to pay with PAYPAL which I do quite often as I have a Paypal Account.
I want to make a very strong point here.
when ever I shop or pay bills online I always open a separate window to do so and close it;
REMEMBERING to always sign out
and reopen another one for each of these things I deal with.
So getting back to what I discovered was after that purchase I had to go to Paypal for something and it SHOCKED me that I did not have to log in.
What I am assuming is that when you click that Paypal button you go thru all the whatever and sign into your Paypal Account to make that purchase BUT it never signs you out.
THAT MEANS your Paypal Account is floating OPEN on the internet.
when you make these online purchase and are done with them
IMMEDIATELY go open your paypal account and close it for privacy reasons.

This morning I woke up to 3- emails telling me that there were 3- debit card purchases
made from my Paypal account while I slept.
the account was drained of almost $1,500.00.
yes it was turned over to the fraud dept.

I don't feel the two things are connected but you never know.
There was a reason I discovered that the Paypal account was still open after purchases.
Please just be aware of this.

WOW very good information ! I do hope you can recover your funds. Let us know how this works out. It will be interesting how paypal handles this .

Thank you for the heads up. I haven't used paypal in years and prefer to write a check. I don't know if sending a check is really any safer but I do know our credit union will help if there is a problem.

I wonder if that's how hackers got my profile. We had two of our three credit cards hacked at 4:30am one morning. The only place both were hooked up online were PayPal and Amazon. Amazon had a third card of ours that was not hacked, so we think it was the PayPal profile that did us in. I bet this was how the hackers got our credit card info. We called PayPal to report it, but customer service reps must not be paid much as the rep insisted PayPal could not have been the source since we did not have any fraudulent activity on our PayPal account. (sigh)

I am definitely going to close browsers after using PayPal now!!! And formally log out of PayPal!

I am at the Paypal website almost every day and it does not stay open. If there is no activity after 5-10 minutes you will be logged out. I think the website you were at may have been fraudulent. Are you sure the PP site where you did not have to log in was the real thing? Scammers have ways of re-directing you when you are trying to get to a legitimate website and you wind up on a fake look-alike site.

The website I was at was not fradulant.
I buy from them them all the time.

ok just got off phone with Paypal regarding this.
she is making a report because they have never had anyone bring it
to their attention before.
she also stated that Paypal is set to TIME OUT in 5 mns.
strange thing about that is that my paypal account was open the so
I could get their phone #
and sat idle for the 11 mins. I talked to her and
IT NEVER TIMED OUT !!

Good tips. Another thing to point out is to never go to PayPal through a link in your email. Always go to the browser and manually type it in. I've received many in the past that very closely resembled a PayPal address, but not quite. Usually you can hover over the sender name and check it out. The ones I got were from PayPall...with 2 "l's".

Another thing people may not realize they have is a Trojan Horse virus called Keylogger or something similar. It records your keystrokes and sends them back to whoever infected your pc. Use an anti-virus and keep it updated! I know people who load it in their system and never update...not much point in that!

I noticed some time ago that, when I bought something on ebay and pd thru PP, it appeared there was no logout from the ebay/PP transaction. I went into PP and was still logged in. So I've started going to PP right after I do the ebay transaction and log out. I didn't know it was supposed to time out and would be afraid to give it a chance to do so. I'd think ebay would set it up so that when the transaction was finished, you'd be automatically logged out of PP.

remember to close out your browser and open a new one for other things.

I wonder about the online purchase you were making. A lot of phishing scams are dependent on you clicking a link you've received in an email. I've had friends who were phished because they received an email claiming there was an issue with their PayPal accounts or Yahoo email account; they clicked the link IN THE EMAIL which then directed them to a website that looked like PayPal or Yahoo, but wasn't. They signed in and at that point the bad guys have your name and password.

Never ever click a link in an email. If you are concerned about something, open a new window in your browser and manually type in the web address.

I NEVER CLICK OPEN any emails...I dump them...learned the hard way years ago.

I was shopping online at a site called The Green Fairy and the same thing happened to me. Since we live overseas, that is about the only way I can shop. I had two "purchases" from other countries (one Korea and another I have forgotten), but the Green Fairy company would not believe their site had anything to do with it.

When I went to pay for my order everything came up automagicly! I do not have a PayPal account, so how could they possibly have had my credit card information, my mailing address and other such personal things? The credit card company forced me to cancel my card and get a new number. That was unfortunate because that card had a low credit balance and a low interest rate too. My thinking was to have a low balance so if someone stole it, I would not be charged so much--maybe less than $300.

I always use a card with very low balance just for online shopping, they won't get far with mine

I also think it is best to have a separate credit card to use with you paypal account or online purchases. Only keep a small amount in there and top it up when you are about to make a purchase. That way, the thieves don't get very much if they manage to compromise your account.

In the last two weeks I've had two cards taken over. The police officer that took my report told me that with the internet people search and smart ID thieves it was easy to find out private info about anyone. Enough info to call a credit card company and take over the account. My mother's maiden name was changed and my address was changed over the phone by one of these low lifes! I bought a pre paid credit card for future online purchases and will be using checks for local buys.

agree, I requested a low balance card and the company thought I was nuts. I went thru our credit union and got one with only 500 on it. That way the company and I are safer. It is the only one I use for my internet shopping. :)

I learned this as well. When you make a E-bay payment thru Paypal you end up with a E-bay screen. However, if you go to Paypal, your account is still open & you have to log out there as well.

I had a similar experience a while ago with Paypal. Not sure how it happened, but someone in another state charged a bunch of computer equipment and had it sent to their address just tacking my last name onto it! Also about $1500. The only way I discovered it was that a vendor that I make regular purchases from told me that she charged me something by mistake. So I went to look through the account and was shocked to see these charges. Paypal was dragging their feet until I pressed them to tell me who made the charge, for what and where it was shipped. I then called the local police department to file charges. When I got back to Paypal and told them I had filed a police report, they released the funds immediately. Sad to say, once I told that to the police, they didn't press charges against the person.

I have used Paypal and ebay for selling and buying for over 9 years. Paypal is my primary payment receiving option.
Paypal times out on me on a regular basis when I am getting items pulled, boxed up for shipment as it takes too long to get back with the package weight and to print out the shipping label.
So, I would say there is an issue with the website where you are shopping because I am always having to re-sign in due to the very, very short time out that Paypal has preset.
When done with my transactions, I always sign out of Paypal. Have not had one problem in 9 years!

But never, never use debit cards on the internet to pay for anything!

This is the reason why I REFUSE TO GIVE PAYPAL MY BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER. After you charge an accumulated total of $5,000, PayPal will no longer allow you to use your account tied to a credit card. You HAVE TO give them a bank account number. You can still use your credit card to charge, but they have to have your bank account number.
I had to stop using Paypal since I had purchased several sewing machines on my account. They sent me an email asking why I was no longer using PayPal, I told them about their policy and the guy said, yes, that is correct. I said, Then you will never have me as a user. He said that they do that for their protection on large purchases, so they can debit your bank account if the credit card fails. I told him again, if you do not change your policy I will never use them. He said I could "load" my Paypal account with cash and use it that way. I told him he wa crazy, why would I give them cash to use while I wasn't drawing down on it with purchases. He couldn't answer.
Diana in TX

LOL nor with mine...Most of the time I have less than a good dinner would cost :):)

let's see if I can make this clear to everyone.
the site I happened to be buying from were
ACCUQUILT and Fabric Depot.
I am very sure there sites are super protected !!
stuff happens...it's life !!

I had much rather go from one to the other. I was asked the other day which I preferred and said I always wanted to have to log in and out of Paypal. Sorry, but I don't remember what I was paying for at the time.

another thing going on with PayPal is false notices of transactions. My DH travels and I check out our cc's on line almost every day. I have been notified of activities on accounts that are false. They have a line source in the message to log in-NEVER DO THIS!!!! Open a new page or browser and TYPE in the url YOU know for the proper site. They nasties are getting more clever and we need to be on our toes. I have reduced my cards to 2 and pay at the end of the month. I still get hacked. I run Norton and I still have problems. It is the reason I check my card daily. It seems that once there is a problem then it happens again. Thank goodness that Amazon/Visa and American Express are reasonable companies to deal with. PayPal also seems to respond well.

What I did was go to my bank and open an account that has a debit card with the visa logo on it. I only use that card on the internet, and only transfer money into it when I want to make a purchase through paypal, or any other on line place. This way, even if it does get hacked, there would never be more than 2 or 3 dollars in that account, unless someone managed to hack it at the exact moment I'm making a purchase.

You can manually change that setting so that they are not linked...it would be wise to do so!

Paypal is really good to catch fraudulent activity on your acct... and if any does get through, they will take care of it promptly. They are very safe to use.

My oh my, glad to know that.. will watch from now on, passed it on to family and friends

My PayPal account will time out though I've never checked out in how many minutes. I also use a credit card with a minium balance which I pay in full each month.

how is this done? can you explain.

I just made a purchase on eBay and paid with PayPal. Sure enough, it returned me to eBay to confirm the purchase. When I went back to PayPal to check, I was not logged out. Will be very careful about this in the future!!!

I had wondered. I bought a couple of rulers from a reputable on line quilt site and used my paypal. Got a call from the fraud dept. of my bank. Since it was an "unknown" caller I refused to talk to her about my account. Immedialtly called my bank and visited with the girls. They found about $1500 worth of purchases pending on my debit. This is one time I am glad I didn't have any money to speak of in there, all purchases were refused. Thanks for the heads up, that is something my kids tell me I should know but I never think to log out of each site I visit. Live and learn, it's a different world we live in.

Wow. Thanks for the tip!

I've been defrauded twice in the past 3 months after making purchases from Fabric Depot. No more purchases from FD for me. It was on my credit card. I never
use Paypal.

Just read on Fabric Depot site that they are not taking credit card payments at this time as their system has been compromised. It does happen. I had my credit card used after a Hancock fabric in store purchase. Not their fault it happened at the processing place. Keep an eye on all accounts for fraudulent activity.

Yesterday I received a fraud alert from my Amazon Visa account. Someone had made 2 online purchases totaling over $1000. I only use this card for online purchases occasionally. I had used it to purchase a craftsy class on the 13th & the fraud occurred on the 14. I did follow an email link to purchase the class, so I checked my account & the purchase did go through with craftsy. This card has not be registered with Paypal, and I have not used it for a month until this incident. This is very unnerving. Doesn't the thief have to have the full cc #, expiration date, & code on the back, plus my personal information. I have been making online purchases for years & never had this before.

My paypal account was hacked also, two months ago I get 10 emails from paypal that said I had made a purchase of $6.00. I had gotten emails in the past from what looked like Paypal informing me a purchase had been made and it hadn't been so I almost ignored the email about these 10 charges. I got to thinking 10 $6.00 charges was odd so I checked my Paypal account (which I hadn't used in over 2 years) and there was the 10 $6.00 charges. Called my bank and sure enough there were 10 $6.00 charges processed. Call the fraud department at PayPal and the monies replaced.

Thanks for the heads up

Wow. Thanks. I do notice that every time I hit Paypal, their site opens and I have to put in my password. But I have to pass this on to son who has enough problems without having something like this happen.