
Quote: Originally Posted by
Lava King

Quote: Originally Posted by
Imperfect1
Sorry to tell you this, but a word to the wise sometimes helps: I've had my PayPal account hacked and over $500 stolen out of it --- so in my eyes, it is possible for ANYTHING to happen on PayPal. And by the way, when I tried to deal with the 'authorities' on PayPal they assured me that PayPal would protect my account. They didn't. They did NOTHING to help me. So, you might want to research alternative ways to receive payment for your services.
I'm sorry to hear this. Could you please elaborate on what happened so that those of us with PayPal accounts may better protect ourselves?
Yes, glad to. I hadn't used my PayPal account in a long, long time, when I received an email notification from PayPal that there was "some unusual activity" on my account. (That was the ONLY good thing that PayPal did, because without that email, I would never have known about the theft.) I checked my PayPal account to find out that apparently, someone had hacked into my PayPal account and purchased over $500 worth of electronic equipment, using my account and banking/credit card information. I contacted PayPal
immediately by telephone, and was told by a supervisor/manager that they would stop the transaction and return the money to my account. BUT THEY DID NOTHING. On PayPal's website I was able to identify the name and location of the hacker (assuming the information was even accurate, which it probably wasn't), but it didn't do me any good because the little bit of information provided on the PayPal website wasn't enough to take further action against the thief.
But here's the GOOD NEWS! I acted very quickly by contacting my own bank to find out that although the transaction had already "gone through," on the bank records, the cash hadn't actually been transferred out of my account yet. Although it was very
difficult to do, (because it was apparently against this bank's normal regulations), I was able to convince the bank to stop the transaction and block the transferring of any money related to this transaction out of my account.
So the bottom line is that I don't know if there was any way to force PayPal to actually stop the transaction or to be accountable for any loss of funds, but at least if the victim
acts very quickly, he/she can go to his/her own bank and put in a "Stop Payment" order, hopefully blocking the transaction from completing.
And Stefany93, I wish I could recommend another website like PayPal, but unfortunately I don't know of any. Actually, the sad truth probably is, if a hacker could break into a PayPal account (which is supposedly pretty secure), the hacker could probably break into the account of any other service, as well.